At our ‘Online Marketing for Beginners’ workshop earlier this week, one of the topics we looked at was the importance of getting your website home page message right, after all – for many visitors it will be the first impression they get of your business.
I read somewhere that the purpose of your home page is to enable a visitor to understand what your business is about - in less than 10 seconds!
Here’s a sample of what we covered:
- Be careful your site doesn’t take too long to load – people will click away without waiting if it does.
- Say what you do, don’t make people guess! But you need to say it in a way that isn’t all about you – turn the words around so as to focus on your visitors, the problems they’re experiencing and the results they can expect from working with you.
- Make it obvious who you work with, so web visitors quickly know if they’re in the right place. This also means getting clear about who your target market is.
- Ensure your website is easy to navigate, don’t bury information so visitors have to click too many times to access it.
- Don’t let your visitors escape! You must put in place a way to capture their details so you can contact them and market to them again. The traditional method is to use a sign-up box and offer a high quality ethical bribe in exchange for their email address.
- Give a very clear call to action, in other words tell people what you want them to do next.
Sam and I are in the process of putting together new workshops for 2010 and we’d love to know what topics would be of most interest to you. Do visit our survey here, or leave a comment below. Thank you.
