Why Your Homepage Doesn’t Matter (As Much)
telecommatt | October 13, 2008 I found this article completely by accident on a blog I’ve never read before while looking for reviews on a beta service I’d forgotten I signed up for. And best of all, I happened to be looking at landing page options for a client when I got side-tracked by this post.
Mr.Amer is 100% correct. Not much about your homepage really matters anymore. It’s nothing more than your reception area. If you go to the dentist, you’re there to see the dentist, not to sit in the reception area. And I bet that if the dentist is a really good dentist, you’ll sit in the reception room for a bit even if you can’t stand the wallpaper.
Amer’s point takes us back to Internets 101, where the purpose of a website is to organize information around a topic for easy retrieval. A decade ago, when internet search was still in infancy, a search engine would lead you to the site’s homepage, drop you off there, and say good-bye. Today’s search? Think a gargantuan gorilla that will run out, snatch and grab the data you need straight from the page it is on, (forget your reception area- he doesn’t use doors.) and bring it back all neatly organized in a hierarchical fashion akin to a dinner menu at a fancy restaurant.
Like the image? The point is that when someone Google’s your content, they go straight to your content. Therefore, your content must function as a landing page in a minimalist sort of way. What does that mean for the designer? If a site has 14 topics covered under the main topic of, say, frogs, it means that at least 15 page must be treated as if the user landed on that page first.
It also means the the homepage, or landing page, should not be a content page. Use it to teach the user how to navigate the site, what to expect on the site, recent changes to the site, but don’t use the homepage to display content that could be displayed elsewhere on the site.
It’s interesting watching the net change over time, mostly because it changes fast enough for use to see it happen. Mr.Amer brings up a great point about the changing web. We’ve always surfed the web for content. Now, with the maturation of search technology, we have the ability to reach out and grab just the pieces that are important to us.
Mr.Amer is 100% correct. Not much about your homepage really matters anymore. It’s nothing more than your reception area. If you go to the dentist, you’re there to see the dentist, not to sit in the reception area. And I bet that if the dentist is a really good dentist, you’ll sit in the reception room for a bit even if you can’t stand the wallpaper.
Amer’s point takes us back to Internets 101, where the purpose of a website is to organize information around a topic for easy retrieval. A decade ago, when internet search was still in infancy, a search engine would lead you to the site’s homepage, drop you off there, and say good-bye. Today’s search? Think a gargantuan gorilla that will run out, snatch and grab the data you need straight from the page it is on, (forget your reception area- he doesn’t use doors.) and bring it back all neatly organized in a hierarchical fashion akin to a dinner menu at a fancy restaurant.
Like the image? The point is that when someone Google’s your content, they go straight to your content. Therefore, your content must function as a landing page in a minimalist sort of way. What does that mean for the designer? If a site has 14 topics covered under the main topic of, say, frogs, it means that at least 15 page must be treated as if the user landed on that page first.
It also means the the homepage, or landing page, should not be a content page. Use it to teach the user how to navigate the site, what to expect on the site, recent changes to the site, but don’t use the homepage to display content that could be displayed elsewhere on the site.
It’s interesting watching the net change over time, mostly because it changes fast enough for use to see it happen. Mr.Amer brings up a great point about the changing web. We’ve always surfed the web for content. Now, with the maturation of search technology, we have the ability to reach out and grab just the pieces that are important to us.
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