Check out this guided tour of select homepages to learn what grabs audiences, what turns them off and how to craft the perfect message for your target customers.

There are many sayings about the power and longevity of first impressions. The one I like best is "you never get a second chance to make a good first impression." The trouble with first impressions is that they work at a non-conscious level. Someone's off-putting and we can't describe why; it's just a feeling we get. We say, "I got a bad vibe from them" or "they gave off the wrong message." And it doesn't matter if that bad first impression is valid-- all that matters is that that bad first impression colors everything that comes after.

Human first impressions have an analog on the web. The first impression a website or marketing material creates leaves a lasting impression that influences all future transactions. Visitors might shop a site but not convert on it and not know why. If they do convert, they might spend $20 here, but $200 somewhere else.

We're going to learn what first impressions some homepages may be creating and how to fix them as necessary in this article via a simple, two-step process:

1. Analyze the homepage to determine what demographic it reaches most easily, and what first impression it gives that demographic.
2. Suggest simple corrections to increase each site's effectiveness within that demographic based on the results.

Three sites were chosen in each vertical section by iMediaConnection and NextStage. The homepages were downloaded with IE 6.0, Firefox 1.07, Netscape 7.2, Opera 8.51, SeaMonkey 1.05 and Flock 0.76 on Saturday, Oct. 28, 2006. Analyses were performed by NextStage's TargetTrack tool and research staff. Nothing below the fold was considered; first impressions are just that-- once the visitor begins to interact with the site the first impression is finished. Each section concludes with a table overview of the gender and personality types that vertical's sites will appeal to most strongly.

Let's begin!

Author notes: Joseph Carrabis is CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution and NextStage Global. Read full bio.