Question about the home page

[JulieO]

I am currently putting together the content for my site. I feel a bit lost on what I should have for the home page.

I have read that it is just another product page. If that is the case, how do you choose which product will go on the home page?

My gut feeling is to just write about the niche subject for the home page.

Can someone straighten me out?

 

[Linda Buquet]

Hi Julie,

Sorry PC crashed while I was writing this. SO GLAD FF remembers where you were at and let's you restore what you were working on so I didn't have to re-type this.

That's really hard to say because there are so many types of sites and strategies. Keep in mind the spider food on your homepage is typically the best shot you have for getting ranked for your primary keywords, so if you were ultimately going to be promoting 20 products, for instance, I'm not sure you'd want to waste the front page only focusing on one of the 20 products.

Is your site purely a product site or is it a niche content site? Either way without seeing it or knowing the niche, generally I would think putting more of the keyword rich content about the niche is best. Content the summarizes what can be found deeper in the site. Hard to explain and feel like I'm working blind so better stop here.

What I can recommend with confidence is to research other sites in your niche and see what the successful ones are doing with their homepage.

The other thing is once you have a site started you can ask for site review and then we can offer a lot more specific advice.

 

[genuwine4532]

The home page is really the ?first impression? of your site and its content.

Ask yourself these questions:

1. Is your home page clearly defining what you have to offer?

2. Is there some kind of welcome message on the home page that explains what?s there?

3. Is the content relevant to the title and description?

4. When visitors land on the home page are they easily able to navigate to different sections and pages within your site?

Remember that to optimize your home page for SEO to mention your main site keywords at least 6 - 7 times.

Statistics show that a website has 5-10 seconds to engage the interest of their visitors before they exit the page, and headlines are they way this is accomplished by grabbing a visitors attention and announcing the ?theme? of the website/blog.

It is important to remember that the headline and or welcome message must match the Title and Description from your Meta Tags and fulfill the promise in search results. Not being consistent in this is the best way to say bye-bye to your visitors.

A Welcome Message is a way to create a connection between you and your visitors and let them know what they can expect to get from your website.

 

[FDC]

Basically, I would start out researching other sites similar to what you want to do. Get tips, find out what you like and work from there. Then add something different that will make it stand out.

Also, work with the basics, >logo, header, footer, navigation. THen content!