One thing I see a lot is that, for the typical web project, a disproportionate amount of effort is put on the homepage compared to the other pages.
But the web is not a one way street with only one entrance, it is…a web. A visitor can enter your website from anywhere and land on any page. There are some websites that I frequent and have never seen their homepage. (Can you think of some for you? Reply and let me know).
For example, here are a few pages a user can land on and where they might come from:
- A landing page from a social media campaign
- A blog post from a Google search
- A donation page shared by a friend
These different entry points also often come with different contexts. A visitor entering from social media will be in a different mindset compared to entering via Google compared to entering via a link sent by a friend.
- The social media visitor is already inspired and if the landing page is great then they will easily take action.
- The visitor who arrived on the blog post, might only need to see if the post contains the information they are looking for. And if the post was useful, they might come back tomorrow.
- The visitor who was a sent a donation link by a friend might be ready to donate straight away. If the form is well design and easy to use.
The homepage is an important page but the other pages on the website are important too. Spending too much effort on just the homepage will cause the other pages to suffer.
You need to put in the work to make sure every page stands out on it’s own.