The personal website is not dead. Not by a long shot. You might think that with all the options social media has to offer, having a website at all might seem like a waste of time. But it’s far from that. Personal websites offer a tremendous amount of value to any business or personal brand.
But the question that immediately follows “do we launch a website or not?” is “what should the landing page be?” It’s an important one. This is the thing that people are going to see right off the bat. This is your shot at a “first impression”.
So what do you do? Well, essentially, you have two options. One, you can make it a jab: make it something that provides value to the person visiting your site. An interesting article. Helping information. Engaging content. Or, you can make it a right hook: a solid, straight-to-the-point ask for that visitor’s business, whether that’s “watch my show” or “buy my shit.”
Landing page: jab or right hook?
This depends enormously on what your business is trying to do.
If your business is selling something, you need some level of right hook in there straight away because this might be the only page people land on, right?
However, if you’re selling information, or you’re looking to build brand awareness, you can start off with a jab and still get the goals accomplished.
True story: my agency VaynerMedia had a terrible website when we first in business. In fact, it almost looked as if we were going out of business. And I know that. At that point in time, we didn’t need to showcase the work we were doing, or the clients we working on, or any accolades we could have shown off. We just needed to focus.
I didn’t build up our website and I made sure our social presences spoke only to company culture, not to the work we were doing. Why? Because I was David. And when you’re David, you don’t play Goliath’s game. I needed to make sure that the bigger agencies didn’t know how big we were actually getting. That was my competitive play.
It comes down to this: whatever you are trying to achieve, your strategy needs to reflect that. The actions that you put out to the world need to replicate the mission you’ve set out to capitalize on. Down to every detail.
Your landing page is an enormous detail. Are you trying to sell a lot of shit? Make it a right hook! Ask for that! Are you trying to establish a media company? Put your best God damn article up there. Don’t bury the lead. Don’t make people look for what you’re all about. Your landing page should reflect where you’ve been and where you’re going.
