I saw many developers writing home page for Internet sites, filling them with every possible feature and offer the site has.
We all tend to think that the main purpose of the home page is to be an easy gateway to your site options. But hey... Let's face it. Options are important, but in today fast business fast life routine, what's even more important is to actually catch the user eye. Make him curios enough to take the time and explore your site. Your not just competing on who is the best site. First of all you are competing on the use time and attention.
How many time have you found yourself searching for something in Google, getting 1000+ results, opening the first search result, taking a 2 seconds look before closing the window and going to the next search result? I bet it happened to you quite often.
So what makes a good home page?
I won't pretend to give the definite answer, but give me a second to try and tell you about a few of the things I think a good home page should have:
1. The most important thing is to make the user curios about your site. Make him want to actually read all your beautiful introduction you paid so much money on. People don't have time to just browse your site/product. You need to give them a good reason to do that.
How can you do it? Well there are a lot of different ways, but let's take two real life examples:
http://www.experiencewonderyou.co.uk - Check the site out before reading further.
I'm not a girl, so I don't know if the site actually makes me feel like buying a bra, but I can tell you that when I first browsed the site, I automatically got curious. Why? because the site asked me a question. He made me think. He made me want to know the answer to the question.
An example from a completely different field is http://www.remembersegregation.org. Browse it and tell me your curiosity didn't went to high levels when you first watched the home page.
2. Be direct and to the point. An Internet site is not a movie. Don't save the big feature/punch line to the ending. If you won't catch the customer at first glance, he will just go straight to the next site.
3. Be big. You probably have less than 30 seconds to convince the user your site is worth a look before he goes to the next one. use graphics. Use big titles. Use video or sound. be creative and do it big.
4. Remember the user. OK. All I said until now is true. But if a user already visited your site and decided to come back, he probably already knows what you are all about. Now it's time to give him the fastest and easiest access to your product/features. So make your home page adaptable. Use cookies or other methods to remember your users and give them exactly what they need.
