"The value is in the land"
ìLocation! Location! Location!î

ìInvest in land..they aren't making any more of it"

Those real estate axioms are well known and are even truer today than ever. But they also are applicable to your website.

We hear and read every day how our websites are competing with millions of others in the great race to be found online. We have to first work, work and work some more to get our piece of "web real estate" in a position to be found through search engine management and placement. We secure as many quality links as we can get. We meticulously research our ultimate key word phrases and then pay for the best position. All of this just to get your website on the screen in front of a potential customer.

Once the customer is looking at your page, you have just seconds to capture enough of her attention to keep her there a few more seconds, then a minute, maybe two or three minutes. Long enough to read your information and then gain enough confidence in you, who you are, and what you are offering to actually place an order or seek more information.

Know what the odds of all that coming together are?

Ever hear of the lottery?

So what does all this have to do with web page real estate?

When your landing page pops up on the viewer's monitor, what do they see? Without scrolling down the page, without clicking on any links, what is immediately visible? This initial space, considering a typical browser occupies about one inch at the top can make or break your goal of getting them to hang around long enough to find out what your site is all about.

So you can now see how critical it is when designing your main or index page. Give it some serious thought when planning this page. Your subsequent pages are worthless if the viewer's attention isn't held long enough to even discover you have anything else to say. The value of your index page real estate is very high. Make sure that what they see and read from that initial screen view is the best you have. Make it your knock out punch. Do not waste the space with boring, self-indulging rhetoric. Don't fill it up with words about you and your company and how long you have been in business, what your goals are etc. If you want to make that info available do it via a link or popup.

On one of my sites, I use an 'about button' that when hovered over with the mouse, a popup displays a brief paragraph about my site and what it will do for them. My 'about' info is there to be read and it does not take my viewer away from my main page.

Maybe a good analogy would be a newspaper in a street rack. Publishers discovered a long time ago that what was visible through the paper rack on the top half of the folded newspaper was their billboard to sell papers. The headlines and articles that would show through the rack window had to be powerful and compelling to grab your attention as you walked by and make you drop coins in the slot and buy a paper.

The portion of your page that is immediately visible when your page is viewed is very important. It's the most valuable part of your web page real estate.

Don't believe that this space should be used for hype, fancy graphics and flashy demos unless those presentations enhance or convey your message. Usually, your visitors are not there to be amused. They are there for information. Give them what they want right away or you risk losing them forever.



About the Author
Ray Hadorn rhadorn2@fuse.net Ray is a freelance writer, photographer and web site developer. Ray is the owner of www.ALittleExtraMoney.com which provides tips, reports and information useful to help you make your site profitable and www.SaveMyGas.com that provides a very revealing guide to help you save money on your gasoline consumption.