Adding An Entry Or A Welcome Page

Whenever I visit an interesting blog that is new to me, I always look for an About page. Unfortunately, too many newer food blogs lack this critical feature.

A well written and organized About page is like a one-page resume for your blog. It acts as a welcome mat that leads them comfortably into the rest of your site. New visitors to your site may click through to it to find out more about you and your blog -- if they like what they see there, they are more likely to come back again. I believe that the more a person is a regular reader of blogs, the more likely they are to click through to an About page. Potential advertisers or clients will most likely look for an About page too. 

Here is a tutorial for creating an entry or welcome “page” for your blog. I think it can also be called a splash page or a landing page, hmm….whatever.

It is different from the usual welcome message found in most Blogger blogs whereby the message is placed on top of the blog post column, and stays up there the entire time.

This welcome page acts like an entry page. It only appears at the beginning of  a visit and disappears when the visitor “enters” the blog. Definitely better than an alert box, looks nicer and comes without the annoying sound.

The page comes with these features:

1. Lightbox-type message window.
2. This entry page is fully widgetized, so it can be removed by simply removing the two gadgets, no need to deal with your template HTML.
3. Visitor need to click ENTER button to continue viewing your blog. This in a way, will make sure your visitor to read your important welcome message before entering your blog.
4. Only external visitors will go through the welcome page. Readers coming from any one of your blog pages will bypass this page.

See the entry page in action here in my  blog.