7 ways your homepage is like a first date

First impressions, courtesy, and a good track record with others matter on first dates … and on Web sites

Dating, in general, kind of sucks. Or at least that’s always been my impression. Unfortunately, unless you want to die alone under a mountain of cats who do nothing but leach off you and prevent you from sleeping a solid eight hours, at some point you have to get into the dating game. And that begins with going on the dreaded first date.

The first date is when you get to know someone. It’s when you get to observe behavioral cues to determine whether the two of you would be a good match. It’s when you notice how he butters his bread and wonder if he’d be that gentle with a baby. (Don’t tell me you’ve never done something like that, ladies!)

As wacky as it may sound, people are judging the homepage of your Web site in the very same manner that people judge each other on first dates. And in both instances, they’re asking themselves the same set of questions:

Are we on the same page?