Homepages are very important as they are one of the most visited pages on your website. Sometimes it will be the first page that a user visits on your website and sometimes not, for example, if the user reaches you through one of your blog posts or any other page on your website. It will depend on how the user finds you. But regardless the case, it’s one of the most important ones.
In order to have a converting homepage you need to follow some steps:
1- Research:
Like any other project, you need to investigate a little at first. These are the aspects that you should investigate:
a) Who is your client? What do they want? What is their pain point and what are they looking for? How they search on the internet? Answering these questions will make it a lot easier for you to know which elements include on your homepage.
Generally speaking, users want to have the answer to their questions quickly and easy. I’m sure that you don’t spend a lot of time searching on the internet for an answer.
b) Your field: You should investigate a little about your field.
c) Competitors: You should investigate your competitors in order to know what they are doing so you can do something different. Because you can learn from their mistakes.
d) Website goal: You need to clarify what is your goal with your website. Why do you want a website? What do you want to achieve? New customers? More sales? Write your goal down and it should be a specific and measurable goal.
2- What is the purpose of a homepage?
A homepage should make clear who you are, what you do and what the visitor can do on your site.
Besides, your homepage should generate confident in your company. How? You can add some customer testimonials or you can list the awards that your company has or you can list the media where your company appeared.
In addition, it should show your tone of voice. All of us have a specific way of speaking. You won’t find two people that speak in the exact same way. The same happens with companies. You should specify your tone of voice, and use it in all your communications.
Moreover, it should show your company’s personality. How? With a specific typography, colour scheme and photographies.
And the last but not least, it has to make it clear what the user should do next.
3- What elements should my homepage have to convert?
This depends on your field and type of company but there are some general rules that can be applied to every company:
First of all, there are two parts on a website:
a) Above the fold: Everything that is in the upper half of a website. The first elements that you see when you enter in a website.
b) Below the fold: All elements that are below the upper half of a website. You have to scroll down to see them.
Being said that, what elements should you place above the fold:
a) Logo and navigation: Every kind of website needs their logo and navigation. The navigation should be easy and clear. The general rule is between 3 and 6 pages, and these pages should be very different from each other.
b) Headline: Your website needs a headline. With this headline, you should explain what you do. It should be short and concise.
c) Sub-Headline: With the sub-headline, you should explain what you offer, your services.
Of course, you can summarise the headline and the sub-headline into one phrase. Like a slogan. It will depend on what you want to convey and your type of company.
d) Call to action: You should tell the user what to do next. It could be to write you an email, to download an ebook, to subscribe to your blog, and so on. This is your website goal. What you want to achieve.
You can have one call to action, or even two but not more than two.
Check out these examples of call to actions for inspiration.
Below the fold:
a) Benefits: You should explain to the user the benefits of your service or products. Most of the times people write the services or features of the product but it’s better to write the benefits. Because, the benefits tell the user what they will get with your product or service and in general, the benefits are emotional. And we know that people buy because of emotional reasons.
b) Features: once you talked about the benefits, you can number the features of your product.
c) Testimonials: If you have customer testimonials you should include them on your homepage. Don’t write fake testimonials, it’s too obvious that they are fake. If you don’t have any yet, it’s better not to write anything.
Instead of testimonials, you can place also the media where your company appear or the awards that your company has.
d) Additional information about your company: With “additional information” I mean secondary information. Even though it’s not a must but you can place it because it adds value to your brand. For example, you can place the lasts posts of your blog. Or the lasts videos on youtube. Some information that will change over the weeks so your homepage will have a life of its own. A static homepage that never changes is not attractive.
Important tips:
– Simplicity is a must as well as white space: Don’t overburden your homepage with a lot of information, images and links. Make it easy for the user to know what you do, what benefits they will get and what to do next.
– Design: The design must reflex your personality. Use your brand colour scheme and a typography that is suitable for screens and that reflex your personality too.
– Images: Avoid using stock photos. It’s far better to spend time and take a photo or a couple of photos that represents your team and your personality. Depending on your field you don’t need a lot of them. For example, for a service company, on the homepage, it will be enough to have between 1 to 3 photos at maximum.
Do you need some inspiration? Check out these 16 examples of great homepages.What about your homepage? Is it designed correctly or does it need a redesign?