The portal home page is the main landing page for your partners as they enter the partner portal. While your channel partners generally only spend a minute or less on the page, it is important to make sure that you provide your partners with what they need in a visually organized and appealing way. When you design this page, consider these three points:

  1. What am I trying to communicate on this page? 
  2. How will this page help my partners get to where they need to go, quickly? 
  3. Is this page visually appealing? 


What am I trying to communicate on this page?


Your partners are looking to quickly gain access to the information they need to better sell and market your solution. Providing them with easy access to this information is key. On the home page, consider what are the most important things you need to communicate. These can include:

  • A welcome to the partner 
  • Latest resources available to them (i.e. new or added materials to the resource library) 
  • News and information specific to your partners  
  • Information on spiffs and promotions  
  • Links to key parts of the partner portal (i.e. deal registration) 
  • Access to their partner team 


Once you have made a list of the things you want to communicate to your partners, develop how you will organize this information. Within the Channeltivity partner portal, you can organize the content through easy drag and drop methods utilizing our prebuilt page layouts and widgets. Keep in mind that people will generally read left to right and any content that has an image associated with it will capture their eye quickly.


Another way to make sure your partners keep visiting the portal is to ensure that the information is fresh. Updating your page frequently with new, interesting content will encourage your partners to visit more often. With Channeltivity you have the ability to expire content through the “viewable dates” option when you post content. This will allow you to automatically retire content when it is no longer applicable to your partners.


Finally, make sure not to clutter the page with content that is not appropriate to all partners. The “Groups” functionality in Channeltivity allows you to host content that is applicable for some partners and not others. Therefore, your partners will see the content they need easily instead of scrolling through pages of unrelated content.


How will this page help my partners get to where they need to go, quickly?


Your partners have tens, if not hundreds of portals to look at from various vendors. By implementing the home page of the portal with quick access to what they need most, they will more likely use your portal and provide you the information you are looking for. Making it hard for them to navigate the portal will not only deter partners from using it but also in the end, give you less satisfied partners overall.


Those sections that you want to make sure your partners gain easy access to are:

  • Deal Registration 
  • Leads 
  • Market Development Funds (MDF) 
  • Library Resources 
  • Training / Certification  
  • Channel team  


Having a simple and easily understood navigation system as part of the overall design of the portal is key. In addition, re-emphasizing those special sections like deal registration on the home page through images and links is a great way to make sure your partners have a number of different ways to access the materials and functions they need.


Is this page visually appealing?


As noted earlier, your partners will be on the home page for a very limited time…but you still need to make sure it is visually appealing and allows the user to quickly see the content you want them to see. Within Channeltivity, you can use our easy editor to post content, links, and images to the home page. In addition, you can use your creative HTML skills to post any type of design and content that you want using the source editor. However, keep in mind that this is a portal home page, not a website. It is designed to be a place to easily find tools and resources. Branding it to your company is essential but the imagery should not be overwhelming to the user. In addition, including images such as the user’s company logo brings a sense of welcome to the partners.


Overall, the portal is a place to access content and provide information. The home page is a welcome point that directs the partners quickly to what they need and highlights new information they may not be aware of yet. Keep your designs simple but organized to provide your partners the best experience possible. For home page examples, check out: What Home Page designs are the most effective?



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