Posts Tagged ‘homepage’

Social media is all the rage these days. Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, the list goes on. People want to know who you are, what you look like, what you’re doing and where you’re going. It’s an information craze that would drive IBM’s Deep Blue chess-playing computer insane.

Organizations are adapting to the ever-changing landscape of social media, though with a cautious and unassertive approach. Unfortunately, playing it safe when it comes to social media will only have you chasing prospects and customers instead of the other way around.

Below are some lightening quick ways you can shift toward a more social media focused homepage for your web site. These aren’t revolutionary changes, but they should help you to stay ahead of the pack at least until you can develop a more coherent social media strategy. The three critical areas to focus on are interaction, information and portability. (more…)

Continuing with our new weekly series, I review now the homepage of a "landscaping" company. Just to re-cap what this series is all about, I want to provide basic tips on design and usability. I think the best way to accomplish this is by looking at real-life web sites. So, what I do is think of a type of company — this week landscaping — search in Google, and pull up a random web site.

With that said, let’s jump right into it. The company I pulled up this week is Poynter Landscape and Construction. First — the review.

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We’re doing something new here at the Cavendo blog. We’re introducing a new weekly series: Random Homepage Review!

Perhaps I’ll work on the naming in the future, but it perfectly describes what this series is all about. I’ll pick an industry keyword (e.g. COFFEE), search Google for that keyword, pull up a random web site of an organization that is central to that keyword, and pick apart whatever I find.

Why? Most blogs, articles and books out there try to tell you what to do. That’s great – to an extent. To be effective, people must be shown what to do.

And what better way to show people good design and information architecture than by ripping apart someone’s web site?

No – I kid. There will be no ripping. Instead, I’ll point out what I think went wrong with the particular page (more than likely it will be the homepage) and where I think it can be improved.

With that said, I’ll actually jump right into the first Random Homepage Review!

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Over the past month, in our four-part homepage re-design series, we’ve talked about the need to fight the urge to clutter your homepage with every tidbit about your organization. We also went over how to analyze your audience and competitors in order to craft a sound strategy for designing your homepage.

But you’re not finished.

Once the homepage is built, you’ve just begun. Success on the web depends on a cycle of testing, measuring and fine-tuning. You’ll likely never get your homepage perfect which is why this is a continual process.

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Some would argue that it’s important you understand your competition before your audience. I think it depends on the level of understanding you need. In many cases, you must first fully understand your audience before you can even begin to understand what your competitors are doing right (and wrong).

And so it’s with that sentiment in mind that we open up the third part in our homepage re-design series – understanding your competitors.

Having a solid comprehension of your primary competitors’ movements, philosophies, strategies and tactics, audiences, and offerings is essential at the most basic level of marketing. You can’t beat what you don’t know.

By knowing the competition – especially on the web – you open yourself up to two important avenues: imitation or creative distinction.

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To re-cap the first part of our homepage re-design series, the key to a strong homepage is clarity, conciseness and consistency. A good homepage clearly outlines what your organization is all about, where users can go (and where they want to go) and why users should even be at your web site.

Internet users are creatures of short attention spans. You have only a few seconds to grab, hold and increase the interest of your user. It seems like an impossible feat to accomplish, but it is doable if you understand your audience.

Getting inside the heads of your audience – whether they’re young or old, rich or poor, smart or dumb – is nothing new. Good marketing dictates this.
However, for the web, only a handful of organizations actually do this research.

Why is that?

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Welcome to part one of our soon-to-be four-part series on crafting the ideal homepage for your organization’s web site. Let’s jump right in!

The homepage is the most important page on your web site. It directs users to other pages and tells the story behind your organization, and it must do this as succinctly and clearly as possible.

What is the urge?

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