Does Your Homepage Work?

Does Your Homepage Work?

by: Peter Simmons

All websites have a homepage. It is the most important page of your site. It acts as the main gateway to the entire site. Most of your prospective customers will enter through it. Its vital to get it right. You dont want them to just turn around and go away again.

Take a moment to clear your mind. Now go and look at your homepage and take a minute to evaluate it. Does it work for your prospective customers?

Most will arrive at your homepage and quickly scan through the content. If they are interested in what they read and see theyกll typically decide to click on a link that takes them to another page where theyกll find more information. As they make that decision theyกll be asking things like:

What do they do?

Do they look professional?

Whats in it for me?

Do i have the problem they describe?

Are they talking directly to me?

How can i get it?

Alternatively, if the homepage hasnt interested them immediately then theyกll leave just as quickly as they arrived, unlikely to return.

Your homepage is the gateway to your website and plays a critical part in the prospects visit. First impressions count. The success of your site depends on your homepage. Now, before we look at what a homepage should be, lets look at what it shouldnt be.

It should not be a false homepage requiring you to click a link to get to the real homepage. It shouldnt be a page that fails to direct the prospect to further action. It shouldnt contain any content that doesnt serve an immediate and clear purpose. It should never read like a dull brochure, that does nothing to motivate prospects to seek more information or buy immediately.

What a homepage should be. It should have a clear message. It should be a dynamic page that instantly conveys a sense of what you do, how you do it, who you are, how you do business, etc. It should start to describe the direct benefits that prospective customers get by buying your product or service. It should create prospect interest and make them eager to find out more. It should provide direction and clearly marked links to get them there. It should focus entirely on serving the needs of your prospective customers and removing their anxieties.

The purpose of your website is to sell your products and services to your prospects. To be effective your homepage must meet the needs of your prospects exactly and provide answers to their questions. To do this you must know what your prospects want and how they want it. If you dont already know, find out. Ask them!

Also, spend some time looking at other homepages learning what works and what doesnt. Are there features and styles that you could adopt on your site?

Once you have these answers design your entire homepage around them. Spend some time getting it right and both you and your prospects will benefit. Dont settle for second best unless you want your website to fail as a result of being ineffective.

When youกve done it. Take a moment to clear your mind. Now go and look at your homepage once again and take a minute to reevaluate it. Does it work for your prospective customers now?

Good luck!

About The Author

Peter Simmons is editor of the DYNAMIQ EZINE. GET MAXIMUM RESULTS FROM YOUR WEBSITE! Increase your traffic, prospect conversions, sales, profits, referrals and more… START GETTING RESULTS RIGHT NOW with your $129 WEBSITE EVALUATION ABSOLUTELY FREE at http://www.dynamiq.co.uk/ezine or email me anytime at mailto:[email protected]

This article was posted on April 6, 2002

by Peter Simmons

Writing A Business Website Sales/Marketing FAQ

Writing A Business Website Sales/Marketing FAQ

by: Joel Walsh

Everyone on the web thinks they can write a FAQ. But then why are so many FAQs so lacking? How often have you read a FAQ and thought, ‘that didn’t tell me anything I needed to know!ก?

Two Worst FAQ Writing Faux Pas

Many websites don’t separate their FAQs for existing customers who need support from their FAQs for prospective customers who just want the information they need in order to decide whether and how to buy.

Many websites that do provide a special presales FAQ turn it into yet another advertisementugh! Your prospective customers need presales information that truly helps them come to a decision.

Tips for Writing a PreSales/Marketing FAQ:

You should divide your FAQ into sections that will make sense to a prospective customer. Naturally, what sections you use will depend on the content of your own website and the nature of your business.

If you have a complex business or website with many products and services and/or options for them, you may need to have a FAQ that is very long. Traditionally, webmasters would simply create one very long page for the very long FAQ. However, very long pages are almost never good web practice from a searchengine point of view. Multiple mediumlength pages will get you more search engine traffic than one long page. If you have a FAQ that would go over 1000 words, you should put each section on its own page, and have one front page with a table of contents for the entire FAQ, linking to each section and providing a list of the questions in that section.

Usually, a FAQ will have a list of all the questions up top, with links to the questions within the page, sort of a table of contents. If you have a briefer FAQ, you don’t need this.

Keep your answers brief. If an answer requires more than two paragraphs, you should create an entire web page for it, and simply provide a link to that page in the FAQ answer.

Your answers should cast you in the best possible light while still being believable. Do not confuse this FAQ for prospective customers with the more common support FAQ! You do not want your prospective customers to see a laundry list of everything that could conceivably go wrong with your product or service.

In order to keep your FAQ believable and informative, do not fill it with marketese and hype. Keep the exclamation points to a minimum! Yes, you want to portray yourself in the best possible lightbut the best possible believable and informative light.

In the end, remember this: your web visitors who read your FAQ are among the most qualified, interested prospects on your site. If your FAQ lacks your site may lack sales.

About The Author

Joel Walshกs business website UpMarketContent.com has a FAQ web page content template: http://UpMarketContent.com/faqtemplate.htm? writing FAQ content

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[email protected]

This article was posted on August 07

by Joel Walsh