When building a new website, or even redesigning an existing website, you know exactly what your company or organization does and what your website offers its users. This information has probably become second nature to you, but a first time visitor to your site won't have a clue. As such, make sure you don't forget to tell them what you do.
As soon as new site visitors arrive at your website the first thing they need to know, before anything else, is what you do. You can talk all you like about how great you are, but unless you spell out what you actually do, they won't even know what you're so great at! This oh-so-overlooked yet such basic of information can be communicated to your site visitors in a number of different ways:
Page Title
Don't just use the page title to tell me who you are; tell me what you do too. If your company is called Blogs Ltd don't only place the words, 'Blogs Ltd' in the page title as there's plenty of room for more information. If Blogs Ltd sells widgets, a good page title might be: 'Blogs Ltd - Buy widgets online'.
Note in this example, 'Buy widgets online' was used to describe what Blogs Ltd does, and not 'Widget seller'. When describing what it is you do be sure to speak the language of your users, and don't talk from your point of view. From your point of view you sell widgets, but from their point of view they want to buy widgets online, so do bear this in mind when authoring the page title.
The page title is the first thing that appears on screen, and especially on dial-up modems can be the only thing that displays for the first 10 seconds or so. For many web users this is the first piece of content they'll read on your site.
The page title is also very important for search engines, which place more importance on the page title than any other on-page element. Descriptive page titles are also essential for blind web users utilizing screen readers, as it's the first thing that gets read aloud to them upon arriving at the page.
Tagline
A good tagline is one of the most important usability features on any website. A good tagline should be explanatory and not vague, clear and informative and about four to eight words in length. A tagline is different to a company slogan, in that the former describes what the organization/website does whereas the latter is designed to evoke certain feeling or create a brand.
'Priceless' and 'I'm loving it' are slogans by MasterCard and McDonald's respectively - they differ from taglines because they don't describe what the organization does.
Taglines are so important because no matter on what page site visitors enter your website, they'll always be able to quickly gain an understanding of what your organization and website offers. This can be especially true for site visitors coming into internal pages from search engines - by telling these site visitors what you do through the tagline; they may be more likely to explore your site beyond the initial page on which they enter.
Taglines are also good for search engine optimization, as they appear on every page right at the top of the page, an area on to which search engines place importance.
Main Heading
The main heading on the homepage is one of the first pieces of text web users notice, especially on clean well laid out websites. Sticking a 'Welcome to our website' may seem to be friendly and welcoming to you, but to task-driven site visitors it doesn't help in any way shape or form. A quick summary of what you do and/or what the website offers, in just four or five words can be highly effective (and very search engine friendly too!).
Opening paragraph
Perhaps the most important place on the homepage to tell your site visitors what you do, the opening paragraph must be short, succinct and straight-to-the-point. Just one sentence is enough to put across this most basic yet fundamental of information.
When writing this opening paragraph, remember to front-load the content (this rule actually applies to every paragraph on the website). Front-loading means putting the conclusion first, followed by the when, what, where and how.
Don't write a story with a start, middle and conclusion - generally speaking on the web, we scan looking for the information that we're after so put the conclusion first. This way, site visitors can read the conclusion first, which in this case is what your organization actually does. If they want to know any more, they can then continue reading or jump to another section of the page. (To see front-loading in action, read any newspaper article.)
Exceptions
So, does every website need to tell users what the organization does in these four different places? Well, not necessarily. We all know what MasterCard and McDonald’s do, so it could definitely be argued that websites for household names need not explicitly say what they do. What these sites should do instead is tell us what the website offers, and this message can (and should) be put across in any of the above four ways - how else will site visitors quickly be able to find this out?
Conclusion
People are going to visit your site who doesn’t know what you do. Before you can even begin selling to them you must tell them what your organization and website does. In addition to fulfilling site visitors' immediate need (finding out what you do) you'll also be boosting your search engine rankings. If your organization is a household name, then instead of explaining what you do, it may be wise to tell site visitors what they can do on your website.
