How to Make Your Homepage Flow

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Your website's navigation ability is extremelyimportant to your success online.
Your visitorswill only turn into paying customers if your site iseasy and fun to navigate.Believe me, you want your visi... Your website's navigation ability is extremelyimportant to your success online.
Your visitorswill only turn into paying customers if your site iseasy and fun to navigate.Believe me, you want your visitors to stay as long aspossible. This is the only way your site is going tosucceed.
Your site must be interesting, persuading, andeasy to navigate.First let me tell you a couple of misconceptions about howto design websites.1. Many people assume that because the internet is so "big"and covers such a vast amount of areas around the world, theirwebsite has to be everything to everybody.
They design theirwebsite for "everybody" in the world and never have a distinctpurpose. No purpose and no direction results in no sales!That's a profound statement but so true.How many websites have you visited that had no purpose, nodirection, and no real valuable information that you stayedand surfed around the site a while?You click to that site only to find twenty links that areall non related to the site's description nor to each other.A link to the left takes you to a computer store online whilea link to the right takes you to a sports website.
Fivebanners straight down the middle of the homepage all going infive different directions. No direction or purpose whatsoever.Even if that company did offer what you were looking for, youprobably would not consider that company as an expert or eventrustworthy after one glance at the website, would you?2.
The second misconception is that selling on the web isdifferent or easier than selling off line. I know fromexperience that sales is sales is sales.
Even if yourbusiness is on the web, you still must take the same stepsto gain a customer's trust as you do off line. Yourproduct will not sell itself, just like your website willnot promote itself.
You must take the necessary steps topromote your site as well as give a persuading presentationonce the visitor arrives.Now that you know a couple of the most common misconceptionson the web, you can move forward with designing your websitewith these in mind. Don't worry, if you've already designedyour website for "everybody", it's not too late to focus inon your sole purpose.
It's far less painful to design yourwebsite with your one purpose in mind from the beginning --and less costly.Below are 3 important steps you can take while designing yourwebsite to insure navigation ease for your visitors:1. Place your "appealing headline" below any banner or logoat the top of the page.
This is the headline that persuadesyour visitor to continue reading your homepage -- to sparktheir interest in your product or service. Write your headlineto your target customer.
The visitor should have no doubtabout what kind of website he/she just entered.If your purpose is to sell books, your headline should saysomething about books or a particular book that's very popular.This will insure your "targeted" potential customers that theyare at the right site for what they're searching for. Visitorswho aren't looking for books really aren't your customers, arethey? You're letting them know up front that they're in thewrong website.The reason for placing your headline below your logo or banneris because people tend to look at the "picture" first and thenbegin reading below the picture.2.
Place a scroll bar or navigation bar at the right handor left hand side of your homepage. A general rule ofthumb is to place your scroll bar on the left hand side ifyour website is information based and you offer just oneto three products.
Place your scroll bar on the righthand side if your website is set up like a catalog offeringmany different products.The scroll bar provides your visitor with options to movearound within your website without crowding the homepage.Your homepage should be an introduction to your website oryour product or service, not your entire website. Theinformation should be intriguing to your "target" visitorand lead the visitor to the next page or to your desiredresponse at the bottom of the homepage.3.
Continue your homepage. Write to your visitor in away that he/she can't wait to go to the next page andcontinue.
But don't stop there -- when your visitorgets to the bottom, be sure to say "Go to the Next PageHere..." or "Continue to Next Page...", something topersuade your visitor to go the next page. The ...always leaves a sense of continuance also!Implement these three methods while designing yourhomepage to insure navigation ability for your visitors.Remember, your visitors can only turn into payingcustomers if you get a chance to make your presentation.
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