That Left-Hand Side: 6 Foundational Steps to Increasing Your Website’s Selling Power (1 of 2)

What do you want your website to do…? Make sales? Get more subscribers to your list? Boost your blog’s readership? Increase credibility? This simple, 6-step blueprint will help lay a solid foundation for any new website, or increase the results of an old one, to catapult its effectiveness.

Ready?

Step 1. Get your eyes on the prize.

What do you want your site to do?

Sure, it can achieve several goals at once (i.e., build your list, increase credibility, secure the sale, etc.). But there needs to be ONE thing you want it to achieve above all else.

What’s that?

You need to know before moving on.

Step 2. Position your site for the win.

Literally.

Your primary focus should now be figuring how to streamline your site, as a whole, to accomplish the goal you just set. But even more specifically, decide how to position the content of t he top, left-hand side of the first fold of your main page to work in your favor.

The "first fold" is the uppermost part of the Web page that visitors sees before doing any vertical scrolling.

You should NOT have a massive header and/or taking up this valuable screen real estate, unless your site is designed for branding purposes, for instance. (Hint: Most small business owners don’t have the budget to drive people to a site primarily to build a brand name.)

You should NOT have a huge portrait of yourself and your dog taking up that space, unless your site’s main goal is to show the world how beautiful you are, or again, for branding purposes. (Hint: Posting a photo on a business site is a good thing, of course. Just don’t let the darn thing be the entire focus of your site — especially not the home page — again, unless branding is your site’s primary goal.)

Note, though, over recent years logos and header art in particular have gotten … HUGE. Just look at the length of most blog headers nowadays. Uck. If the average browser’s viewable area is only about 615 (vertical) pixels, for instance, why do designers take up nearly half that (250px) or more to display images which aren’t even sexy to begin with?

It’s true that the "left-hand side" specifically has become less and less popular. But it’s still critical to use the top fold of your page to establish and enforce your site’s goal.

It can mean the difference between visitors who stick around because they SEE the content or widget they came to explore, and visitors who leave because there’s way too much "fluff" and not enough … umm … stuff that’s not "fluff".

3. Stay alert for real-world examples.

Example A: http://www.homebizworldwide.com

This website is clearly designed to achieve one goal, and one alone — to get new members to join the business opportunity advertised. This is evident because:

1. 1. The top, left-hand side is used for navigation (a layout standard, yes) … but even the very FIRST link in the nav column is for a visitor to sign up as an "Affiliate".
   2. The banner at the very top of the page also directs one to learn more about the program and sign up as an affiliate.
   3. The headline and mini sales letter themselves both reinforce this goal.
   4. Even the very first navigational link at the bottom of the page for "Affiliate" signup.

Notice a trend here?

Example B: http://24ways.org

Even simpler than that, the yearly "24 Ways" blog, which offers Web design and development tutorials 24 days out of the year. (Errrr… I think …lol)

This site is content and ONLY content. No extraneous designs or images, no blathering on about nothing on the home page — they just get right to the goods.

Gotta love that.

They’ve branded themselves with "24" three times on the home page alone, to reinforce their brand. There’s not any contact info, etc., in the footer — you’ll find that at the end of the individual articles.

I must admit — when I first found this site, I was like, "well what the heck is this …?" But I got lost in the content almost immediately (because there’s all there was to get lost in – awesome teasers!), so in the process, I figured it out. (Well, kind of. ;))

At any rate, this site is solely about design and development, and boy do they know their stuff. And they want you to know they know it, too.

Example C: http://www.synonym.com

A site to look up synonyms (obviously) and antonyms (not so painfully obvious). Their top left-hand side is comprised solely of sponsored links (of course! they surely don’t get any money by you browsing around for synonyms).

You can see that they want you to get on to helping them generate some income first and foremost, and to save "browsing by synonyms, antonyms, and definitions" last. (Notice the little nav column wayyyyyyyyy down on the left underneath the sponsored links? You didn’t…? Exactly!)

Hmm, well I’ve yakked on for 757 words, so it’s a good time to break for Part 2 , where I’ll show you how not to just sit around and "talk about" using your site’s left-hand side to boost efficiency and profitability … but how actually to put all your new ideas into practice .

Til then…

- H.T.

 Respected Business & Marketing author H.T. Major has nearly a decade of collective experience fine-tuning the art of creating effective, efficient business websites that SELL, and boosting the conversion of existing sites. Now she offers supremely affordable website, photo, & business design services that are not only about creating "pretty pictures", but about creating RESULTS: visit ChumpChangeWebDesign.com.