07/06/2006 - Every Page is Your Home Page
Whether your building a new website or implementing a redesign, the home page is likely to attract a good deal of attention amongst the project team as you progress toward ‘going live’. However is this really the most important page of your site?
The traditional site structure is pyramidal with the home page at the top and expanding out as you move downward through layers of categories and sub categories to reach the product / service / or content pages at the base. The pages at the base are usually the pages your visitors are trying to reach with much of the higher level pages acting as a navigation to get to them.
Before the growth of search engine use, this was quite an effective structure. You launch your new website, market the URL and your visitors use your URL to come to your home page and drill down through your site to find what they are looking for. However, the wide spread use of search has turned this model literally on its head.
Let’s take the example of a bathroom suite vendor. They will now be receiving much of their traffic through search engines rather than visitors typing their URL directly into a browser. As their product range might consist of perhaps 100 lead products it makes it impossible to have the home page ranking well in the search engines for all of those product names, and also the generic terms or category terms associated with them such as ‘bath’, ‘bath tub’, or ‘roll top bath’. It’s the product pages that stand a far better chance of ranking well for these specific terms. And they live at the bottom of this traditional pyramid.
Time spent on enhancing these product, and service pages is time very well spent. Ensuring they are optimised and well presented, and featuring all of the brand enhancing imagery, and promotional links will all pay dividends.
E-commerce Consultant, Alex Bainbridge, a specialist in web usability design, has had more experience in this area than most. ‘You should also consider your landing pages from any online advertising you are doing. Don't just send visitors to your homepage which can be extremely frustrating for visitors if they have just searched on a very specific term. Instead create a specific landing page that is focussed on what you lead with in your advertising. So for example if you are selling bathroom fittings, and you are advertising for the term 'bathroom sinks' - don't send them to a page about baths - but to a specific page about sinks’.
Not to mention the terrible conversion rates you will endure. If someone walked into your high street shop and asked about your range of power showers it would appear rude to give them a stack of brochures and tell them the showers are in there somewhere. The visitor will be reaching for the back button in no time at all.
So it maybe that you actually have 100 pages out of a total site of perhaps 400 pages that are your high visibility pages. Some of these could be promotional pages featuring specific product ranges, some might be landing pages that tie neatly in with your advertising campaigns. Its therefore worth really spending time on these pages to ensure they will offer all the information that a visitor looking for these products, might want to know. And of course, a clearly defined call to action.
About Us
Internet Retail Technologies Ltd ( IRT ) works with manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers to help them enjoy greater advantage from internet distribution. Through offering consulting services, and web distribution services and channels, IRT helps is network of partners start or further develop their online sales and marketing strategies.
IRT also operates its own consumer facing web site in the form of yourblueworld.co.uk |
