How to Develop a Homepage Layout that Sells
principles of design, user interaction
You couldn’t have failed to notice that pretty much every website on the face of the planet has a homepage, and that every homepage uses the same basic layout. Masthead at the top, navigation underneath and/or along the side(s), main content taking up most of the page, and a footer at the bottom.
It’s common because it works. It differentiates the content that needs to be differentiated, it presents it in a logical order that follows how people read and interact with websites, and it’s relatively simple to code. In fact, HTML5 encourages you to code this way.
If you want to succeed as a web designer, you should stick to this paradigm.
The trouble is, although you know you need a header, navigation links, main content and a footer, it’s pretty hard to decide exactly where to position each, what margins and padding and fonts and colors to use, what items to include or exclude, and all those other details. You need a process you can rely on to ensure that you meet your client’s needs, and aren’t just shooting in the dark.
In this guest article for Smashing Share, I outline the process I use to produce homepages that convert. Click here to read it now…
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