In this lesson you're going to learn how to design a home page that works.
I've been through many iterations of my own home page on my web site and for a while I thought it was
working.
But when I looked at the data that showed who's visiting my web site and what they're doing after they
visit my home page I found out that it wasn't working.
So I talked to some business experts who specialize in creating homepages and landing pages and web
sites that work and learn some of the key things to keep in mind when designing your own home page.
The first thing is you really need to know your audience who is coming to your home page because that
affects what you put on your home page.
The next thing is what do you want that visitor to do.
Do you want them to sign up for email.
Do you want them to visit a particular page.
Do you want them to see all of the content that you have perhaps you want them to see.
Your latest piece of content or maybe you just have a product or a service and you want to promote that
product or service.
All of these are great ideas for a web site's purpose and for a purpose of a home page.
But you have to choose one to focus on.
And that's why when you visit video school online dot com Now the home page caters to people who want
to teach their own online courses.
I found that that was my biggest and the best target market that I had visiting my web site.
Yes.
I've been creating content on how to create videos and how to do photography for many years.
But still the people that knew me the people that knew video school online were coming to the site to
learn how to create better online courses.
And so I redesigned my home page so that when you reach videos online BCom the main thing is my free
PTF my lead magnet with an opt in form to build my tribe.
Ultimately you want people to subscribe to your email list.
This is your list.
This is something that you can take with you whether you change your website you'd lose your website
you lose your business.
You can always keep your list and try to build from that.
So building a list is so important and that's why a lot of Web sites you'll see have optin forms on
the home page.
I'd then validate myself with the ads featured on with different places where I post my online courses.
But then I also include recent articles and podcasts.
And then my top course bundles.
And the reason why I included this because you have to balance giving enough content on your home page
to keep it interesting for someone who's new and directing people to the best of the best that you have
to offer.
Which for me are my course bundles where I actually sell a bundle of courses for a low monthly price.
I don't want people to have to wait or to sift through my pages to find these coarse bundles.
I want people to know about them right away.
Same with my recent articles and podcast.
I don't want people to necessarily have to go to the podcast or the blog page to find my latest content
because a lot of people will be coming straight to video school online.com whether it's their first
time or they're returning.
Like I said.
And so having this extra content here is important.
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
opt forum with a great lead magnet on the home page.
Now let's look at the other Web sites to see what they're doing with their home page and see if we could
learn from them with smart passive income.
When you go to his Web site The first is a big banner with a learn more button and this takes you to
the start here page.
There's also an email optin at the bottom of the page above the fold above the fold means on any Web
site.
The area above where you have to scroll down anything that I have to scroll down to that's below the
fold anything above is what you see when you log onto that page.
So what Pat is doing here is he is trying to warm up his audience.
If there's a brand new visitor by going to learn more page which is the start here page but he's also
trying to get people to sign up for his email list right here on the home page as well down below.
He has content that people are looking for when they visit Smar passive income including his latest
posts and his resources.
This is how Pat makes most of his money by being an affiliate for different resources.
And so he wants to put that on his home page down at the bottom.
He has a nother Click here to subscribe but in trying to get people to opt in.
And one thing you'll notice at the top of his page is his income reports.
This is proof that he is the real deal.
Prove that he knows what he's talking about.
So having this on his home page is a really good idea.
So Pat is running a very similar business to me or I'll reverse that.
I'm running a very similar business to Pat and with this home page he's trying to build that tribe with
his email list but also share content that the audience will like.
Let's go over to simple green smoothies you can see on their home page they have a number of latest
recipes and there's big opt in or this big banner for a few different things.
But the main one is this seven day reset.
This is their main lead magnet.
This is a seven day e-mail sequence.
It's a seven day sequence for someone to start with the whole smoothie trend.
And so this is what they want people to sign up for because after you sign up for this they have you
on their e-mail list.
They also can promote their book to you they can promote their meal plans to you and promote all of
their products to you.
And that's why when you visit their home page this is a big banner on their home page but they also
know that their visitors want a lot recipes.
If you are a smoothie junkie you want to go to a smoothie recipe site and see lots of different recipes.
You don't want it to be the same recipe over and over and over.
So they're catering to their audience by providing enough content to make sure that whoever is visiting
has enough things to look at.
Now let's look at college in vogue in the last lesson we looked at Thomas's own personal site.
But I wanted to show how he runs his college info geek site for this lesson because his home page is
kind of similar to the other ones.
But I wanted to show you this because he designs it kind of using the same techniques that I'm using
that Palin's using and that simple green smoothies is using but it's all based on his latest and his
best content.
Yes.
At the top.
He does have this.
Show me where to start.
But and this big banner that takes you to the start here page he also has this opt in lead magnet at
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
people signing up for his tribe there.
But really a big focus for him on his home page is his content and he is the college info geek.
So you would expect this you would expect him to be putting out a ton of great information.
This is what people are looking for from him.
So he includes his latest article and his latest podcast.
So this is a really good idea and this is something that you know I'm using inspiration from people
like this to redesign my home page all the time.
It's a fluid process.
I never feel like I'm done with editing my website one because trends change and I want to make sure
that my website is fluid and stays up with the trends of homepages and just general web site design.
I like that he has his latest article and his latest podcast so that when ever anyone returns to his
Web site they can quickly access that piece of content.
If you're building a tribe your goal is that people will be returning to your Web site week after week
after week and they'll get used to going to your home page and then just clicking on your latest article
on the right.
He has his popular posts and so these are some posts that he can kind of hand pick.
He might be using a plug in that automatically creates a list of popular posts but I'm guessing that
he's actually hand-picking these so that people are more likely to click on them.
For example he has his ultimate guide to building a personal Web site which is a great article by the
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
popular articles that get the most high praise the most likes the most comments he puts them on here
and he finds ways to make sure that his articles while educating are also driving income for him at
the bottom you can see that he is using one of these bars where you can sign up for his email list.
Clicking on that brings up a pop up and you'll get his free guide if you enter your email list no matter
what your Web site is whether it's a photographer your portfolio or a business web site for your law
office.
Look at other Web sites in your niche and find out what they're doing.
Use what's working to build your own web site.
You don't have to reinvent the wheel here.