Landing and Home Pages

Quick reference

• 00:05 Next let's learn the uses of a home page for a website and how the page content best welcomes visitors to the business
• 00:13 and directs them.
• 00:16 When creating or revising content for a business home page
• 00:21 keep in mind just how important it is.
• 00:25 For online companies your home page is your face to the world.
• 00:30 For service businesses what better place to begin helping users.
• 00:36 For brick and mortar business, just like your front door, your home page is where you begin to reveal what's behind the rest of your site.
• 00:48 And for any business you want your home page to give visitors a reason to stay and look around.
• 00:57 A home page is the beginning of the purpose of the rest of your website. You want to focus on
• 01:02 your website's purpose as you construct your home page.
• 01:08 What are you trying to do with your site? Are you making sales, are you validating your
• 01:15 professional qualities, are you enticing your audience to read the rest of your work, are you educating?
• 01:22 First and foremost you're welcoming visitors to your site
• 01:27 and you'll usually want to do that by presenting a clear statement of a benefit now that they've gotten there, also known as a tagline. On the
• 01:36 previous screen we used GoSkills top of their home page and their tagline is "GoSkills provides
• 01:43 personal online courses for professional development."
• 01:49 It's clear, it's concise and it's beneficial.
• 01:54 Your home page should funnel users to the best place for their purpose or interest and you want
• 02:00 to focus on high priority tasks. So there will be possibly a few choices for them,
• 02:07 but these are the places that you're hoping to direct them,
• 02:11 and you know they're interested in going as your audience members. A great example here is
• 02:18 Exercise Files and Cheat Sheets: people can check out some of the elements of a GoSkills course
• 02:25 from the home page or they can choose sign up now.
• 02:31 Reveal site content with
• 02:34 links, lists and excerpts, that's also done with all these icons and sections on GoSkills home page.
• 02:45 Write links as action items.
• 02:48 Again, sign up now or find as online... It takes your web site visitor
• 02:55 to the the next place in an actionable term that they can understand
• 03:01 quickly.
• 03:04 Offer social proof and testimonials.
• 03:07 This is a way to build trust with new visitors quickly. Social proof means things like
• 03:13 as seen in better homes and gardens, or as seen on TV.
• 03:17 Testimonials are as shown here
• 03:20 "great lessons very detailed" These are customers are other professionals
• 03:25 who are willing to give you quotes or excerpts from their positive reviews of your work.
• 03:33 And finally keep company information grouped
• 03:37 There should be one area on your site and on the homepage is a common place because you'll have usually a footer area at the bottom
• 03:47 where people can figure out a way to contact you if they're interested or find you online.
• 03:53 You want to keep it all together because if someone's ready to reach out to you or purchase something
• 03:59 they should be up to do it quickly.
• 04:01 All in all your homepage needs to be remembered as the first introduction to the
• 04:06 purpose of your entire site possibly your entire business,
• 04:11 and a very welcoming way to present
• 04:14 a clear benefit and a directional map for your online visitors.

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