A Masterclass In Keeping Your Homepage Simple

While you’re reading the next paragraph, imagine how hard it would be to figure out what to put on the homepage of a company like this:

GE is one of the biggest companies in the world: They’re currently 6th in the ‘Fortune 500′. Their annual tax return is the longest in the Unites States. The company is made up of several ‘groups’, each consisting of dozens of smaller companies. GE has a long history, and was founded by Thomas Edison.

Where would you begin to start? Imagine how complicated the homepage would need to be to get all of that across, to appeal to all of the different types of visitors.

Well - Here’s GE’s current homepage:

So how have they managed to keep it so simple, yet remain useful?

Here are five lessons to learn from this

1. Focus On Your Audience

There are millions of things GE could have put on this page. If you look at the top nav, you’ll see almost every element on the pages answers one simple question: “what information would someone come to our site for?”

2. You Don’t Have To Show Everything At Once

The top navigation is clean and simple. Move the mouse over it & you can dig deeper into each section.

All of the images use rollovers. If you’re interested, you’ll move the mouse over the image & immediately find out more.

3. Photos Tell Stories Quickly

Look at the photos on the page.

The apple says ‘environmentally friendly’. The main image (which changes on reload) says ‘diversity, positivity, hope, good health’. The boy with the afro says ‘diversity, the future, funding good causes’. The jet engine says ‘innovation, technology, business’.

This can be used on any homepage.

4. Balance what your visitors want with what you want to tell your visitors

I mentioned that most of the elements on the page answer the question “what would someone be looking for on our site?”. There are a few exceptions to this, and they all answer a different question. You could pose that question like this:

“We know what our visitors are looking for. Aside from that, what do we want to tell them?”

You’ll notice ‘Innovation’ is the first element in the top navigation. Nobody would go to the GE site thinking “I want to know about GE’s innovation”. This is a brand positioning element. They’ve put it up front because they want us to know about their innovation. And it works - I moved the mouse over it & found out more.
The same with the main image - would anyone come to the page looking to find out about ‘Early Health’? Probably not. But GE position it in such a way to try & get the chance to tell us about it.

5. When you write, Make it count

People don’t often ‘read’ company homepages. They ’scan’ them - just like they would scan through a search results page. GE understand this, and have kept their copy to one short paragraph. Here it is:

GE IS IMAGINATION AT WORK From jet engines to power generation, financial services to water processing, and medical imaging to media content, GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world’s toughest problems.

In this one quick paragraph you know:

• GE are worldwide
• They’re problem solvers
• They’re people-focused
• They’re an ‘ideas’ company
• They’re a ‘products’ company
• They’re a ’service’ company
• They cover dozens of markets

So there you have it - 5 simple principles from the world’s largest company, that can be used on any homepage.

Further Reading

• Keeping your home page clean - BoagWorld.com
• Keep your Web Pages simple - Nick Usborne
• “Keep It Simple Stupid” Landing Pages - Roberta Rosenberg @ Copyblogger