Functions of Your Business Site’s Home Page

As the page’s nickname indicates, your home page is extremely important to you.  Playing with an old Tony Bennett song about San Francisco, you want your sites visitors to leave their hearts there.  Okay, I’ll apologize for that.

In fact though, for most business websites, the home page is far from the most important.  The page that earns the honor of being most important is probably one or two click removed from the home page.  It is the one on which a converted visitor can perform an action that directly or eventually will lead to the company earing revenue.  However, in most cases the home page will attract more first time visitors than any other single page on your site.

Your home will be the page to which more outside links point than any other of your pages.  Also, more than likely, your home page will be close to the top in terms of the number of internal links directed to it.  Should your visitors lose their way, due either to taking a wrong turn or due to poor design by your website’s architect, they probably will return to the home page to serve as their base of operations in order to launch another quest.

That simply means that your visitors will use your home page more than it might merit, although I took a circuitous route to get to that conclusion.  As long as your prospects are loitering there, you better make sure you help them make good use of their time.

What are the functions of a good home page in an appropriately designed online business website?  Consider what follows to be a menu from which you may choose, ala carte:

*  Provide a corporate office atrium to set the mood for your business’ corporate climate–laid back and informal, or efficient and orderly or however else you position the company.

*  Provide directional signs to all of the locations that your most prized customers are likely to want to visit.  Of course, your navigation menu will provide this service on all of your site’s pages, but, since this is often the first visit by many of your guests, the home page is an opportunity to help them understand the road maps that you will regularly provide.

*  Subtly and efficiently communicate the mission of your business through the copy on the page, the images, a video or some combination of all channels.

*  Tell your visitors what you want them to do.  You might want them to buy a product, sign up to receive valuable information, learn about the topic in which your business is the expert or even all of those.

*  Make a favorable first impression by picking up the clutter; create an attractive but unpretentious space.

Those are some of the functions to consider for any business home page, regardless of whether you already have a large, established, authority site or you are planning to build a small business website.