Make Every Page of Your Website Your Home Page

[mandy]

Questus' in-house usability expert explains that every page of your website needs to act like a home page in order to convert audiences.

Marketing managers and online agencies know how critical the home page is. It's common internet wisdom. Where else can you so clearly state the purpose of your site? Most great web designers spent the last few years generating home pages that looked good, passed the five-second test, respected the three-clicks rule, and established brand legitimacy. That's what converted users into customers. End of story, right?

Wrong...

As much as I know that web designers HATE "rules of design," these are the two critical elements that MUST be incorporated into any effective e-commerce site:

    * Your logo as an anchor to the true home page
    * A global toolbar that persists throughout the site...

full article: http://imediaconnection.com/content/12386.asp

[BellisimaJ.]

We mocked-up a Google search results page for "iPods," and the respondents behaved as expected: scanning headlines, looking for URLs they recognized, focusing on above-the-fold results. We designed this test to drive users to our client's site with compelling headlines like "iPods on Sale," and that part worked. But once we had them clicking through the site to reach the iPod page, the users struggled, and ultimately failed, to understand the client's entire value proposition

Excellent article, Mandy--TY!! :turkey1:    I agree with the author's conclusions 100%. I can not tell you how many times I have been exploring a site, and suddenly, I am left "directionless". No toolbar, nothing to tell me how to go anywhere else on the site or encourage me to do so. This is especially crucial on pages that are requesting info from the user-------TELL US WHY!!! Include the SAME toolbar on EVERY page! :
Consistency is as important as product, and branding page by page is king. :turkey3: