Purely Graphical Home Page

First impressions are important, of course, especially on the web when you only have a few seconds to grab visitors' attentions. When you're selling environmentally friendly products or services, you want your site's home page to look great. But does that mean it should be all graphics or Flash? Not if ranking high in search engines, such as Google, is essential.

Here's a good thread in HighRankings.com on the topic, which confirms what we're always preaching here: yes, your home page should look great, but it's crucial that it include at least some text. Your home page is the most important page of your site as far as both visitors and search engines are concerned. Most external links to your site will point to your home page, giving it "weight", and that weight will carry through to the other pages on your site (which had better be linked from your home page — if not directly, than within two clicks). So, optimize that home page as best as you can, both visually and in terms of text.