How to create a content-driven front page

[Cedric]

The front page of your forum is the first thing visitors see when they arrive on your site. We've seen it becoming more than a trend where webmasters have a content-driven front page rather than the traditional forum list.

It only takes a few seconds for a guests to like or dismiss your forum - but it's important to make a good impression and provide them with the information they need to get started. One of the best ways to do this is by creating a content-driven front page that showcases your best content and highlights the value of your community.

In this thread, we'll discuss some strategies and best practices for creating a front page that drives engagement and keeps users coming back for more.

What elements do you think are essential for a content-driven front page? And how can you showcase your best content on the front page without overwhelming visitors? How do you balance promoting content with other important elements such as calls-to-action, articles, discussions, navigation, and branding?

How does your front page look like? Feel free to share a link here. You never know someone could offer some feedback how to improve it.

 

[Arantor]

The front page of your forum is the first thing visitors see when they arrive on your site

Is it though?

I wonder about that a lot these days. If you're picking up traffic from direct marketing, referrals, forum signatures, that sort of thing, sure, I can see that being the case.

But that argument sort of undermines the ever-beating drum of 'content is king' - if content in the form of articles etc. is important, *that* should be where people are arriving at your site first, to articles, to content, with the home page being second or third on the list, potentially.

This to me suggests that it is important but perhaps not as important as some have given it thought - it's certainly why the category list has fallen out of favour in recent times, in favour of latest content or in some cases something more exotic with presenting featured topics in almost a magazine style layout. But that requires having well-curated content you can funnel people to rather than the primarily organic content in a forum.

Are we, then, talking about having a front page whose showcase is for more than just the 'community sourced' content?

 

[joelr]

Yes and no to @Arantor. I agree with you that content will drive traffic to the content pages within the community. But I take a slightly more advanced view that the homepage is still important for:
1. For branding purposes. Once you have established brand that people recognize, people will search directly for your site (instead of for your site's content)
2. For repeat visitors or reengaged visitors. These are visitors who initially visited for the content, but now they're browsing around (either on that same initial visit or in a subsequent visit), and they will invariably check out the homepage.

My community is a good example. My homepage drives "only" 33,000 pageviews in the last week out of 1.5 million unique pageviews. So it was a measly 1.65% of my total traffic! But 1.65% is still the highest and most popular page out of all of my community's pages!

 

[kolakube]

More often than not on content-heavy websites the front page is not always the first page to be found, which means a large portion of your reader's first impressions are influenced by something other than your curated front page. By working from the inside out you can better figure out how your front page should be structured and that usually goes something like (in no particular order):

- Featured / Popular content (the most predictably useful)
- Latest content (the eye wants something new)
- Curated content (category/tag/editor's pick/etc.)
- User submitted content (tell me I'm not here by myself)

The scale this structure can variate is based on "special" sources of content like products, newsletter, private community, or some other kind of signup. I am tinkering with some redesigns of my own to even change parts of the front page that may not be as useful to someone who is logged out compared to those who have an account and have purchased something.

 

[Arantor]

Yes and no to @Arantor.

In other words, you actually agree with me.

I didn't say it wasn't important. I just said it wasn't necessarily as important as some people think it is.