Optimize Your Masthead for First-Time Visitors

Telling users who you are and what you do with your tagline or welcome blurb front and center

There are a few places upon entering a website where we expect to find certain information that can contribute to understanding of what the site is in front of us.

Among them include the tagline and the welcome blurb. Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think, offers some insight into user behaviors upon arrival at new sites.

• The Tagline
  • Your site ID should be first and foremost but next to it should come your tagline. We use this tagline to decipher what the site is about.

• The Welcome blurb
  • The welcome blurb should be just as it reads. A sanctioned area on your site that gives a brief overview of the site without making the user look elsewhere for information

• • Most users will try and guess themselves but having this blurb offers a source for them to fall back on if their guess goes unsatisfied.

• Use as much space as necessary
  • Most web builders feel that using too much space will infringe on the interest level of the viewers. Try and use as much as you need to get the point across without crowding the space of other information. If your page turns out to be 800 pixels wide then so be it as long as the information is legible and uninterrupted by neighboring information.
• Don’t use a mission statement as a Welcome Blurb.
  • Commonly no one reads these prepared statements of what their site will do. Stick to the facts and make it quick.
• True to the test
  • Be sure to include questions about this in your usability tests to see if your message and “main points” are clear.

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