How to Make a Good Home Page

Create a good home page.

A website is one of the best ways to promote yourself or your work. Whether you are a writer, a business owner or run a non-profit organization, a website can be desirable and useful. Even people who do not have extensive skills can create a good home page.

Instructions

1. Conceive a strong name and description for your website to be displayed on your home page. The name of your website is considered your tag line. Examples of good tag lines, as reported at Daily Blog Tips, are "Perez Hilton: Celebrity Juice. Not from concentrate", "Lifehacker: Don't live to geek, geek to live!" and "Boing Boing: A directory of wonderful things." Spend some time on this step. Think of your home page as your first impression.

2. Choose the appropriate color scheme for a good home page. Make sure that the background and text colors are easy on the eyes. As reported at Avangate, "The best combination for readability is black text on white background, but there are also other excellent combinations."

3. Pick your images for your homepage carefully. As reported at Useit.com, "It's almost always best to show photos of real people actually connected to the topic, rather than pictures of models." In addition, don't put too many graphics on your page. "Use graphics sparingly to convey information. Each graphic takes another trip to the server," Internet.com advises.

4. Create an "About" section for a good home page. Make sure that it answers the who, what, when, where and why of your website. The section can appear either on your home page or on a separate page. However, if the description of your website is displayed on a separate page, it is important that you have a prominent link on your home page designated for the "About" section. For example, at The Straight Dope, there is a link titled "Who is Cecil Adams." When viewers click on that link, located on the home page, they can learn more about The Straight Dope. Along with your "About" link, place a "Topics," "Archives," "Photos" or other general links. Focus on four to five links to navigate people through your website. Keep all the links in one place. The Consumerist, for example, places all their links at the top of their website.

5. Include a search box for a good home page. Viewers lead busy lives and they want to get to information on the Internet as quickly as possible. A search box located on the home page lets them get to information faster or return to information viewed at an earlier time.

Tips & Warnings

• At Web Pages That Suck, one of "The Biggest Mistakes in Web Design 1995-2015" is filling your home page with too much material. Remember that less is more when it comes to the home page. You don't want to overwhelm your visitors.

References

• Useit.com: Top Ten Guidelines for Homepage Usability
• Internet.com: What Makes a Great Web Site
• The Consumerist
• The Straight Dope
• Avangate: Choosing the Right Colors for Your Web Site

Resources

• Web Pages That Suck: The Ugliest / Worst Web Sites of 2009