Homepages That Sell

by Jeryl Baker

What makes a great homepage? How does yours rate?

How many times do you go to a web site of a large company, one that you know spent thousands and thousands of dollars on their site, and can't find what you are looking for? How many times have you gone to a potential supplier's web site and determined immediately that this was not the caliber of company you wanted to deal with? Their products may be just what you were looking for, but if you have trouble getting the information you need, or you get a bad feeling from the site, you won't spend your money.

Your homepage is your best salesperson. For magazines being sold off racks, the most important factors that influence sales are the cover and the subject matter. Consider your homepage - your cover. A viewer will decide in three seconds whether or not to stay on your site. You need to make it easy for them and attractive to them. (Once they decide to stay, of course, you need to make their visit as simple and informative as possible, but let's get back to that ever-important first impression.) How do you create a design where a viewer will know exactly what to expect and how to find the information they need in three seconds?

First, determine what the purpose of the site is. This may seem rudimentary, but it makes a big difference in terms of how you proceed.

If your purpose is to make money (at times more than 80% of existing web sites fall into this category), you need to prepare the site to get the best ranking in the top search engines. The path to attaining top ranking changes weekly since many of the search engines are going through major transformations as the World Wide Web matures. You'll need to talk to Internet marketing experts and also update your site at least once a year to keep up with the latest search engine requirements. Make the shopping cart as simple and informative as possible. If a buyer has a question about the product, they may not buy unless they can find out more details. They also need opportunities on every page, near every product, to actually spend their money without much effort. Additionally, customers need to know that your site is secure and that you will not sell their information. This can be accomplished by adding a well-written privacy statement.

To disseminate information on the web, you need fast and comprehensive search functions and a clear picture of how the facts are organized. Your designer needs to concentrate on content delivery. The only thing that may differentiate your site is to make it easy for most people to find what they need with as few clicks as possible. Learn everything you can about your target audience: their age, cultural background, education or gender. Each of these factors can make a difference as to how the site will be valued.

Technical concerns need to be your concerns. Make sure your web designer has programmed the site so that it looks and works the same in all browsers. Often they don't. Each browser and the individual browser settings on different computers can react differently to the same html code. You need to check colors and fonts and spacing on a variety of monitors to make sure your customers are seeing the same thing you are.

Designers love to use Flash (an animation program) to make the site come alive, yet it also can affect the load time and sometimes simply add a distraction if it isn't used appropriately. Photos need to be clear, yet if the dimensions or the file size is too large, it will take the page a long time to download and visitors will leave before it is finished. Frames should be used sparingly. Many search engines have problems indexing sites with frames, as they can make the page load slower and can force the viewer to scroll (viewers want to do as little work as possible). Fonts need to be clear. Each computer has its own fonts that are installed. If your browser doesn't have the font that is used it will replace it with the next best thing, which could make the site look bad. It's best to use universal fonts or turn text into an image for any "odd" fonts that the design requires. Make sure the text is large enough for all ages to read and use italics sparingly, since they tend to break up on the screen.

Use the rest of the site to build a relationship with your customers. Continue with the efficiency and great content themes and keep them coming back for more.

Jeryl Baker is the director of Marketing and Design at The Connextion, an Internet Service Provider and web design firm located in Ellicott City. She can be reached at 410-461-5430 or jeryl@connext.net.

This article appeared in The Business Monthly in July, 2002.