Everybody Writes, 2nd Edition



76Writing a Home Page

We Get You

It's apt that we use the very human home to refer to the main page of a website.

Home evokes warmth. Belonging. The place where your Wi-Fi connects automatically.

That's exactly the mindset to get into when write your own business's home page—the web page that is rendered when your business's domain name is typed into a web-enabled device.

The home page is the threshold of your business.

You want visitors to feel welcomed as soon as they step in—to feel comfortable, to sense that you're happy to see them.

And because this is your business, you want them to get a sense of their surroundings in the blink of an eye: an idea of who you are and what you do and why it matters to them.

There's no one way to write. There's definitely no one way to write a home page.

There are many variables—related to the nature of your business and its goals—that will define success for your home page. So as with many chapters in this section, this is a general approach, not a prescription.

• Who's in, who's out? Who is your audience? Whom do you want to attract? And—just as important—whom do you not want to attract?

  All good content is rooted in a clear understanding of your audience.

  That sounds obvious, doesn't it? But it's surprising how often we overlook our audiences and use our home pages to talk only about us.

  You might be tempted to use your home page to say you are “The world's leading business-to-business sales training and research ...