AP 0935: How Should I Set Up My Homepage?

AskPat 935 Episode Transcript

Pat Flynn: Hey, what's up everybody. Pat Flynn here and welcome to Episode 935 of AskPat. Thank you so much for joining me today. As always, I'm here to help you by answering your online business questions five days a week.

Awesome. Thanks so much and here's today's question from Ian.

Ian Mackay: Hi, Pat. My name is Ian Mackay. I run The Next Level Guy, which is available at NextLevelGuy.com. It's a men’s interview, interest, and improvement website where I interview greats from all industries to help others better their lives. Something I'm not quite sure about is how I should set up my site for navigation. Should the person come in to visit the site land on a home page where they can look at all the latest blog posts, or should they come to a landing page which then offers various options, such as my affiliate's page, the latest interviews, latest reviews, et cetera? So my question is, how do you set up your website? Should you have your home page that's got your latest blog posts, or should you look at setting up a landing page with links to the various components on your website? Love what you do. Asked you to be a guest on my show, so I'm hoping to hear back from you soon, and keep doing what you're doing.

Pat Flynn: Hey, Ian. Thank you so much for the question. I really appreciate it. Now, here's the question I want to ask you. There's two questions, essentially: A) What is the most important thing that you want to happen when people come to your page? Is it to sign up for an email list, perhaps, or dig into your content or something else, interact with you in some way, shape or form or register for a webinar or . . . I don't know. I don't know what the answer is, but you have to answer that question for yourself, because that's going to help determine what people see and what you want to be included. Whatever that call to action may be, it should be there somewhere on the home page when they come to your website, right?

And then second of all is, what would be most useful for your audience, to have them go through your website? So, it could be the latest blog post, but a lot of times it's actually not the latest blog posts, because when you think about it a lot of times . . . It depends on your niche, as well, but a lot of times the latest blog post isn't the best starting point. Which is why on SPI, yes I do show the latest blog post, because people typically follow me and just kind of keep up-to-date to the latest things, and so I know to keep that there. But I also know that what's really important is the Start Here page. So that is where people could land or that is what the call to action can be in terms of what people see and what they should get into first. And the reason why a Start Here is really important, is because chronologically speaking, typically if you were to tell somebody that the best way to go through your site was from the start, the very first blog post that you wrote, until now, you'd be crazy, right, because that's not the best way to go through it. It's to go to specific articles that can really walk people through a specific process or the best or the highlights or whatever. That's what is on the Start Here page. That's the different between the Start Here page and an About page, which is more about you. This is like, “Hey, you're here. Awesome. This is where you start and this is the kind of stuff you need to get into right now.”

So, how might you incorporate that into a home page? I think it's going to be also based on your personality and also what it is that you want to show, because it is your voice. Your website is an extension of who you are and the brand that you have, so what are the kinds of things there that would best represent and reflect you and your brand?

So there you go, Ian. There is no right answer for you except the one that you know is best, so just keep going and want to wish you all the best. So, Ian, thank you so much. I want to send you an AskPat t-shirt for having your question featured here on the show. And for those of you listening, if you have a question that you'd like potentially featured here on the show as well, all you have to do is head over to AskPat.com and you can ask right there on that page.

All right and here's a quote to finish off the day, per normal, and that is . . . This is an old saying. It's not a proverb or from a specific place. It just tells me, this is an old saying. And that is, “What is the use of running when you are on the wrong road?” Nice. All right, take care, thanks so much, and I'll see you in the next episode of AskPat. Bye.