Homepages
The homepage is the entry point to a website and should summarise its key elements.
Homepages are always the top item in navigation. A homepage defines the start of a new site, with new editing and publishing rights.
On the homepage for this site, you can see how you can vary the layout with a different number of panes and by using images.
- Your homepage should act as a guide to your website, and not contain any content that can't be found elsewhere.
- Text should be kept to a minimum with one short descriptive sentence for each pane.
- Try and keep panes to a similar size where possible.
Panels and priorities
EdWeb allows you to create a variety of panels to drive traffic to a certain area of your site. These can be ordered with a great deal of flexibility into a number of different arrangements via the Customize display button on your homepage.
Static pane
The static pane is a standard panel which can contain a 900x400 image, text and links. The title can be made a link to a section of your website.
Dynamic pane
The dynamic pane automatically displays links to a designated number of child pages under a chosen source page within EdWeb. This allows you to easily link to regularly updated content from your homepage and is ideal to use for news and events sections. It can also contain a 900x400 image and the title can be made to link to a section of your website.
HTML atom pane
The HTML atom pane allows you to display a custom HTML asset on your homepage. It can be used to display things such as videos, Twitter feeds or Google map embeds. It can also contain a 900x400 image, text and links and the title can be made a link to a section of your website.
Priorities
Each individual panel can be designated low, medium or high priority. This changes the styling of the panel.
See the different panel stylings on our homepage
Don't rely on the navigation menu
On smaller displays, such as mobile devices, the navigation menu is collapsed. We've done extensive user testing that shows people are likely to miss or ignore the menu unless they become very lost in the site. As such, we recommend you include links to all top level pages within the body of your homepage even though they are also included in the navigation menu.
Responsive design - how EdWeb reconfigures content for different devices
Images
Images on homepages should all be landscape, with a 9:4 ratio. We strongly recommend that you upload all images as 900px by 400px, as this is the display for the largest image. EdWeb will automatically resize images for smaller panes.
Landing pages
By definition, home pages in EdWeb start a brand new site. If you want to create a homepage effect within an existing page, you will need to use the generic content type to create a 'landing page'.
Landing pages - EdWeb Support wiki [EASE login required]
Practical guidance
How to create a homepage - EdWeb Support wiki [EASE login required]
Watch video
Watch our showcase video on homepages.