Home Page Design Guidelines

As the name implies, a "home" page should make your visitor feel at home on your site.

Since visitors access so many sites, don't try to be all things to all people.Your home page should establish you as the Internet resource for your particular niche topic or product. If you've followed our first step, Define It, you should have a solid sketch of the information you want to include.

Visitors should get the idea that if they want to know more about communications, or cuckoo clocks, or index funds, or whatever your specialty, your site is the premier source of ideas and information for that topic. All of the elements below can be used to support this positioning:

Seven things you MUST have on your Home Page

Your home page, at minimum, should contain the following elements:

1. A strong headline. The headline can welcome visitors to the site ("Welcome to the world of espeak"), reinforce the company positioning ("your online one-stop printing shop"), or state a benefit ("Find a job fast").
2. A site introduction. Two to three concise paragraphs directly under your headline should explain your site's reason for being and how it can help you. The introduction should "orient" the reader to where he is on the Internet (your site) and why he came (the information or help you offer).
3. A site menu. A series of buttons or links the reader can use to access tb e various sections or pages of the site. These should remain at the sides, top, or bottom of the screen as the user navigates through the site.
4. What's new. Internet users are always looking for what's new, so highlight news and new features on your home page, either with a "What's New" button or a banner advertising special offers and new information.
5. Contact information. Make it easy for the visitor to find your Internet address, snail mail address, e-mail, phone and fax numbers.You never know when or how a potential customer may want to contact you. A buyer with an immediate need may wish to speak with a live person on the spot and not wait for e-mail reply.
6. E-mail reply. On the home page and elsewhere display a button or link that lets visitors send e-mafl to you. Be sure someone in your office reads and responds to the incoming e-mails at least daily.
7. Privacy statement. Show visitors you respect their electronic privacy by posting a privacy statement on your home page.

More Home Page goodies

The more interactive you can make your home page, the more visitors will get involved. The more involved they get, the longer they'll stay and the more likely they will be to buy.

Netscape's home page continually changes the latest featured news articles, so visitors know they can always get the latest news. Think about what's important in your field to the visitor and give it to him or her. If you have a financial Web site, people who click onto your home page should get a summary of the day's market activity along with your analysis of what it means, so they can be instantly informed and guided.

Another technique that works is to display on the home page a link to an online survey. People love to tell you their opinions. With online polling, you can also display the result in real time, so that visitors also get valuable information.

Keep your focus on the site's goals

Whatever you offer your visitors, present it on a Web site that's easy on the eye and enticing to read. Everything - pictures, words, buttons, functions - should be designed to give customers what they need and want. If you've carefully defined your Web site strategy, this should be an obvious task as you go about creating and designing your pages.

Go back to the roots of the product or service being offered, and ask yourself "Why does it exist in today's world, and why does your company sell it?" A good Web site communicates this proposition and the product benefits.

Many sites commit the deadly sin of being flat, sober and boring, because they think Internet users are adverse to being sold. Make your Web site lively and exciting.

The Web today is a text-based medium and you've got to quickly capture the reader's interest and attention.

You have to establish a relationship with the reader and therefore write with energy, enthusiasm. and personality.

One way to do this is to stress benefits instead of features in product descriptions. The benefits should be linked to the features that enable the product to deliver the benefit to the user. A benefit is anything that will make a customer's life better by using your product or service.

Give Web site visitors an incentive to order now, from the Web site. This could be a limited-time offer, free shipping and handling, a special bonus gift, or an extended warranty. Discounts also work. Tell online shoppers that you offer them lower prices than you do through offline channels of distribution. Explain the rationale: Doing business online reduces your costs, and you pass on some of the savings to the customer as lower prices.

It's a win-win situation.