How to Build a Super-Sticky Homepage

Financial services

Fidelity

All three financials we investigated shared a male orientation, although not a strong one. Both Fidelity and Merrill Lynch's sites have elements fostering a belief that the future will be better than today-- a good message to send if you're an investment house. Fidelity's homepage is not browser aware, which is a negative, and is left-biased regardless of browser. It has a very clean layout, but the print was small in all browsers. The title bar has a "Log In" option next to the logo and "Contact Us" at the far right. Switching the position of these two elements might increase visitor confidence in Fidelity's ability to answer questions quickly and accurately.

Suggestions:

1. Move the page to the center of the screen.
2. Use a larger font. If you're going to use green, use "money" green consistently.

Merrill Lynch

Merrill Lynch's homepage shares some of the same placement flaws as Fidelity's, but ML's homepage is also browser aware. That's a plus as it demonstrates a willingness to work on the user's terms-- a good thing if you want someone to trust your investment advice. The color choices simultaneously show warmth and cooling, and are framed so that the individual components are cool while there's heat around them-- nicely done. The image at the top indicates people are more important than dollars, which is a clue that ML's demographic is slightly different from Fidelity's.

Suggestions:

It's tough to make suggestions on what should be working well without knowing more about their traffic patterns, but here are some topline tips:

1. Because ML's demographic appears -- based on this analysis -- different from Fidelity's, leave the page left-biased.
2. There's room for more "highlights" in the bottom middle of the page, but their demographic has a greater "risk-taker" nature than does Fidelity, so it's also good to leave the visitor wanting more. Making them click demonstrates curiosity, if not commitment on their part, and that's a good thing.

Schwab

Schwab's demographic took us by surprise as it sends a message that it's better to be pessimistic than optimistic. It will attract people who are uncomfortable taking risk (maybe to convince them there's no risk involved with Schwab), but then nothing is done to convince them that investing with Schwab isn't risky. It's attractive to people who like to micro-manage, but doesn't provide them with obvious tools to do so. Also, Schwab's color choice went beyond bland and into the realm of uncomfortable. Last item-- the only human face on the site is in the lower right and is small compared to other action items on the page, indicating a lack of the human touch, interest or response. All of these things are echoed in the personality types who'll be most attracted to the Schwab site.

Suggestions: I finally get to sound like a consultant-- "it depends..."

1. If Schwab's goal is to separate itself from the pack, good job-- change nothing.
2. If Schwab wants to attract more of Fidelity's and ML's audience, add some human faces to the homepage and use warmer colors. A help item with a human face right up front would be a plus.