On World Anvil, your world homepage is what most people will see when they open your world, both as first-time and returning readers—which makes it an essential part of your project! We asked our community how they organize their homepages and how they use a variety of World Anvil features to make them stand out. Here’s five tips and advice from your fellow Anvilites!
You can edit your homepage from the Articles & World Manager interface. More information in the guide.
1. Use layout to draw in your reader
Your homepage is the appetiser for your world lore… it should leave your readers wanting more! Layout is a big part of that. Instead of huge text blocks, use small paragraphs to whet your reader’s appetite.
Check Mornvahl, by Thepinkgm.
This world’s introduction uses different font sizes and colors to guide your eyes, implicitly telling you what’s important for you to read. A very useful feature for homepage layout is the custom content fields, which let you place content in three different columns.
Make the homepage your own
Your world homepage includes a number of default sections, such as the list of maps, timelines, and a table of contents. These do exactly what the homepage is supposed to be doing: tell your readers about your world’s contents. However, your project might have different needs than that! For example, maybe you have maps but you don’t want them to be as prominent. So, when editing your homepage, you’ll see previews of these widgets, which you can move around and even hide! Check How to customize your homepage for more details about this!
Looking for more tips to structure your homepage? Check our 5 tips to build your homepage!
2. Craft an irresistible elevator pitch
How do you sum up a whole world in a few sentences? Or at least, how do you promise what kind of adventures will unfold there? Well, you need a world elevator pitch! Something that helps your reader ground themselves, and understand the key concepts your world explores. Cathedris, by Stormbril, is a great example of a world homepage that highlights a very clear pitch:
This video goes through a step by step process for doing exactly that, and it works for any genre or project! Once you have your elevator pitch, put it somewhere your new readers can easily find it:
3. World primers: set your readers on the right path
Homepages should introduce the big concepts of a world and then guide your readers and players to where they can learn more. That might be a world primer or introduction article. It might be a guide to character creation for your RPG players. It might be an introductory short story or adventure, or even the first chapter of your novel.
Check Mystimon Saga, by GMSeth.
In his world, GMSeth opens the homepage with a world introduction, and then has two article links: one for general world lore and the other for players. Generally, the path for new readers should be a single link (too many options can lead to confusion!), but in this case it works because his world is primarily built for tabletop RPGs. Article blocks are a great feature to use here: they are special links that also include the article’s cover image and excerpt, which makes them stand out; learn how to use them.
4. Use book-style categories for the core concepts
Return readers will also use your homepage to browse your world and see what’s new (which is why the recent articles widget is so useful!). If you want to give your readers clear paths to the core pages of your world, book-style categories are a great way to do so:
Check Yeia, by Callyxtus. |
Check The Reverie Isles, by chucklebean71. |
While the table of contents already has all of this information, book-style categories are more visually appealing. Like Chucklebean71, you could use actual book cover images, or you could follow Callyxtus’ approach and use art that shows the category’s topic. Check how to embed categories as books for more details.
Want to learn more about categories? Check the feature focus on categories blog post!
5. Add interactive elements to your homepage
Interactive elements make your readers explore rather than read, which is a great way to make them feel they’re a part of the world. Many Anvilites embed their interactive maps in the homepage, which provides a different way to explore the world:
Check Stellar Journey, by MadToxin. |
Check Astra Planeta, by Spyglassrealms. |
In these worlds, you can get a very clear picture of what the world looks like without even leaving the homepage (and who doesn’t like a good map?). Check how to embed a map for details.
Advanced: Make your readers join a faction!
In your world, different groups of people will naturally have different views on various topics: Vampires vs Werewolves, Rebels vs Empire, Hobbits from the Shire vs Knights of Rohan. On World Anvil, using a combination of features, you can make your readers choose a group and then dynamically change the content of articles based on that. Check this example from Oneriwien’s Ravare:
Check Ravare, by Oneriwien.
This all works with subscriber groups: a feature that lets you set which users can see what content. To create the choice buttons on the right, use self-assignable subscriber groups to let users add themselves to a subscriber group. Then, you can use secrets or subscriber containers to control the information they’ll see based on their subscriber group. This takes some time to set up, especially because it requires a relatively developed world to have different perspectives on the same topics, but it’s a great way to form a community around your world’s lore.
How are you using homepages in your world? Leave a comment and share yours! And the next Feature Focus will be about Diplomacy Webs, so if you’d like to be featured there, fill out this form and we’ll take a look!
