The main page, or home page as it is often called, of your website is the first thing that a visitor will see when they visit your online business. It is imperative that you grab their attention, and their interest, in the first few seconds after they arrive. Your page should build quickly. New visitors to your site will not likely wait around for large graphics or slow-loading flash files to appear. The Internet has too much to offer and people today are unwilling to part with additional time, especially if it seems to be wasted while just waiting.
In order to grab the visitor's interest you will want to have well written, useful, information about your product(s) or service(s). Content text must have accurate spelling, correct grammar, and makes sense. Remember, you are trying to sell yourself, your business, and your product(s)/service(s) in the first few seconds! Clear, concise, informative copy is a must!
Put yourself in the shoes of the visitors who will be coming to your website. Would you stay there very long seeing what your site has to offer? What would you be looking for when first arriving at a website that offers your product(s) and/or service(s)? Exactly what would the site have to say to hold your attention? That's what you need to put on your website for your prospective customers.
You need to focus on a few basic factors. Don't try to say everything on the first page. That's what multiple page websites are for. You want to generate high traffic through the search engines, of course, so you need to have descriptive, keyword-rich, text, but you also want your website to appeal to, and retain, your visitors. Retention can translate into sales, return visits, and repeat sales. That, ultimately, is what it's all about.
Content should be written for both the search engines and your potential customers. This is an often overlooked, but important, point to remember. So much focus seems to be on search engine optimization (SEO) these days that we sometimes forget it is live people, and not search engine spiders, that our websites are really for. Keep this in mind while you are writing the content for your website home page.
Your home page should not have a lot of extraneous graphics, links, or advertisements that will take away from your main content, and the primary purpose, of your website. These things can draw your prospects' attention away from the primary purpose of your website and what you want them to focus on.
Descriptive, keyword-rich, text is important. Have links within this content to other pages and/or individual products that you sell. Menus, or small images, that link to your product categories will help visitors get quickly where they want to go. Done properly this works for both live shoppers and bots, spiders and search engines. Attractive images need not be large or slow loading. Learn how to optimize your graphics for web use. And remember that text links/menus work better for search engine spiders.
Do not overpower your visitor with too much information, hughe images, or big, bold, mutli-colored text! Keep your site pleasing to the eye and comfortable to read. Paragraph text should be in a standard size, easy-to-read font and should never be centered. The eye wants to track back to the same starting point for each subsquent line when reading paragaraphs of text. Keeping the reader comfortable keeps them on your site longer. Keeping them on your site longer helps lead them to the buying decision.
Keep your main page content fresh and new. Change your content around from time to time and add new content as it becomes available so that everything isn't always the same all the time. You do not want a boring site but don't change too much. Keep the general look the same. People are most comfortable when they easily know they have found the right place when returning to do business with you again. Keep the same logo, banner, and color scheme. That is part of your "identity" or "brand" on the Internet. It should be yours and it should be constant.