Home Page Layout

Home Pages are by far the hardest part of almost every website project. This is because it is most likely the first page that people see of your website and even the first interaction someone has with your business. So that makes it obvious that the Home page has a collection of jobs to do:

Set the tone of the business
Explain the business and their offering
Let users know they are in the right place
Signpost where the user can go next to learn more
Do all of the above in seconds!

It is often best to build Home pages last as after building all of your other pages you probably have a better idea of what you offering really is and how people are going to navigate your site.

Set the tone

The tone of the business is often referred to as the Brand. An established business will probably have brand collateral in the form of Logos, Colors and other display rules. If these are established then it is very important that they be followed to ensure that users are not confused. Imagine rolling up to a McDonalds that was green and pink with a red elephant out front! It wouldn't be McDonalds in your mind at all.

If you haven't already got logos and colors then you need them. These things can be surprisingly simple but take care that they really reflect the tone of your products and service. A scruffy logo and color set will make you look, um, scruffy. Business image is something worth paying for and paying well so you get great results.

Tone is generally set in the headers of the page and you can afford to be a little more dramatic on Home pages so that the scene is properly set. Just don't go overboard and swallow the other 5 needs the customers have at this point. Choose 2-3 colors and build the artwork with tones of these. Gradients can really soften hard edges if you are finding them a problem.

Keep artwork nice and simple. Your website is to deliver content and not to look impressive in and of itself. Remember the old advertising adage of 'Let the Product Be The Star' and you can't go wrong. Simplicity is always best.

Explain the business

"Where am I?" and "How can this make my life better?" are the first questions that every visitor will be making as they land on every page of your site, but especially on your Home page. You need a clear and easy to understand headline and or positioning statement. Users generally won't want to read a lot of text on your Home page but if there is nothing to read they are very likely to wander away. Images are very valuable but words command both the soul and Search Engines. Words are also precise and definite.

Let users know they are in the right place

No one wants to be lost or wasting time. Everyone wants to be feeling that every move they make is making their life better.

After your headline you need to connect with the customers you most want to serve and give them reassurance that they are in the right place. Again you don't need a lot of words but simply a good scent trail that people will recognize as holding hope for happiness.

This scent is the basis of all sales. It is perhaps easiest to see the scent approach to selling in a con. The mark is given the suggestion that they can win (love, money etc.) and then taken on a progressive journey to pull them deeper into accepting the world of the con. Generally the money is extracted in a progression of transactions. Each transaction offers to deliver the object of desire so the mark spends escalating amounts. Cons are despicable but the process is the same for a genuine sale.

Set a clear scent trail and users will follow it.

Signpost

The Home page is the most important guiding page on the site. Once a person has the scent that promises happiness they will generally want to explore further to know more - which is really building trust. You create signposts with Leaders. Leaders are objects (words and images) that let users know what is on the other end of that door. If you sell shoes and boots then you can have 2 doors: shoes and boots.

The better you know what your customers want from you the easier it is to rank the order of the leaders that you offer. Generally you will not want to offer more than 4 main leaders and then a few more smaller leaders. More than that gets plain confusing. If you have a lot of categories on offer, break them into main sections and then create categories inside those sections. This duplicates the tree structure we are all very comfortable with.

Nested Categories
Shoes		Boots
Work	Dress	Work	Dress

If you think someone might want to see both work shoes and boots then you can offer a small leader that is for Work Footwear. Of course this depends on whether your pages are hand built or database driven. Just remember that whatever decisions you make must be really clear and simple for users.

Gone in 5 seconds

Different statistics will argue between users giving you 3 - 20 seconds to understand your site and offer. The exact time doesn't really matter. What you need to take from this is that people are not patient, they will not wait for you to explain yourself. They expect to understand how you can make their lives better (Richer, Sexier, Happier) in moments. I consider that if someone can't get the basics in 5 seconds then it is time to do some restructuring.

I think that the 5 second rule applies even to complex technical subjects. If you are the world expert in excocombrgraphic tranverail scoggaphphamy then you need to make that clear and perhaps even translate that into words that are understandable by an average person. So your heading might look like:

Excocombrgraphic Tranverail Scoggaphphamy

Specailizing in making up long words that make us look really clever.

Now anyone can choose to dig deeper or walk away from this site knowing what it is about.

I admit that is article is only a brief overview of the many things involved in Home page design but if you take the 5 factors above very seriously and hold them above all other concerns then you will never go far wrong.

Mistakes

These are common Home page no-nos which are best avoided however attractive they seem at the time.

Splash Page - a page that comes before the actual Home page and generally contains nothing but pretty images. These are a pain for both users and Search Engines. Remember that your content is the reason people came along so let them get to it as fast as possible.

Flash Animations - people love these when they are building websites but not when they are using them. Yes we can animate images but doing so rarely adds any genuine value. The movement is simply distracting and fear inducing.

"Welcome to our website..." - is anyone in this world not welcome to your business? No. You want them there and that is self-evident so leave these wasted words out. Let users and Search Engines get to the real content faster.

Clip-Art - I am amazed that I still see this today. Clip art is tacky and there is no other way to view it. If you don't have an image and/or one is not necessary then don't use one.

Stock Images - Stock images are the new clip art. It is great that iStock.com exists but take great care in using it. People images that are there to look generic do exactly that - make you look generic. Either take your own photos - an expense well worth it - or don't use images at all. I'm not anti image, simply pleading with you be sure that every image adds genuine value.

Negatives - People see Home page information generally - as an overview. You may know that the ugly before image helps make the after image look great by contrast but the ugliness becomes part of your overall aura. You don't want this as you are selling solutions not problems (life gives us them for free). Also be careful of having text or tags that say things like "you can trust us" as they really say "you can't trust anyone in this industry including us". Everyone may 'know' this but you don't need to remind them. Show you are trustworthy and a great solution by showing all that is good about you. You can use negatives for contrast later in the content.

e-Commerce Carts - yes I know they seem like an attractive and even a really cheap way to build a website but take great care with them as they often force you to arrange your pages so badly that your products look terrible. Databases are wonderful but be sure that they don't rule the show and make your users feel as if they are being managed by a spreadsheet from the 1970's.