Your Homepage

You only get one chance to make a first impression.  Cliched but true. 

I've changed my home page a few times, mainly because I've added new products, signed up with Facebook and started this blog, but also to try and improve the navigation.  Forgive me if I repeat myself, but some things are important so I'll probably tell you about them more than once.  The size of your images is really important - apparently you'll only get 5 seconds before someone gives up if the page is still downloading, so pictures have got to be small. 

I'm not going to go into too much detail about how to achieve things.  This is more about what to consider.  If you want expert advice I suggest that you Google for information that discusses creating a website with more experience than I have.  Basic things I remember wishing I'd known from the outset was page width which seems to be 1024 px - works for both wide screens and people who still have the old square monitors.  It won't be perfect for everyone, but don't cater for one extreme or the other.  Something imbetween seems to make sense!

Thing about what appeals to you in a website.  Look at some you like or visit regularly.  Look at the competition!  If someone else has found a style that works, why reinvent it.  Copying is the sincerest form of flattery - as long as you don't indulge in blatant plagarism.

I looked at some websites or companies whose products I like for inspiration.  Cath Kidston (right) seems to be a runaway success.  I like Boden, Emma Bridgewater and sites like that, so I looked to see how they did their navigation, etc.  I thought about magazines I might want to appear in and what their style is. 

Bear in mind who your target audience is and how they might be used to navigating their way through websites.  But don't exclude others.  Most people are familiar with clicking on an image to take them through to T-shirts, but others like to have a clear navigation bar.  Give them both.  Don't clutter it up too much with words, but remember that robots read words, so make your page titles long, expansive and descriptive.  Think about the colour, font, images, movement (don't use flashy gizmos if it slows things down), etc.

If in doubt, keep it simple and as Coco Chanel (left) reputedly said, "take off one accessory before you leave the house". In other words, less is more.



Never forget your objectives.  If you want a visitor to buy, make it clear by telling them to 'click here to buy'.  And above all remember it's all about the visitor.  What you can do for them, why they will benefit from having your product or services.

Right from the word go you want to encourage interactivity - it will help with your SEO rankings and will make visitors feel valued.  Ask them to join a mailing list.  Offer subscribers services, etc that are only available to them.   You may have advice sheets, etc that they can download.  From the word go you are now building your data base who you can contact when you have news to share.

Get friends to test it out - if they can't navigate the first page you haven't achieved your goal.  Take criticism constructively - I know it's hard.  You spend hours working on something only for someone else to pour cold water over it, and they may not understand how difficult their suggestions are to implement, but they are only trying to help.  Anyone I know who has been on the receiving end of my defensive and pouting retorts - sorry.  I guess this is as close as I'll get to admitting I was wrong, you were right and I was grateful for your contribution even if I didn't appear to be at the time!

Seeing as how I've used a few pictures in this, I thought we could talk about pictures next time.  Taking your own.  Getting them done professionally and using photo libraries.