Web Design and Your Homepage

Your websites homepage is quite obviously the most important page of the whole site. Or is it? It is probably the page that will be viewed the most on your website, but it is also the page that can make or break the site as a whole. It will either grab the attention, or scare people away. On the same theme, it is important to realise that if your homepage is good, but the rest of the site is poor, then the site will fail. If you think of your homepage as the door to your site, then you are on the right track. Although the door will need extra attention, the interior should not be neglected either.

Most web designers put major effort into the homepage, and for just reason. This page has to be good enough to catch the attention of your visitor; you have about three or four seconds to do this before they click away. The content of the homepage should successfully summarise what the rest of the site is about and allow visitors to click through to these other areas.

Make sure the page is simple and clean in design. Navigation links should be placed at the top or otherwise on the left-hand side of the page. Make sure the fonts are easy on the eye and of a comfortable size to read. Text and foreground colours can also make or break a site, so be aware. It is little things like these that are often the most important, so don’t overlook them.

Once you have caught your visitor’s attention with the homepage, you then want to concentrate on keeping them on your site. You only have a few short seconds to let them know what your site is all about and trying to convey. If you are offering something worthwhile and relevant, then you will find people staying longer on the site, and even returning at future dates.

Another thing you have to make sure you do on a regular basis is update the site. Keeping your information up to date or adding new articles or content is a sure fire way of keeping your returning visitors happy. Try to still keep the homepage relevant and relatively clear of clutter, but make sure all visitors are aware there is new content available and make it easy for them to locate this content.

The techniques listed above are just a small way in which you can get, and then keep, visitors to your website. At the end of the day, the goal of your website, whether it is ecommerce, business or informational, is to attract people to it, and hopefully make them loyal visitors in that they return regularly. If you try to keep a visitor in mind when you design your site, and try to think like they would when they visit or what they would do, then you are well on your way to designing a great site.