First Impression on a Site

I was in a phone with a friend who's working on a startup. My take-away was that the first impression on a site is critical to new visitors. Returning visitors tend to know where to click to find things around, but new visitors are like 'tell me what I can do here in 3 seconds' or they will talk away if the point is not made immediately.

I approached my sister who's visiting me from abroad and had not seen keeca.com for quite some time, I assumed. I asked her to just look at Keeca homepage and tell me what she perceived. She said,

"I don't know what to type for search."
"I am not sure what your site can return."
"How is your site different from Google?"

From engineering standpoints, adding on feature is probably the best approach to ease self comfort based on a blind belief to have features, features, and features. I'd say in addition to build site features, features must be useful solving users' problem, and perceived by users.

The importance of the first impression perceived by visitors is critical. When I look at HerCoupon for only a couple seconds, I can easily guess the site is for women and is for discount shopping. To build that instant understanding for Keeca homepage, I have works to do.