It is the location , the priphery of the area and the environment around that front door which will build some kind of impression in the mind of visitor. Basically, the front door of the house holds the indicators to the cultural and financial status of the family.
Similarly , homepage is the front door that a user sees when he visits your website. Home page induces first impression in the mind of visitors. As an old cliche says ” First impression lasts for ever” . So, naturally , homepage design requires more
attention as a unique set of goals are kept in the mind before designing it.
Before designing your website you must understand it’s target audience : their age , their likes and dislikes , what are the things that excite them ,what are the things that bring them together etc. Once you are very well acquainted with the basic nature of your website audience, it will make things easier for your web designer.
A website has three type of elements :
1) Nucleus
2) Primary Elements ( contact us , about us, services etc)
3) Secondary Elements (articles pages , a link to blog )
Nucleus is the group of pages that help you in accomplishing the main goal of your website. For eg : For a flower selling website ,the shopping cart will be its nucleus, for a search engine website the text box where a user enter his search query will be nucleus
of the website.
All in all , nucleus of your website will help a lot in in fulfilling the main objective of your website. These are the pages that will increase your return on investment.
This does not mean that homepage is totally unimportant since it’s not a nucleus of your website.
In fact it is the most vital component of your website, as this page will host a beautiful reception for your visitors.This reception should amaze , entertain and somehow bind your website in to a longer spell with your website.
Designing a homepage can be a “real challenge”.
Let me open up the pitarra for creating a great homepage for your website:
1) Where i am ( for first time visitors ) : Suppose you have lost your way for the favorite picnic spot, then there would be an obvious question in your mind ” where i am ” . You look out for the milestones , you stop your car in order ask an old man ” Uncle, can you tell me where i am , and how i can get the IKL picnic spot.”
Sometimes , i wonder if there might be no milestones and sign boards to tell us where we are , them we all might be living in a totally lost world. ”
Similary , if a visitor visits your website for the first time , he must be acknowledged on the go that this the name of the website and this is the main business of this website.
This should be the number one goal of your homepage. If you ignore this goal then you’ll leave your visitor in the darker realm of lost world.
A visitor enters a website with a single question in his mind ” What is this website about ?” If the website does not answer that question in a most simplistic manner , then user will feel that this website does not cares about him, they are busy fortelling their self proclaimed paeans of success, and leaving the interest of the visitors to the hell.
You’re website should use old fashioned text to say that : ” This is who we are , and this is what we do .” This way you are creating a milestone that will show direction to lost visitors of your website.
The words you use in should excite and attract your visitors to visits rest of your website.
Remember, if the first time visitor to your website does not get what your website is about within first three seconds , then you would probably going to fail in your first goal, Your website would hold no meaning for first time visitors, it will only remain the territory visited by the people who already know about you.
2) What’s new (for repeated visitors ):
It’s great ! Now you have accustomed your website for first time visitors for atleast they would know where they are.
Now you are ready to impress both repeat as well as first time visitors with what’s new.
Too many websites stops after goal number one. But one’s user gone through hurdle of figuring out what you do, then coming back , you should owe something new to them . It can be anything related to your business, creative bunch of articles or funny blog posts.
Bottom Line
A homepage is just like an opening phrase of the song , which set a mood and makes sure that same mood and feeling transcends throughout the listening experience of a user.
Courtesy : MiracleStudios : “Your very own web design company “
