This week someone told me no one ever looks at a home page. I have two responses to this: One, don’t ever forget the power of a first impression. Two, your home page has a very important job and can’t be treated lightly (we’ll cover that topic in another blog).

The power of the first impression can never be underestimated. Just think about what you wear each day. Your clothes are a huge part of the image people form of you, the mental one in their mind when they look at you and make a ton of assumptions about you just based on your clothes. I agonize over meetings with potential clients not because I’m worried whether or not I’ll get the job, but because I don’t know the “dress code” of a company until I’ve been on-site. I can make some assumptions: the software company will be more casual, the law firm will be dressier, the creative firm will wear black. But I have to dress so that I fit in and make the right first impression. Walking into the creative firm wearing the conservative office attire expected by the law firm means the creative folk will assume—before I ever even open my mouth—that I’m not part of their world. Ditto if the reverse were true.

And that’s just one example. There many more: how you dress for dates, social functions, meeting your future in-laws for the first time, even what you look like when you run to the store on Saturday morning. The importance of your clothes and the stories they tell is limitless.

So think of your home page as that initial meeting with a potential client and make sure you’re dressed to make the right first impression. Again, it’s about being appropriate. A Web site that sells all kinds of cheap items, one that is frequented by people who know exactly what they’re looking for, that site can be cluttered and in-your-face with pricing and specials and shipping deals. The law firm’s Web site (to circle back to our earlier clothing example) must be professional and credible. No screaming or clutter allowed, because that would be akin to showing up in their office wearing nightclub attire. As with the clothes, the examples are endless.

Your home page is that initial meeting, it is your first impression, it’s your one and only chance to tell people “you’re in the right place” before they click the back button and go elsewhere. Which they will in a matter of seconds if they don’t think your site is what they want. If you landed at a law firm’s home page and it looked like a computer parts Web site’s home page, would you stick around long enough to read the Web content and make an informed decision? Nope, you’d click back in a jiffy.

So if you’re marketing to professionals, be professional. If you’re selling an expensive product, look expensive. If all your audience cares about is the cheapest price, you’re fine with a cheesy home page. And this is the whole package: the design, the Web writing, the headline, the navigation choices, what you put above the fold vs. what you put below…all of those pieces are like your shoes, your pants, your jacket, your hair style, your jewelry. All those pieces add up to the all-important first impression that is your home page.

No one ever looks at a home page? Not if it sucks.