What makes a home page sticky!

I’ve been a bit lax in keeping my blog entries up to date – and it has a lot to do with my last post!  Hannah’s book launch was so successful I’ve had a deluge of people asking for their home pages to be reviewed.  I must have done about 80 over the past month or so!

It has become very clear that there are two things that people need to know to ensure people get their message:

1. Make sure the message is powerful and clear
2. Make sure it’s where people are looking

I’ve seen lots of pretty websites that don’t do either of those things – and, as a result, I’ve written a report about what makes a home page sticky.  It’s all about where people expect certain things to be to ensure they get what they are expecting – and do what you want them to do.

If you’d like a copy of this report please drop an email to info@insidenews.co.uk – with Sticky Home Page Report in the subject line.

Home page layout

I’ve been reviewing home pages for the last couple of weeks and after looking at around 70 different websites I feel as though I can talk about what works and what doesn’t with a degree of authority!

Let’s look at a few basics that make a home page work effectively:

1. Your brand needs to be consistent; not only on every page, but also should be recogisable as what is on your business card, letterhead and any other material you have.
2. Your menu should either be horizontal, running across the page under the masthead (your identity and brand), or vertically on the left.  Menus on the right don’t work – it isn’t where people naturally look for them.  Horizontal menus must fit comfortably across the page on a single line.  If you have too many choices to do that, don’t be tempted into a second line of choices.  And it should be one menu, not one here, one there and one somewhere else!
3. Your headline should occupy your prime real estate – that’s about one third of the way down the actual screen – and should start about 2inches (5 cm) in from the left hand edge.  People feel uncomfortable trying to start reading from right up against the left side of the screen.
4. If you’re asking people to sign up for anything give them a good reason to do so – a free report, and tell them what it is e.g.  ‘Get your free report Six secrets to a successful strategy’ etc.  Don’t ask for any more information than their name and email.  The ideal place for a sign up box is on the right hand side, below the masthead (and menu, if it’s across the page) – and it should be part of the template so it appears on every page.
5. Copy should be left aligned, in a clean sans serif font (Arial, Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet) and not something busy like Times, Palatino or Garamond.  Don’t justify paragraphs so all the lines are the same length – it’s hard to read – as is centred text.
6. Copy should not run to more than two screens and should include a call to action in the final paragraph that appears as a hyperlink (not click here, but explore your options)

If you follow these pointers your website will be clean and attractive to the eye – and you’ll have a much better chance of keeping your reader.

Visit www.insidenews.co.uk to find out more about our services.