How to write an effective home page

Do

• Define clearly who it is you are talking to. Paint as full a picture as you can of your most valued prospects and write for them
• Focus on benefits rather than features, what problems you can solve and how you can help visitors, rather then the features of your product or service
• Use the 'you' word as much as possible and the 'we' word as little as possible
• Write in language your visitors can understand - the simplest possible language to convey your meaning
• Provide a clear and unambiguous call to action
• Make clear the benefit to the visitor of completing that action
• Have all important text appear in the first screen without scrolling
• Have supplementary links to the most important content on your site within the text or at the end of paragraphs

Do Not

• Have a graphic only 'splash' page asking people to click here to reach your site. You will create extra clicks unnecessarily and lose traffic, this type of page is bad for search engine ranking too
• Pad copy with non-words like unique, continually striving for superb quality etc...Keep it short and to the point - these are the types of words that cause visitors eyes to glaze over - our attention spans are very short on the web
• Start every paragraph with your name or business name
• Use the 'we' word more than the 'you' word
• Use jargon - it impresses no-one!
• Have too many graphics that make your home page more than 60kb in size, and consequently slow to download