An image will speak 1,000 words. A relevant image will speak 1,000 relevant words.

Visitors to your website must feel confident.  The landing page needs to effectively and affectively balance the presentation of information with the navigation to information.

Design layout and graphics placement work together to provide a clear path to the information along that path.  A website visitor who can discern in moments where the pathways are, and what lies beyond, feels confident.  Their guesswork is dramatically reduced, and they will be inclined to investigate further.

Confidence is the belief in oneself and one’s powers or abilities.

Designing to instill confidence shows respect to your website visitors, which in turn leads to instilling trust.  A landing page that uses sudden pop-ups, autoplay audio, massive amounts of information boxed across the page, “are you sure?” messages when trying to leave is a landing page designed to tell visitors that they are … well, stupid.  It does not respect that the visitor is capable of making up his or her own mind, or that he or she are capable of understanding what the website is about.  And it’s fear driven, impatient, clingy, pushy…

A good rule of thumb for design layout and graphics placement is to think of your website as being your lobby, reception area, office or whatever area first greets visitors to your business or organization.  How do you want them to feel when they enter?  That’s what your website layout should accomplish, too.