Most companies are pretty picky when it comes to the Home Page of their website. That’s understandable. After all, your Home Page is kind of like the front door to your house. It creates an image—an impression. It’s an indication of what you’ll find inside. No wonder businesses want their Home Page to be beautiful and welcoming.
I don’t know about you, but when I was growing up, almost nobody came to the front door at my house. People that showed up there were generally door-to-door salesmen or other people that we didn’t know well. The people that we knew well—the ones we wanted inside our house—came around to the back door.
That’s pretty much the way it is with websites today. The people that you really want to let in to your website probably aren’t going to come in through your “front door”—your Home Page. They are going to come in through a side door or a back door because that’s where they are going to find what they’re looking for.
Unless someone already knows your company by name, they are not going too search for you by name. They are going to search for what it is that you can do for them. That’s why it’s so important that the content of your website be optimized to help them find you. And that doesn’t happen just by populating your site with keywords (“buzzwords” is probably a more accurate description of how some businesses tackle this). Your content needs to be addressing the questions and issues your visitors are interested in.
What’s probably going to drive people to your site is not your name, but the content you put out in your blogs and the special offers you make. And when customers respond to those things, the last place you want to send them is your Home Page. Why?
People get lost on Home Pages. There is generally so much going on that they are confusing. On top of that, Home Pages are often general rather than specific. If you have people looking for specific information—take them directly to that information! Don’t make them look for it. Landing pages—devoted to a specific purpose—are much more effective at converting visitors than standard web pages (Take a look at 7 Reasons Landing Pages Convert Better).
Back in the day, visitors to my house knew that if they wanted to get in our house and get to the people and things they really wanted, the best and fastest way was to go around back. Don’t make your website visitors feel like strangers. Welcome them at your “back door.” Give them a landing page designed to make them feel at home and get what they came for!