I just read a great article in Advertising Age by Abbey Klaassen titled “Do Home Pages Have a Place in Web 2.0’s Future” where the results from a survey of 500 consumers to figure out how people arrived and purchased from websites to determine what will be important in web design in the coming year(s). The real surprise to me (because I realized I do the exact same thing) was that more than 54% of people start their online shopping with a search even if they already know the Brand they are looking for…

“The idea that more consumers are coming to brand sites through the side door of search means search engines are starting to circumvent brands when it comes to online shopping. While a consumer looking for a pizza stone offline might drive to her nearest Williams-Sonoma, in the online world she’s more likely to just type the product name into Google and see what comes up.”

This really is an interesting design issue when considering that users will most likely enter your website NOT from the main page so that your designs should provide your key value statements and objectives on all pages.

The other interesting finding was..”More than 85% of people on the panel used “most popular” links on sites to decide what to look at and more than 55% made purchase decisions based on user reviews.” so get those testimonials up there on your site.