What is the Purpose of Your Home Page?

Not all home or landing pages are created equal, nor do they have the same goal in mind. So, if you want yours to do its job, you need to know what that job is. Your home page can accomplish several different goals... just not at the same time. That's why most online business owners have several websites, each with their own landing page. Let's take a look at the jobs a home page can accomplish: Establish Your Brand Your brand is so much more than a simple logo or a tag line. It is an emotional experience. A landing page that communicates this experience is probably one of the more difficult ones to create... for how do mere pixels on the screen convey emotion? Mostly, emotion is communicated through a website with images, color combination and, possibly, headlines. A branding page is usually heavy on ambiance but light on information. Landing pages that establish expertise or try to build a relationship are a form of this type of home page. Make a Sale Also called sales pages, a web page that makes a sale is basically a sales letter or store front online. All actions that a visitor can take (besides leaving, of course) is to buy something. Amazon.com is an example of a store front home page. But for most small business owners a simple sales letter suffices. If you're getting really creative, your sales letter can be in the form of a video. Build a List Landing pages that have the sole purpose of building a list are often called squeeze pages. Basically a visitor to such a web page either provides their name and email address in return for an opt-in bonus... or they leave. This type of web page has an opt-in box as its focal point. Any and all text is there to convince the visitor to enter their name and email address in the form provided. The purpose of your home page... indeed, your website... determines how you go about designing the look, feel and copy of that page. So be very clear on your goal before you start working on its design.