WEBVTT 00:00.170 --> 00:04.880 In this lesson you're going to learn how to design a home page that works. 00:04.890 --> 00:10.890 I've been through many iterations of my own home page on my web site and for a while I thought it was 00:10.890 --> 00:11.420 working. 00:11.430 --> 00:17.700 But when I looked at the data that showed who's visiting my web site and what they're doing after they 00:17.700 --> 00:20.930 visit my home page I found out that it wasn't working. 00:20.970 --> 00:27.100 So I talked to some business experts who specialize in creating homepages and landing pages and web 00:27.100 --> 00:32.840 sites that work and learn some of the key things to keep in mind when designing your own home page. 00:32.850 --> 00:38.670 The first thing is you really need to know your audience who is coming to your home page because that 00:38.670 --> 00:40.760 affects what you put on your home page. 00:40.770 --> 00:44.700 The next thing is what do you want that visitor to do. 00:44.700 --> 00:47.360 Do you want them to sign up for email. 00:47.370 --> 00:50.340 Do you want them to visit a particular page. 00:50.340 --> 00:55.020 Do you want them to see all of the content that you have perhaps you want them to see. 00:55.020 --> 01:00.330 Your latest piece of content or maybe you just have a product or a service and you want to promote that 01:00.330 --> 01:01.660 product or service. 01:01.710 --> 01:07.110 All of these are great ideas for a web site's purpose and for a purpose of a home page. 01:07.110 --> 01:09.090 But you have to choose one to focus on. 01:09.090 --> 01:15.540 And that's why when you visit video school online dot com Now the home page caters to people who want 01:15.540 --> 01:17.820 to teach their own online courses. 01:17.820 --> 01:24.710 I found that that was my biggest and the best target market that I had visiting my web site. 01:24.750 --> 01:25.180 Yes. 01:25.200 --> 01:31.290 I've been creating content on how to create videos and how to do photography for many years. 01:31.320 --> 01:36.960 But still the people that knew me the people that knew video school online were coming to the site to 01:36.960 --> 01:40.020 learn how to create better online courses. 01:40.020 --> 01:47.340 And so I redesigned my home page so that when you reach videos online BCom the main thing is my free 01:47.570 --> 01:52.100 PTF my lead magnet with an opt in form to build my tribe. 01:52.140 --> 01:55.530 Ultimately you want people to subscribe to your email list. 01:55.530 --> 01:56.850 This is your list. 01:56.850 --> 02:01.800 This is something that you can take with you whether you change your website you'd lose your website 02:01.980 --> 02:03.360 you lose your business. 02:03.480 --> 02:06.900 You can always keep your list and try to build from that. 02:06.900 --> 02:12.720 So building a list is so important and that's why a lot of Web sites you'll see have optin forms on 02:12.720 --> 02:13.600 the home page. 02:13.610 --> 02:19.760 I'd then validate myself with the ads featured on with different places where I post my online courses. 02:19.800 --> 02:23.460 But then I also include recent articles and podcasts. 02:23.490 --> 02:26.180 And then my top course bundles. 02:26.190 --> 02:31.710 And the reason why I included this because you have to balance giving enough content on your home page 02:31.920 --> 02:39.060 to keep it interesting for someone who's new and directing people to the best of the best that you have 02:39.060 --> 02:39.700 to offer. 02:39.720 --> 02:46.810 Which for me are my course bundles where I actually sell a bundle of courses for a low monthly price. 02:46.830 --> 02:53.220 I don't want people to have to wait or to sift through my pages to find these coarse bundles. 02:53.220 --> 02:55.170 I want people to know about them right away. 02:55.170 --> 02:57.610 Same with my recent articles and podcast. 02:57.630 --> 03:04.620 I don't want people to necessarily have to go to the podcast or the blog page to find my latest content 03:04.650 --> 03:09.570 because a lot of people will be coming straight to video school online.com whether it's their first 03:09.570 --> 03:11.010 time or they're returning. 03:11.010 --> 03:11.710 Like I said. 03:11.730 --> 03:15.100 And so having this extra content here is important. 03:15.120 --> 03:19.830 But at the end of the day my goal is to get someone on my email list and that's why I have this big 03:19.830 --> 03:23.070 opt forum with a great lead magnet on the home page. 03:23.070 --> 03:27.390 Now let's look at the other Web sites to see what they're doing with their home page and see if we could 03:27.390 --> 03:29.610 learn from them with smart passive income. 03:29.700 --> 03:35.220 When you go to his Web site The first is a big banner with a learn more button and this takes you to 03:35.220 --> 03:36.500 the start here page. 03:36.510 --> 03:43.410 There's also an email optin at the bottom of the page above the fold above the fold means on any Web 03:43.410 --> 03:43.850 site. 03:43.860 --> 03:49.440 The area above where you have to scroll down anything that I have to scroll down to that's below the 03:49.440 --> 03:53.670 fold anything above is what you see when you log onto that page. 03:53.670 --> 03:57.470 So what Pat is doing here is he is trying to warm up his audience. 03:57.490 --> 04:04.050 If there's a brand new visitor by going to learn more page which is the start here page but he's also 04:04.140 --> 04:09.080 trying to get people to sign up for his email list right here on the home page as well down below. 04:09.080 --> 04:14.850 He has content that people are looking for when they visit Smar passive income including his latest 04:14.910 --> 04:17.520 posts and his resources. 04:17.520 --> 04:22.780 This is how Pat makes most of his money by being an affiliate for different resources. 04:22.830 --> 04:26.240 And so he wants to put that on his home page down at the bottom. 04:26.250 --> 04:31.040 He has a nother Click here to subscribe but in trying to get people to opt in. 04:31.140 --> 04:35.010 And one thing you'll notice at the top of his page is his income reports. 04:35.010 --> 04:38.100 This is proof that he is the real deal. 04:38.130 --> 04:40.140 Prove that he knows what he's talking about. 04:40.140 --> 04:43.850 So having this on his home page is a really good idea. 04:43.860 --> 04:47.730 So Pat is running a very similar business to me or I'll reverse that. 04:47.730 --> 04:53.100 I'm running a very similar business to Pat and with this home page he's trying to build that tribe with 04:53.100 --> 04:57.470 his email list but also share content that the audience will like. 04:57.870 --> 05:02.380 Let's go over to simple green smoothies you can see on their home page they have a number of latest 05:02.380 --> 05:08.010 recipes and there's big opt in or this big banner for a few different things. 05:08.020 --> 05:10.540 But the main one is this seven day reset. 05:10.540 --> 05:12.540 This is their main lead magnet. 05:12.550 --> 05:15.370 This is a seven day e-mail sequence. 05:15.370 --> 05:20.400 It's a seven day sequence for someone to start with the whole smoothie trend. 05:20.620 --> 05:26.890 And so this is what they want people to sign up for because after you sign up for this they have you 05:26.890 --> 05:28.280 on their e-mail list. 05:28.420 --> 05:33.480 They also can promote their book to you they can promote their meal plans to you and promote all of 05:33.490 --> 05:34.730 their products to you. 05:34.810 --> 05:39.880 And that's why when you visit their home page this is a big banner on their home page but they also 05:39.880 --> 05:43.580 know that their visitors want a lot recipes. 05:43.600 --> 05:50.200 If you are a smoothie junkie you want to go to a smoothie recipe site and see lots of different recipes. 05:50.200 --> 05:54.040 You don't want it to be the same recipe over and over and over. 05:54.040 --> 06:00.190 So they're catering to their audience by providing enough content to make sure that whoever is visiting 06:00.280 --> 06:01.930 has enough things to look at. 06:01.930 --> 06:07.530 Now let's look at college in vogue in the last lesson we looked at Thomas's own personal site. 06:07.540 --> 06:14.350 But I wanted to show how he runs his college info geek site for this lesson because his home page is 06:14.530 --> 06:16.030 kind of similar to the other ones. 06:16.030 --> 06:21.910 But I wanted to show you this because he designs it kind of using the same techniques that I'm using 06:21.910 --> 06:27.550 that Palin's using and that simple green smoothies is using but it's all based on his latest and his 06:27.550 --> 06:28.420 best content. 06:28.420 --> 06:28.730 Yes. 06:28.750 --> 06:29.440 At the top. 06:29.440 --> 06:30.660 He does have this. 06:30.670 --> 06:31.620 Show me where to start. 06:31.630 --> 06:38.080 But and this big banner that takes you to the start here page he also has this opt in lead magnet at 06:38.080 --> 06:44.290 the top if you want to download his free 10 step guide which is at the top of his web site so he's getting 06:44.290 --> 06:45.890 people signing up for his tribe there. 06:45.910 --> 06:52.240 But really a big focus for him on his home page is his content and he is the college info geek. 06:52.240 --> 06:56.900 So you would expect this you would expect him to be putting out a ton of great information. 06:56.920 --> 06:59.180 This is what people are looking for from him. 06:59.200 --> 07:02.930 So he includes his latest article and his latest podcast. 07:03.010 --> 07:07.660 So this is a really good idea and this is something that you know I'm using inspiration from people 07:07.660 --> 07:10.390 like this to redesign my home page all the time. 07:10.390 --> 07:11.590 It's a fluid process. 07:11.590 --> 07:17.650 I never feel like I'm done with editing my website one because trends change and I want to make sure 07:17.650 --> 07:23.980 that my website is fluid and stays up with the trends of homepages and just general web site design. 07:23.980 --> 07:30.040 I like that he has his latest article and his latest podcast so that when ever anyone returns to his 07:30.040 --> 07:33.350 Web site they can quickly access that piece of content. 07:33.370 --> 07:38.170 If you're building a tribe your goal is that people will be returning to your Web site week after week 07:38.170 --> 07:43.660 after week and they'll get used to going to your home page and then just clicking on your latest article 07:43.930 --> 07:44.780 on the right. 07:44.800 --> 07:50.400 He has his popular posts and so these are some posts that he can kind of hand pick. 07:50.410 --> 07:56.500 He might be using a plug in that automatically creates a list of popular posts but I'm guessing that 07:56.680 --> 08:01.270 he's actually hand-picking these so that people are more likely to click on them. 08:01.270 --> 08:06.070 For example he has his ultimate guide to building a personal Web site which is a great article by the 08:06.070 --> 08:12.220 way but it is sort of a way for him to make money as an affiliate so I'm sure he's looked at his very 08:12.220 --> 08:18.340 popular articles that get the most high praise the most likes the most comments he puts them on here 08:18.370 --> 08:24.580 and he finds ways to make sure that his articles while educating are also driving income for him at 08:24.580 --> 08:31.250 the bottom you can see that he is using one of these bars where you can sign up for his email list. 08:31.270 --> 08:36.880 Clicking on that brings up a pop up and you'll get his free guide if you enter your email list no matter 08:36.880 --> 08:44.050 what your Web site is whether it's a photographer your portfolio or a business web site for your law 08:44.050 --> 08:44.740 office. 08:44.740 --> 08:49.160 Look at other Web sites in your niche and find out what they're doing. 08:49.180 --> 08:51.880 Use what's working to build your own web site. 08:51.880 --> 08:54.350 You don't have to reinvent the wheel here.