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Web Design – How to Design a Web Homepage

How to design a web homepageWhen you type in that URL, the first thing you see is the company or personal site homepage, right? How does it look? How does it feel? Is it professional or just “thrown together”?

Here are some tips I’ve put together on how to design a web homepage and I hope you’ll use some of these when you design your own website.

How to Design Your Web Home Page for Effect

Be mindful of visitors when designing your website. Your website’s design should NOT interfere with a visitor’s surfing, but should encourage more of it!I explained in a previous article how to test your site’s navigation abilities. Put simply — how long your visitors will stay and surf throughout your site before clicking out.

Believe me, you want your visitors to stay as long as possible. This is the only way your site is going to succeed. Your site must be interesting, persuading, and easy to navigate.

First let me tell you a couple of misconceptions about how to design websites.

Don’t Be All Things to All People

1. Many people assume that because the internet is so “big” and covers such a vast amount of areas around the world, their website has to be everything to everybody.

They design their website for “everybody” in the world and never have a distinct purpose. No purpose and no direction results in no sales! That’s a profound statement but so true.

How many websites have you visited that had no purpose, no direction, and no real valuable information that you stayed and surfed around the site a while?

Wrong Kinds of Links

You click to that site only to find twenty links that are all non-related to the site’s description nor to each other.

A link to the left takes you to a computer store online while a link to the right takes you to a sports website.

Five banners straight down the middle of the homepage all going in five different directions. No direction or purpose whatsoever.

Even if that company did offer what you were looking for, you probably would not consider that company as an expert or even trustworthy after one glance at the website, would you?

Selling is Selling

2. The second misconception is that selling on the web is different or easier than selling offline. I know from experience that sales are sales are sales.

Even if your business is on the web, you still must take the same steps to gain a customer’s trust as you do offline. Your product will not sell itself, just like your website will not promote itself.

You must take the necessary steps to promote your site as well as give a persuading presentation once the visitor arrives.

Now that you know a couple of the most common misconceptions on the web, you can move forward with designing your website with these in mind.

How to Re-Focus Your Website

Don’t worry, if you’ve already designed your website for “everybody”, it’s not too late to focus in on your sole purpose. It’s far less painful to design a site with your one purpose in mind from the beginning — and less costly.

3 important steps you can take while designing your website to insure navigation ease for your visitors

The more authentic information about designing a homepage you know, the more likely people are to consider you an expert. Learn all you can and then apply. Then, study better methods and tweak your site accordingly.

1. Place your “appealing headline” below any banner or logo at the top of the page. This is the headline that persuades your visitor to continue reading your homepage — to spark their interest in your product or service. Write your headline to your target customer.

Your visitor should have no doubt about what kind of website he/she just entered.

Relevance

If your purpose is to sell books, your headline should say something about books or a particular book that’s very popular. This will insure your “targeted” potential customers that they are at the right site for what they are searching for.

Visitors who aren’t looking for books really aren’t your customers, are they? You’re letting them know up front that they’re in the wrong website.

The reason for placing your headline below your logo or banner is because people tend to look at the “picture” first and then begin reading below the photo.

2. Place a side bar or navigation bar at the right hand or left hand side of your homepage (or top to bottom depending on the layout of your page).

A general rule of thumb is to place your navigational bar on the left hand side if your website is information-based and you offer just one to three products. Place your navigational bar on the right hand side if your website is set up like a catalog offering many different products. Of course, this is open to personal preference. I’ve seen it both ways.

The navigation bar provides your visitor with options to move around within your website without crowding the homepage. Your homepage should be an introduction to your website or your product or service, not your entire website.

The information should be intriguing to your “target” visitor and lead the visitor to the next page or to your desired response at the bottom of the homepage.

3.  Continue your homepage. Write to your visitor in a way that he/she can’t wait to go to the next page and continue.

But don’t stop there — when your visitor gets to the bottom, be sure to say “Go to the Next Page Here…” or “Continue to Next Page…“, something to persuade your visitor to go the next page.

The … always leaves a sense of continuance also!

Implement these three methods while designing your homepage to insure navigation ability for your visitors.

Remember, your visitors can only turn into paying customers if you get a chance to make your presentation. It never hurts to be well-informed with the latest tips on how to design a homepage benefiting you and your customers.

This is getting a bit long and I don’t want to try and explain everything about web design here. You can get a complete course for learning web design here.

Even then, follow some of these tips so your homepage flows and gives a pleasant experience for your visitors. See you next time. Bob Pardue

How to Design a Web Homepage