Your homepage is your website’s driving force.
A first impression and lasting memory of your brand.
What makes a homepage convert into an impression, engagement and eventually a sale depends largely on the effort you put into following these key proven strategies in building your homepage.
Step #1: Pay attention to your navigation.
Navigation has come through many years of development. In the early 2000’s, it was in place simply for practical means and served a straightforward purpose of informing the visitor of what pages the website included. 15 years later, with the beginning of mobile applications, emerged a more developed approach to navigation with its most recent usage seen to continually take a more simplified form. Read more about the history of website navigation.
“Your website thrives on consistency – start by applying to the homepage. “
Step #2: Capture attention through a well-thought out layout.
You should consider the initial response your homepage’s layout is sending to visitors. Is it overly cluttered? Are you advertising, too much? The positioning of images, headlines and text content are critical to the effectiveness of your homepage.
Images. What message are your images sending? One key thing to remember is images directly reflect brand style and target focus. Additionally, the use of less, custom images often are more likely to keep interest than the more stock images you include.
Headlines. Your headlines can attract or detract a customer. For example, consider the difference between:
Work with our Company for Quality, Reasonable Service.
or
You Need Quality at a Good Price, Right?
The first is a commonly used and proven marketing for all businesses alike, however it has one large fault. It simply draws generic attention to the company without involving the customer. Additionally, headlines, like the second one that focus on the problems or needs of the customer are much more likely to motivate them to pursue your product or services.
Content. Your text content you include on the homepage should have three goals 1) to include the most important information about your company a new visitor should be aware of 2) SEO optimized language including top keywords you are ranking for 3) a clear call-to-action (CTA)
Step #3: Draw attention to your purpose.
Is your homepage focus to inform or convert? If you want people to understand your brand by viewing your website’s first page, then the structure of your homepage will be geared towards this goal. On the other hand, say your goal is simply to involve. The best way to ensure interaction is to follow the less is more principle and only include content that’s absolutely necessary on your homepage. This may be simply a few images and couple of paragraphs of text with links/buttons to other pages.
“A homepage is not about you, it’s about your visitors.”
There can not be enough said about the power of simplicity.
Focusing on your homepage as a basis for promoting the rest of your website will help you build effectively with the above mentioned steps – don’t wait, start today.
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