How often does this scenario happen to you? When you land on a Web site, it doesn’t instantly answer the most important question:
What is the Web site about?
The second question depends on the site.
- For business sites: “What does the business do?”
- For blogs: “What is the topic of the blog?”
My blog is guilty for not making its topic clear. First of all, “meryl’s notes” tells you nothing — not even the fact it’s a blog. However, after seven-plus years of blogging, I’m glad I chose that name as my blog evolved.
So I added a tagline to help clarify the blog’s topic, “Things wordy, geeky, and webby.” It’s still broad, but so is the blog. Successful blogs focus on a specific topic, but I haven’t been able to commit to that.
This site is also my business site. So the home page at www.meryl.net tries to tell visitors what I do and how I do it. Although the how could use more support.
Sites that quickly describe their purpose have one or more of the following:
- Brief statement explaining purpose. It’s easy to find and above the fold – no scrolling required to find it).
- Slogan / tagline that says it all (i.e. Digital Web Magazine is The web designer’s online magazine of choice. getAbstract is Compressed knowledge.
- About that’s easy to find such as in top menu, left menu, or bottom menu (but better to have it above the fold).
Including the slogan or description in the <TITLE> tag helps if it’s brief. Long ones turn into a long and bothersome bookmark. Not everyone edits their bookmarks/favorites.
If you have a popular or well-ranked site and everyone knows who you are, there are still plenty who don’t know who you are. It’s amazing how often a popular or well-ranked sites doesn’t make it obvious why they’re successful, what they’re about, or where to do within the site.
Be careful on how many choices or calls to action appears in the main content. Too many choices or links can scare a visitor away instead of keeping the visitor. The content on the right side of this page is too much. Haven’t found a happy medium.
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