The key to keeping today’s prospects from leaving your site before they convert:

Designing a home page that’s easy for visitors to process — mentally.

Three questions worth asking when designing a home page: How will the readers’ eyes immediately perceive the page? Will it motivate them to go further? Can they find what they’re looking for in a quick scan?

To answer these questions, you must first find out what type of layout the visitors coming to your Web site prefer. Two successful types of page layouts have emerged:

• F-shaped pattern. This is designed for visitors who start by reading across the top of the page (the top bar of the F), then move down the page a bit and read in a second horizontal movement, stopping in the middle of the page (the middle bar of the F). And finally, they read down the left edge of the page (the F’s stem).
• Traditional layout (see figure below). This is for visitors who start in the upper left-hand corner and go diagonally to the lower-right corner, then read down the left edge of the page and down the right edge of the page.

The advantage of using the traditional design is that many Web users are already accustomed to it. They typically know how to use this design to get to the info they’re looking for.

Typically, traditional pages place their logo and navigation bars at the top of the page, while the main message and teasers are placed in the middle. And finally, any calls to action are placed the right-hand column.

Meanwhile, the F-shaped pattern — a theory championed by usability expert Jakob Nielsen — has a more interesting pedigree.

Researchers used an eye-tracking study to examine how people look at a range of Web pages. And readers’ scanning habits were found to be consistent — usually forming a roughly-shaped F.

To accommodate these visitors, the most important info on the site is usually concentrated across the top of the page and down the left-hand column.

The easiest way to decide which design is most effective for your site? Conduct an A/B split test to see which design works best with your audience.

Just be sure the same info is displayed on both home pages. Then direct half of your visitors to one site and the rest to the other — and see which page delivers the higher conversion rate.

Info: Here’s a free report on how to conduct eye-tracking studies.

Check these hot spots

Changes other marketers plan to make in the second half of 2009:

• 62% will clean up and reorganize home pages and product pages
• 49% will sharpen navigation, and
• 47% will improve on-site search.

Spread resources out

But before spending lots of resources on the home page, it’s smart to check where most visitors land.

The reason? On average, only 21% of visitors enter company Web sites through the front door — the home page, found a recent MarketingSherpa.com study. The rest land on inside pages that search engines link to.

So it’s worth focusing most resources on updating the hottest landing spots — interior product pages.