Don't always trust Overture marketing tips

Sometimes the home page is the place to point your visitor

[lgn1]

After reading one of Overture's marketing tips, I decided to point to the specific product url rather than the home page of my site. My conversions dived bombed as a result.

I now have the following advice:

If you sell the type of merchandise, in which the customer may buy several differnt items from you, point to your home page, and make sure your home page has a list of categories of the product you sell.

I think, what is happening, is that the customer attention span is very short, if they click on your ad selling product 'a' and they don't like it, they leave.

If you point to your home page, with a list of products, they say 'hey these guys also sell products 'b' thru 'z', let check them out, and they are hooked and they browse your site.

When I refer to the home page, im more relating to the product home page, where you have all the categories of product listed, which may not be the actual home page of your site.

So depending on your industry, it may be better to give the customer the big picture, rather than tunnel vision.

[lgn1]

Interesting, nobody has an opinion.

[HughMungus]

Makes sense. I'd love to hear more from people who have experimented with both options and how it turned out for them (since every category is different and every surfer is different).

[mwilliams]

i've been working under the assumption that it's better to suck the person in by showing him a particular product (and the BUY NOW button of course), and hope that if it doesn't interest him, he will click on the tab right above the product (very visible) that will bring him back to the homepage or the category page. I figure it's easier to go from a particular product to the homepage/category page (one click, no surprises) than to find a specific product, which may take a couple clicks starting from the homepage or category page.
that said, i agree that there is merit to showing someone the full scope of what you sell right off the bat. we have tabs for all the categories on our site along the top of every page, which hopefully entice the visitor to click around a little before he leaves.
unfortunately i don't have any first-hand information about which works better. i think it depends a lot on how specific the keyword is.