putting your best face forward... or, what to say on your homepage

if you're a small business owner with a website, you probably (hopefully) spent a considerable amount of time deciding what information should be on your homepage, and what visitors will look for when they get there.

if you haven't done that, please take this as your cue to do so.

for those of you that have, you probably thought about what your brand and primary messages are, or even how to answer the most common questions about your business. whether you choose to address those issues on the homepage, or just use the home page to lead visitors in to the answers, those are the top questions that most business owners consider immediately.

but then there are questions that you may not have considered immediately that you should also consider. some of these include...

- is your business/service/product easily understood by the language of your homepage?
- do you have any attempts at collecting visitor information (i.e. email addresses, contact info) on your site or on your homepage?
- how do you address updates to your business/product/service on your homepage, or do you at all?
- are you using the prime real estate of your homepage to draw the visitor in to find out more, or does your site steer them away from 'digging in' for more information?
- what is the visitor's initial reaction to you homepage likely to be, and is it the reaction you are looking for?

i wish sincerely there was one simple answer to how to do all these things for a site, but the answers are subjective to both your business and your audience. what i can tell you is that these are just a few of the questions you should be asking, and answering, when a visitor finds your site.

while many small business owners manage their websites themselves, and many of them successfully, it can sometimes help to gain the perspective and experience of a professional Internet marketing guru to help make your site and messaging more effective. someone with experience in the media, as well as one with a perspective on your business and how it best sells itself, can make a vital difference in attaining the goals you set for your website.

what, you haven't set goals for your site? OK, guess we'll have to jump on that one next time.