The Lazy PBX Front Page

Your front page is where most people land when they first visit.  It’s going to be THE MOST IMPORTANT PAGE on your website, it’s where you get your first pitch to potential consumers.

Most people who land will take about 3 seconds to scan the page, if it ‘s not what they want or confusing they will leave IMMEDIATELY.  Here is where you will look to convert many of the organic search results (the best kind, the free kind).

We have some simple rules for making a home page work.

1. Keep it very simple – Don’t clutter the page.
2. Make the page search friendly: valid HTML, relevant titles, include keywords, limited graphics, limited flash.
3. Place a brief ‘pitch’ sentence in a prominent location which explains exactly what the site does.
4. Follow web layout conventions ( you may prefer to underline all your text but most visitors expect underline to be a link etc..)
5. Cover the 3 bits of  information which  are most relevant to the visitor (price ?, benefit?, feature?)
6. Have a clear call to action button (SIGN UP HERE)
7. Re-assure your visitor that what you offer works and is actively maintained  ( testimonials, social networks, regular updates, contact information  etc.. )
8. Put yourself in the place of the visitor and get feedback from others (who don’t know what your site is about)

Some  nice examples

http://twitter.com/
http://www.tango.me/
http://www.zoho.com/

Here’s some of the stuff we want to say to our potential customer on the home page.

• The Pitch “Your Instant Online Business Phone Solution”
• Title “LazyPBX – Your Instant Business Phone Solution”
• Keywords “PBX, Hosted PBX, Business Phone System, Virtual Phone Numbers, Virtual Receptionist, Virtual Switchboard”
• Message 1 “Simple to use, no need for PBX hardware or long term contract”
• Message 2 “Can be used/managed from anywhere with any type of phone”
• Message 3 “Very cost effective, starts at a low cost and you only pay for features you require”
• Here’s a quick tour
• Here’s a free demo
• These some of our customers, and we’re part of  a community.

Remember that once you have the page up and running  you can fine tune later for conversions using tools like Googles Website Optimizer

Here’s a photoshop draft of how our home page will look