← OG Academy · Be found: your website and SEO · 5分
Your homepage in 5 seconds: what visitors must see first
Most visitors decide whether to stay before they have read a single word. Design for those five seconds.
One image, big
Your strongest work, full width, no text competing with it. A grid of twelve thumbnails asks the visitor to choose; one large image simply shows them what you do.
Choose the piece that is most typical of you, not necessarily the one you are proudest of. The homepage sets an expectation the rest of the site should meet.
Three things must be answerable instantly
Who are you, what do you make, and what can I do here. A name, a discipline and a way forward — "View all works", "Book a studio visit", "Buy".
If a stranger cannot answer those three questions in five seconds, the homepage is not finished.
Cut the welcome paragraph
"Welcome to my website. Here you will find a selection of my work." Nobody has ever read that sentence and felt something. Replace it with one line that says something true about your work.
Long introductions belong on the about page, where the people who already care will find them.
Make the next step obvious
One clear button, not five. Whatever you most want a visitor to do — see the work, join your list, contact you — should be the most visible element after the image.
On Online Gallery you can pin a call to action with an artwork of your choice; use it for exactly this.
要約
One large representative image, your name and discipline visible immediately, no welcome paragraph, and a single obvious next step.