Your web site’s home page is going to see more hits than any other section of your site. Even people surfing in from Google will make your homepage their second stop if they are going to stick around for multiple page views. If your home page is all you are concerned about people seeing, then read no further.
If, however, there is other content on your site that you want your readers to view, are you doing anything to get them there, or just crossing your fingers and hoping?
Depending on the structure of your site your front page is someplace you want everyone to come, but you also want them to delve deeper and see what’s below the surface. On most WordPress blogs this is less of an issue because all the content hits the front page and there is either navigation in the sidebar or in a top menu, or both. However there is something to be said for a front page that acts as more of a portal to what you are offering. CMS’s all follow this route and allow the administrator to tailor the content that is presented on the front page. Many WordPress themes seem to be following suit as more and more people are interested in a more magazine or newspaper-like layout.
If you have the traditional blog style layout, just make it easy for people to decipher how you have your site navigation set up. If you have areas of your site that you really want people to land on, set up a widget or hardcode some kind of graphical link in your sidebar with something to entice them. Give them a reason to want to go where you are trying to send them. If you have lots of static entries that don’t belong to one of your categories that you want people to head to, you have to let them know they are there.
Additionally, top rated posts, editor’s picks, and most read posts sitting in your sidebar or footer are another good way to get surfers to read something they might have passed by.
If you have a CMS-style front page, one that not all of your content lands on at one time or another, it is crucial that you get people to dig deeper. I would like to have at least half of the people that land on my site exit the front page for the News page. Yes, most of the news sees time on the front page, but not all of it. On top of that, during a busy news week that front page is in constant flux. I want people to land on my front page, it’s tailored to be an entry point, but I am failing if I don’t get them from the front page to the meat and potatoes of my content.
So start by offering them more than one way to get there. If all you have is a single menu item that takes them to a blog-style display of your content, add additional navigation that lays out just what that content is. Break it down into categories, spell it out for them. Your reader may have no interest in a general category, but something more specific may catch their eye.
Do not be afraid to use plugins for your particular CMS that allow you to display featured articles, popular articles, etc.. Sliding content displays and the like are nice if they work properly and you verify that they function in all web browsers. That’s also a way to display links to lots of content in less real estate.
Do not be afraid to give good real estate on your page to links to content you want seen. You may lose an ad hot spot, but more page views will make up for it.
Getting your readers to go where you want them to is tricky, and will require some experimentation on your part. Simple is best, as long as their options are readily apparent. Don’t be afraid to give them a few roadsigns to guide them where you want them to go. When you find the right tactic you’ll see the results: more page views for those areas that weren’t getting the traffic you wanted.
