Advertising your website means sending potential customers to your homepage right? Why not, since it’s the first page you want prospects to see so they can decide where to go next. Makes perfect sense… even though it’s the wrong strategy!

Here are five important reasons why:

• Your homepage serves many types of visitors. You’ve got customers and prospects landing on your homepage. Customers trust you, know how to navigate your site, and are open to discovering something new along the way. Prospects don’t know you, are very impatient, and have one specific purpose in mind. Sound the same? Not at all! You’ve also got homepage users that want to learn about your company, find a job, or need help with a problem. Remember, without a focus on prospects, it’s hard to turn them into customers.

• Everybody influences your homepage design. Your homepage reflects that great tradition of democracy… everybody gets a say! Marketing, sales, editorial, technology, and let’s not forget the CEO, each has an opinion on what the homepage should look like and how it can serve their (often conflicting) interests. So don’t be surprised if your online sales numbers aren’t what you’d hoped for.

• Homepages are about navigation… not sales! Most website visitors are thinking: “just passing through”, when they land on a homepage. That’s why good navigation is a rule of homepage design. But having your homepage be the first page a prospect sees also means they may be tempted to navigate to a place where it’s much harder for you to convince them to buy.

• Homepages have many distractions. Blinking ads, breaking news stories, and featured products… not to mention some person talking in a video! How will your prospects know where to click? Your homepage can be like an unfamiliar mall during the Christmas shopping season when you have one last present to find. Do you really want potential customers feeling like that?

• Homepages are hard to optimize. Your homepage serves multiple audiences and purposes, so it can be hard to optimize since there are lots of trade-offs to consider. Too many when compared to a “landing page” that has only one goal in mind: get the prospect to order the product, fill out the form, download the white paper… or whatever action you want your prospects to take!

Instead of using your homepage, you need to create a landing page customized for your ad campaign, target audience, specific offer… you get the idea! And landing pages are easy to set up and optimize, especially when compared to your homepage.

Okay, your website’s up and listed with the online yellow pages… and you’re paying someone to have the search engines (i.e. Google) send lots of visitors to your site. But your phone isn’t ringing. Your site has lots of helpful information so visitors can learn all about you and the wonderful services you offer. But your phone isn’t ringing. And on your homepage, you have pictures of smiling people to make everyone think: “I’ll also be smiling when I use this service”. But your phone still isn’t ringing!

How to use your website to generate phone calls

Your website needs to be good at generating phone call inquiries for your business. Just follow these basic rules to get the phones ringing:

• Make sure your phone number is “above the fold”. Many website visitors won’t realize they have to scroll down on your homepage to find your phone number. Or they won’t stick around long enough to figure it out.

• Display it at the top of your homepage. When seeing a web page, we start at the top and scan from left to right. So display your phone number in the upper left or right of your homepage so prospects can see it right away. Follow this rule for every page of your site.

• Make it twice as big as it is now. You know where your phone number is located on your web pages but your visitors don’t. So however big it is now… it’s probably not big enough. Double its size to make your phone number impossible to miss!

• Show your phone number more than once. Don’t be shy about showing off your phone number. The top and bottom of your web pages are good places. Also, next to your website navigation menu and any special promotions you’re advertising on the site.

• Use a toll-free number. People are more inclined to call if they know if won’t cost them. So make it easy… use a toll-free number! And put “toll-free” next to the number so there’s no doubt when a prospect starts to dial.

That’s it for now… my phone is ringing!