Is your website compelling or repelling?

As we enter our 14th year of world wide web “critical mass”, it’s surprising how many website operators are still not across the fundamentals of good website design.

For example how many websites have you visited recently that provide dated information, present poor quality product shots, include a boring welcome message from the business owner, or are just plain ugly.

Chances are you won’t remember, because you’ve moved off the site so quickly and on to the site of a competitor.

The main offenders in these cases are the very front pages of websites – the very ones that are supposed to entice you to look inside.

And it’s not just newer smaller website operators that are offending. There are some household names that are turning a blind eye to what constitutes an enticing front page.

So here’s a guide to effective front page content and layout for your business website.

Magazine cover or shop window display

Two excellent analogies as to how you should treat your front page are that they should be like a magazine cover – an enticing design that clearly points out “what’s inside”.

Another is that it should be like the front window of a shop – with the most representative and appealing product on display- again, beckoning you to “come inside”.

Of course both of these analogies suggest freshness. Both magazine covers and window displays change regularly. Which provides clues as to exactly what your front page should be doing.

Keep your front page fresh and ever-changing. Come up with internal procedures that ensure that fresh content is coming to your front page on a regular basis – be that new products or services, new deals or industry developments.

There for a good time not a long time

Many website owners make the critical mistake of assuming that visitors are going to spend the time to linger on your website, visit every page and pore through every single word you have to say.

Newsflash people! Nothing could be further from the truth.

No matter how good your product, how wonderful your service and how much you’ve paid your web designer, nothing stops web users from flitting through websites like proverbial gnats on heat.

Research shows that visitors read around 20% of text presented in websites. That means that 80% of the wonderful copy you spent hours creating and/or supervising will be wasted.

This gives clues that you should provide the most information at the final page of the information search and not the first. Visitors “drill down” into the information they want by “scanning” pages rather than reading copious amounts of copy from the outset.

Complete a thorough review before starting

One of the wonderful aspects of the web is that examples of the world’s best and most successful websites are right there at your fingertips.

So very early in the planning phase of your site, log on to the leaders in your field from around the world and take a close look at how they present their information online.

Trash the splash page

I don’t know about you, but if I see another time-wasting ‘splash” page – those invasive animate pieces often accompanied by loud, crass music, I am going to do damage to something.

Splash pages were invented by creative web designers looking for ways to populate their portfolio and increase website budgets.

Unless you have a product or service that entices a very high level of passion or interest, and have the budget to change it often, don’t bother wasting your visitors time or your hard earned.

What’s New, What’s Hot, What’s Cheap

I think a great rule of thumb to laying out your front page lies in this three part statement.

‘What’s New’ allows you to include the latest products, services or deals you are offering.

‘What’s Hot’ is the most popular products etc you offer, and ‘What’s Cheap’ are new deals, offers or sale items you have on at present.

Of course there should be representative images of each item with links through to more information.

What these categories also do is allow you to illustrate the range of goods and/or services you provide – a kind of snapshot of what you provide.

So try and bring a wide selection to the front page as it provides a great opportunity to cross-sell either now or in future.

Don’t scrimp on photography

As emphasised in our recent webinar on Selling Online – How to boost your business in a downturn, good quality photography is one of the most overlooked aspects of a website.

A poor quality image will have visitors clicking away faster than you can imagine as they just don’t tolerate the poor presentation it portrays.

If professional photography is outside your budget, product manufacturers may provide it for you or you can tap into the growing library of quality clip photography where a web-quality image can cost only a few dollars.

Either way, just make sure that you can get it as professional as possible.

Avoid large slabs of text

As outlined above, the short attention span of website visitors means that brevity is definitely the key on the front page of your site.

If there is a lot of information about a certain product or service, include it on a page within the site rather than the front page.

Break down your range into bullet points which link to specific pages.

Really you shouldn’t include more that about two sentences on the front page before linking off to a more specific page.

Slogan or brief business description

Again, don’t assume that visitors are going to spend time getting to know you and your website.

Spell out what you do upfront by clearly stating either a succinct service description or slogan right up there alongside your logo.

So even if they do depart quickly, they have a clear understanding of what you do for next time.

Sign them up for your e-newsletter

Again a criminally overlooked factor. Email news is essentially free to send. Therefore every person who signs up is another prospect who may well become your next customer or refer you to someone else who might be.

But ensure there is good “what’s in it for me” (WIIFM). A plain “sign up for our newsletter” is not enticing enough. Tell them why, and tell them it’s free.

Of course every business is different, so the specific rules will vary from website to website. But prudent attention to these fundamentals will maximise the chances of visitors continuing through your site and making that critical next step of inquiring, ordering or purchasing.

Craig Reardon is a leading eBusiness educator and founder and director of independent web services firm The E Team which provide the gamut of ‘pre-built’ website solutions, technologies and services to SMEs in Melbourne and beyond. www.theeteam.com.au