Limit Text on the Home Page

Please excuse my blog, or other blogs. Not all websites are built the same, and the advice to limit text on the home page may not apply to you. In most cases though, limiting prose text on the home page is good advice, and this can even be applied to a blog.

Websites need tag lines or introduction messages. It helps the new visitors out immensely. What new visitors don’t need is a huge paragraph or two on the home page, explaining the website. Leave that for an about us page.

Imagine eBay with Prose Text

Using eBay as an example, you can see why using too much, or in eBay’s case, any unnecessary text would be a complete waste of time.

Here is a screenshot of their home page now:

Looking at the home page, I think it is safe to say any new visitor would get it. It’s an online store. There are several clues. There are pictures of products to buy, prices, and offers for free shipping. Does the site really need a long introduction on what they do? No.

Here is an example of eBay’s website where I inserted prose text for example. I put a big X through the text as a reminder to those of you skimming this article, to limit the use of prose text.

Text Pushed Best Content Down

So what happened when I inserted all the text? Did the new visitor gain any kind of extra insight to eBay? Are they better equipped to use the site now? Not really. The money man says they didn’t even read all of it. Did you?

Did you also notice what happened to the visual clues that were previously seen above the fold? They got shoved down by the text. The pictures moved down, the prices are no longer visible, and the giant free shipping text was pushed below the fold as well.

That text better be screaming important to have that kind of effect. The best advice on how much text to put on the home page? Keep it short, keep it sweet. If it is longer than three sentences, you might want to consider creating a unique page for it. That’s what eBay did.