[Chuck Hamrick]

Tim Ash is a site conversion expert and regular speaker at conferences. One of my personal favorites as I worked with Multi Variant Testing (MVT) at my last day job where we moved conversion ahead 50% to 500%. Affiliates can't afford an MVT suite but there are basic things you can do to better leverage your traffic. A 1% conversion increase on a site converting at 3% is a 33% increase in sales for the same amount of traffic.

Here is what Tim has to say: Homepages often have multiple objectives. Everyone in your organization wants to pile stuff on your homepage: products, partnership announcements, press releases, job opportunities, marketing copy, positioning statements, special offers and welcome messages. But most importantly, it is often the first step a visitor takes on the way to a conversion action. So the single most important goal for your homepage is to get people to click off the homepage and on to their task.
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[AffiliateHound]

Excellent article. He is saying a lot of things I strongly believe, especially about delivering your message directly, without all sorts of distractions and delays. Stuff like video, animation, music, slow-loading flash, etc. send visitors packing before the ever see what you have to offer or what they came there to buy.

[Chuck Hamrick]

I can't tell you how many merchant sites I see with no call to action and all the real info below the fold. If I am coming to a merchant site as a partner, to contact them or to learn about them I will find that information at the bottom of the page. Where it belongs. IMHO most sites are designed to feed someone's ego and not the shopper.

[AffiliateHound]

Originally Posted by Chuck Hamrick

IMHO most sites are designed to feed someone's ego and not the shopper.

Exactly. They are homages to what they CAN do, not what they should do.