The TutsPlus.com site has posted the latest article in their "Building Your Startup with PHP" tutorial series today. In this latest tutorial author Jeff Reifman shows how to improve the home page for the application to make it more visually appealing and well-structured.

A web service's home page has many roles. Functionally, it must make it easy for people to sign up and get started with the application. But it must also aesthetically touch visitors and give them a professional impression that your service delivers what the home page tells them it does.

Since I've been so focused to this point building the scheduling functionality for Meeting Planner, I haven't had time to focus on polishing the home page—and frankly it was falling short, leaving first-time visitors unimpressed.

He shows the updates he's made to the home page for the service, adding in some additional formatting with Bootstrap and CSS to replace the current bland look. He starts by laying out the improvements visually then moving over to the code to make it a reality. Code is included showing how to implement the changes and add in other features like a mobile-friendly version and embedded videos.