WebFuzions.co.uk

farscapeone

Community Advocate
Community Support
Messages
1,165
Reaction score
27
Points
48
You don't need an intro page.
 
Last edited:

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Very attractive design...Good work dude!!!!!!

Thankyou, much appreciated.

We are trying to make sure visitors to our site like what they see, and you saying that really help us.

Cheers again :smile:

---------- Post added at 01:22 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:21 PM ----------

You don't need an intro page.

Hmm, do you think a different intro page would help? ... If so what would be on it?

We would like to keep the landing page for SEO reasons.

I look forward to your feedback.

Thanks
 

lemon-tree

x10 Minion
Community Support
Messages
1,420
Reaction score
46
Points
48
Landing pages won't help your search engine rankings, if anything it will be detrimental. A search engine wants to be able to see your content and bases its ranking upon the quality of the links and the content keywords; if the first thing it finds as your homepage is a landing page then it will assume that this page is of highest relevance (Unless you specify within a site-map) and could therefore put a lower importance on your actual content. Therefore, I agree with leviathon that you should remove it.
Some people may argue the inverse, that landing pages are of vital importance; however, I cannot name one big site that utilises one or has utilised one prior to it's discovery. Plus the fact that I will generally just hit the back button if I have to go through a landing page, particularly if it has ads on it.
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Landing pages won't help your search engine rankings, if anything it will be detrimental. A search engine wants to be able to see your content and bases its ranking upon the quality of the links and the content keywords; if the first thing it finds as your homepage is a landing page then it will assume that this page is of highest relevance (Unless you specify within a site-map) and could therefore put a lower importance on your actual content. Therefore, I agree with leviathon that you should remove it.
Some people may argue the inverse, that landing pages are of vital importance; however, I cannot name one big site that utilises one or has utilised one prior to it's discovery. Plus the fact that I will generally just hit the back button if I have to go through a landing page, particularly if it has ads on it.

Hi,

We found that with a landing page our Google ranking improved. Without it we dropped several places from the top of Google.

We have uploaded a sitemap to Google, so it does visit all the pages on the site, not just see's the landing page and bounces off.

We don't have adverts on our landing page, and never intend to introduce them. On a more 'specific' level what do you think of our landing page rather than landing pages as a whole?

Thanks.
 

lemon-tree

x10 Minion
Community Support
Messages
1,420
Reaction score
46
Points
48
My opinion for your landing page is equal to my opinion on every other landing page: they're pointless and just prolong the time until I get to the actual content I was looking for. If I have clicked on a link, I don't then need to be reminded what I just clicked before getting to the site.

If your Google rank dropped after removing it then you should be asking yourself what is wrong with your homepage if a landing page with a single image can beat it.

However, on a much more positive note: once I get to your homepage it does look very well designed with simple navigation and a good portfolio.
 
Last edited:

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
My opinion for your landing page is equal to my opinion on every other landing page: they're pointless and just prolong the time until I get to the actual content I was looking for. If I have clicked on a link, I don't then need to be reminded what I just clicked before getting to the site.

If your Google rank dropped after removing it then you should be asking yourself what is wrong with your homepage if a landing page with a single image can beat it.

However, on a much more positive note: once I get to your homepage it does look very well designed with simple navigation and a good portfolio.

It may have been that I didnt give Google enough time to re-index all pages etc. Our 'welcome' page (landing page) lists above our Home page currently.

Around 95% of all visitors process from our landing page to our home page (data from Google Analytics) The 5% who dont I can only put down to being bots etc.

Thanks for your comments on the overall design.

If anyone else has any comments on the site overall, we would love to hear them.

Thanks
 

callumacrae

not alex mac
Community Support
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
97
Points
48
Except for the landing page, it is very nice :)

~Callum
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Ok, heres an idea ...

How about if i change the "enter site" to say "loading"

Then have an automatic script that takes you to our homepage after 3 seconds on the landing page?

That way there no extra clicks required??
 

callumacrae

not alex mac
Community Support
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
97
Points
48
That would be a lie, though. Nothing is loading. Why don't you just get rid of it entirely?

~Callum
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
As previously mentioned I use the landing page for SEO reasons.

Google uses the META desc. on the landing page, whereas on the homepage it uses the text on the page.

Therefore if we rely on just the homepage we don't get listed as high as we do with the landing page.

Google has our custom sitemap uploaded via webmaster tools, so it always indexes all our pages; so yet again we are no loosing out on anything by having the landing page.

I dont get why it seems to be such an issue, 95% of our users go from our landing page to our homepage, so we are not loosing people by having it.

I will put a 4 second auto redirect on the page, therefore if you don't want to click you don't have to.... ?
 

lemon-tree

x10 Minion
Community Support
Messages
1,420
Reaction score
46
Points
48
I dont get why it seems to be such an issue, 95% of our users go from our landing page to our homepage, so we are not loosing people by having it.
If only 95% are moving from your landing page to your homepage, then you are clearly losing a 5% chunk of your potential customers right away before they even see what you have to offer; in any business a 5% loss could be quite significant, particularly when you are in such a competitive market. Also, you cannot put these down to bots as Google Analytics does not register bots in its results due the the fact that bots do not execute the Javascript on the page.
Google analytics does actually have built in solution for testing various designs and comparing the results against one another to see which works best.

Google uses the META desc. on the landing page, whereas on the homepage it uses the text on the page.
Simple solution, add the meta tags from the landing page to the homepage.
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Ok i think what I am going to do is get rid of the 'landing' page as such, and replace it with a flash intro, that lasts just a few seconds (2 or 3 max) and then fades into the main page.

I just want something that makes our site stand out, rather than just going straight to the main static page.

Thoughts?
 

callumacrae

not alex mac
Community Support
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
97
Points
48
Even worse! Flash would make me leave the site straight away.

~Callum
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
Ok, I wont do that then :/

I need to have a think about what to do. What we have now is much better as it auto-redirects after 5 seconds so doesn't require any extra clicks.

I have asked a few people on Facebook and they have all said how much they like the landing page. One of our clients also asked if they could have something similar on their site we are making for them.

Im not saying the above to discredit you in any way, we really appreciate all comments as they help us adapt to please our target market.

Do you have any comments on the rest of the site (pretend the landing page doesn't exist) ?
 
Last edited:

callumacrae

not alex mac
Community Support
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
97
Points
48
let's be honest - your users don't want to see fancy graphics, they want to get to the content and get a website :)

~Callum
 

webfuzions

New Member
Messages
18
Reaction score
0
Points
0
On the flip-side they need to see what we are capable of design wise before feeling we're adequate to get a quote from ...
 

callumacrae

not alex mac
Community Support
Messages
5,257
Reaction score
97
Points
48
That's true. Why not move that page to your portfolio then?

~Callum
 
Top