adminIrrespective of the function of your website (non-profit, organizational, e-commerce, and so more), the homepage of your website serves as the storefront window. It is typically a peek inside the website. If your website’s homepage is not inviting or intriguing, chances are that the homepage will be the only page visited by your visitors as they move out of your website instantly.
A robust website that is designed outside the firewall serves to be one of the major investments any business can make. For new hires, potential recruits, decision-makers, and current employees, the homepage of the website serves to be the first glance into the culture and DNA of the organization. The first impression of your website should commence with a homepage that is easy on your eyes while being easy to navigate.
Your website’s homepage is the preview of the overall experience visitors will potentially have on the website. This fact makes it all the reasons why you need to ensure that your site visitors are central to the homepage design and that it is seamless for them to search what they are looking for. Through this post, let us help you understand the importance of a well-designed homepage for any website and its crucial elements.
Understanding the Importance of Homepage for Your Website
The world might be new to the concept of the Internet, but not new to the concept of business. The internet serves as the virtual street-featuring millions of businesses and organizations vying for your business. Like a window, the homepage of the website is the only chance to showcase to visitors what is available there to offer -in terms of products or services.
A site visitor -like any shopper looking into the storefront window, will make an ultimate decision within a shorter span of time whether or not a particular website will benefit the purpose. The site’s homepage is the front door to all the important details that make up the remaining website. Shouldn’t it be as amazing as possible? We think so!
To understand what makes a good website, a great starting point is the homepage. It is the first thing any visitor will observe. Just like in real life, first impressions count. As the initial point of contact your site offers to visitors, a homepage is crucial for the following reasons:
- First Impression on Visitors
Did you know that around 75 percent of visitors to your site perceive homepage as the first impression? Visitors will take the first impression quite diligently while leveraging the same to judge your site and its offerings.
The homepage no longer serves as the primary platform of marketing. It has now become the forefront of any business. Since the advent of the global pandemic, around 70 percent of buyers and B2B sellers prefer the online model of business. Based on your specific business niche, a homepage will serve as the only window that customers use to perceive your online business.
- Most Frequented Page of a Website
With the potential to serve as the most frequented page of your website, the site’s homepage has indeed a lot of eyes on it. Even visitors finding a different page on your website, possibly out of a search query, will definitely check out the homepage once they are visiting your site.
Homepage is the go-to destination wherein visitors tend to make up their minds about whether or not they should advance to go through your brand offerings. Your site’s homepage offers visitors a broader idea about the content they can expect while offering them insight into your brand or business as a whole.
- Valuable Landing Page
Due to the immense amount of traffic a homepage witnesses, it functions as a valuable landing page of the website. It can depict multiple functions. The homepage can also be utilized to qualify leads while sorting them in the right product funnel or building immediate trust with prospects and referrals.
Certain aspects like customers’ testimonials, a list of logos of current clients at the page’s bottom, professional association badges, and relevant content are great to include in the homepage design to build trust. The primary objective is to capture the active interest of visitors while ensuring that they are re-visiting your website. You can leverage the site’s homepage to transport visitors deeper into the website as they to get learn more about your business. Allow them to discover that your business is a suitable fit in the given domain.
- All Visitors Spot Homepage
You might argue that some visitors do not browse through the homepage of a website. If you are adept at search engine optimization (SEO) while conducting online advertising and social media marketing to a greater extent, you might be sending visitors to other pages of your website in addition to the homepage.
For most clients, search engine optimization might not cover the entire story. Indeed, visitors might land on other pages of the site. However, the core idea is to make them traverse across the entire site. If you will track how a user will move through a website, you will understand that they visit the homepage at least once during their visit.
As per a study report, it is estimated that around 30 percent of online users tend to click on the brand’s logo. This allows them to redirect them to the homepage of the site.
- Setting the Tone and Representing Your Brand
The core idea behind a successful branding strategy for any website is helping online visitors learn about your organization or business. One of the important aspects to keep in mind is to ensure that you stand out from others. It is particularly true when you are involved in an industry featuring only a few key players. Avoid regurgitating similar language used by competitors on the respective sites. What you need to present across will define what is unique about your brand.
The homepage of a website helps in setting the tone for how distinct and better your brand is upon comparison with others.
What are the Important Elements of a Stunning and Functional Homepage?
Serving as the virtual front door of your website, this crucial page is responsible for drawing in a major volume of the traffic of the entire site. Still, with its overall prominence, most businesses struggle optimizing it effectively.
As you realize, a homepage is expected to put on multiple hats. Instead of treating it as a dedicated landing page designed around a specific action, it should be designed to serve a wide group of target audience from diverse origins. To ensure the same effectively, you should design the website’s homepage with a well-defined purpose. In simpler words, as the website owner, you are expected to incorporate core elements for attracting traffic, educating visitors, and inviting conversions.
To improve the overall performance of the homepage, here are some essential elements you should consider:
1. Headline
Within a matter of around 2-3 seconds, a website is expected to tell its visitors what the brand has to offer. This is wherein the role of your headline comes in. A headline might depict only some words. However, it plays a vital role as one of the most crucial aspects of the entire website.
Different groups of individuals might visit your website. As such, you will become hard-pressed for specific terms that might hit the home for all. Rather, it is recommended to write the headline to target the group of people who will be satisfied with your products or services. Ensure that the headline on the homepage is simple and clear.
2. Sub-headline
The sub-headline of the homepage should supplement the headline by providing a brief description of what your business does and what it has to offer. This can be done effectively by narrowing down on the common problem that your products or services aim at solving.
If you wish to optimize headlines and sub-headlines for smartphones, you can leverage large-sized fonts to provide visitors a high-end experience. Smaller fonts might force mobile users to zoom in to go through and interact with the site’s content. The best principle is to make use of heading options in the respective page editor. H1 heading titles are well-suited for page titles. There should only be a single H1 title on a landing page.
3. Important Calls-to-Action
The objective of any homepage is to motivate visitors dig deeper into the website while moving them down the funnel. Therefore, you can go ahead with including 2-3 calls-to-action for directing people to subsequent stages of the buying cycle.
The CTAs you put in the homepage design should be visually appealing. Ideally, you can include CTAs in a color that effectively contrasts with the respective color scheme of the homepage while still optimizing the entire design. Keep the copy of the CTA brief as well as action-oriented. Therefore, it will compel visitors to click whatever you will offer.
4. Supporting Images
Most people tend to be visual. Ensure that you are using an image for clearly indicating what your brand offers. Utilize images that capture emotions, drive action, and visually tell the story you are writing about.
To optimize the images for mobile users, leverage high-quality images that feature a reduced file size. It is recommended to add alt text to the images on the homepage to ensure that they are accessible to visitors using screen readers while taking your site’s SEO a notch higher.
5. Benefits
It is not just crucial to describe what you do as a business, but also why you do. Potential customers out there wish to know and understand about the prospective benefits of buying from your website. It is something that will make them stick around the website.
Ensure that the copy of your benefits is concise and lightweight. It should be easy to read while speaking the language of the customers. You should aim at listing benefits on the homepage in a way that is visually pleasing, compelling, and easy to interpret.
6. Social Proof
Social proof serves to be a powerful indicator of ample trust. The product or service of your brand should be marketed as the best available in the world. It is just that most individuals might not believe this claim unless they hear the same from others. This is wherein the role of social proof comes in.
Aim at including only a few relevant short quotes on the homepage while linking case studies to the same if applicable. Adding a photograph and name offers such testimonials even more credibility.
7. Navigation
The content and design on the homepage navigation could imply a major difference between the bounce and a conversion. To minimize bounce rate, offer your visitors a well-defined, clear path to the pages they require -right from the homepage. Ensure that the navigation menu is visible right on the page’s top. Also, aim for organizing links in a hierarchical structure.
Make sure that you also conduct in-depth user tests to ensure that your website’s navigation is simple as well as intuitive for site visitors. If possible, try including a dedicated search box on the homepage.
8. Content Offer
To get more leads out of your homepage, bring forth an impressive content offer -including a whitepaper, a guide, or an ebook. Folks who might not be willing to purchase might consider downloading the offer to provide them more information on a topic in which they might be interested.
Conclusion
There are several objectives and elements of a site’s homepage. When it comes down to the primary factor, a homepage is regarded as one of the most important aspects of any website. It is because the homepage stores the most valuable information for the visitors about the business or company you are running. A useful and appealing homepage will help in improving the overall viewership while also encouraging them to invite more friends to the site and its services.
Thamarai P
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