The fruitless fight for space on the home page
Just so Reggie doesn't feel like I'm bashing him all the time, in a Tech Conference session he said something that resonates very well with me:
"People will be less and less patient with going to the home page to navigate through your site."
I remember I was shocked when I was told the percentage of people who access ASAE & The Center's website but never access the home page. (Sorry, I don't remember the number, maybe I'll update this post later with the number if I can get it.) It makes since though, when you think about it. Assuming you have a decent-sized site open to the public and you update it with some regularity, chances are most of the people accessing your site get there from Google or some other search engine.
The point? Well one of them is that there's a need for staff and volunteer education. Everybody wants a piece of the home page for their pet project, and those in charge of the website have to guard the home page ferociously. Turns out, that real estate is getting less and less important. The thing for these folks to think about is what are the top five or ten entrance pages to the site, and does their project work on any of those pages?
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Comments
In addition to many people from the outside coming in via a search to a page other than the home page, you may also have subscribers to individual pages via RSS who never even see the home page.
Posted by: Dennis McDonald | February 1, 2008 2:15 PM
You cannot assume everyone will go through your "front door." Have a site search engine. Have the ability to swap content in and out of your sidebars... think of how the NYTimes.com Web site articles tease the reader to stick around and see other stories by providing a sidebar list of the most-emailed, most-blogged, stories, etc. If you want your audiences to see something, don't assume a homepage link is going to do the trick. You need to get in their face, and that means going to the pages they enter the site on most frequently.
Posted by: Mark Forstneger | February 1, 2008 4:04 PM
My blog is the #2 Google result for "pimp my office" and I actually get a good bit of traffic from it, but it's nowhere near the top 10 pages of my blog. So, to take it a step further: Even if it's not a top 10 page, there are a ton of quote-unquote real estate development opportunities if you examine what the top search terms are that bring people to your site.
Go ahead, Google "pimp my office"! You know you want to.
Posted by: Ben Martin, CAE | February 1, 2008 10:32 PM
We've found the same pattern among our users -- only about 33% use the home page. Since it appears the traditional home page is growing less relevant, perhaps it's time to try something else.
I like the Flickr home page, which is essentially you, you, you -- your recent photos, comments about your photos, photos from your contacts, etc. once you're logged in. At the same time, though, half the screen is dedicated to basically marketing -- Flickr news, tools to print and display your photos, and a promo to give you friends and family the gift of Flickr. Good marketing, but marketing nonetheless, for revenue-generating products and services.
I think the challenge for associations is to know members' behavior on a member-by-member basis and leverage that data to serve up the content each member needs. That ties into the multiple entry points issue and what Ben said: no matter where someone enters the site, or which page they're currently on, the content that's there should be relevant to what the member is trying to accomplish during their visit.
Posted by: Misty Garrick Miller | February 7, 2008 9:13 PM
I'm not sure if we are typical or not, but our homepage traffic is about 30% of our vists.
Another key thing here is that you not "orphan" any content. Keep a persistent navigation system and breadcrumbs so when a user enters via any page they can navigate to all areas of your site, and have your logo link to your homepage.
Posted by: Natalie Webster | February 27, 2008 4:48 PM