So, I’ve spent eight posts this month talking about the keys to home page design, and it has struck me that I never once provided a clear definition of what a home page is. So, I’ll remedy that situation right now.
The home page of a website is “the opening page.” But what does that mean, really?
These days, any page on your website could be the first page someone sees, so how relevant is a home page anyway?
Before I go on, I want to define a few more terms for you:
- landing page: “the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search engine result link”
- squeeze page: “a landing page focused on collecting the opt-in email address of prospective subscribers”
- sales page: “a sales letter online”
I hope you noticed that any of those types of pages could be a home page. Of course, there is the traditional home page … the page that lays out the basic navigation and purpose of a website. And, for a larger website, there are sub-home pages … the home pages of each section within the site.
So, since a home page can be pretty much any page on your website … depending on how you are defining the term … how do all the tips and principles I’ve been sharing with you apply?
My underlying message when talking about home page design is to think of all the pages you can create as a home page and be clear on why you are creating them. Be purposeful.
That doesn’t mean you can’t experiment and test things out … by all means, please do. But also, before you start deciding if a page is effective or not, be sure that you are 100% clear on the purpose of that page … and make sure that it serves that purpose clearly.
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