Nine times out of ten, your Home Page will be the page the majority of your visitors land on. That’s why it’s so important to get it right.
Before I ramble on, what do you think it should show?
- Details about your business?
- What you do?
- Stuff that goes on about your innovative approach, market-leading product, blah, blah, blah
Oh boy. Not good.
If that’s what you’re thinking, banish it from your mind this instant. Travelling down that road will lead you to a void of nothingness; no readers, no buyers, nada.
Why is that?
What is your Home Page for?
I’ll give you a clue – it’s not what you’re thinking.
Your Home Page isn’t there to tell your reader about your business per se.
No. Your Home Page is there to show your readers how you’re going to make their life easier and solve the issue they are currently facing (you know, the one they’re Googling to find a solution for and ended up on your website).
That’s it. Nothing else.
On arrival your reader wants to know three things:
- Who you are
- If you offer what they’re looking for
- How your solution is going to make their life better
How do you do that?
What should your Home Page say?
First off your company name must be prominently displayed.
Then you need a great tagline or opening heading that sums up (in plain English) precisely what you do.
After that, you must show the reader what your solution will do for them.
Depending on your design, you could also show some testimonials, client logos etc.
That’s it.
What your Home Page should not say
There should be no woolly statements such as:
- We are innovative in our approach…
- We are market leaders…
- We are professional…
In fact there should be no ‘we’ anywhere.
Your Home Page must be all about your reader and how you’re going to help them, which is why it should be written in the second person (i.e. you, your).
If you don’t believe me cast your mind back to the last networking event or party you attended. I bet, at some point, you got caught with the person who only ever talks about him or her. If you did manage to get a word in, they probably then went on to say that’d done it too, there’d been there too, they’d done it faster and then continued to talk about their life again.
What was your reaction?
Switch off?
Find someone else to talk to?
Exactly. And that’s what will happen if your Home Page is all about you. Your reader will hit the back browser and go in search of a website that will give them the answers they want.
What’s on your Home Page?
OK, now it’s time to take a look at your Home Page.
Have you talked about your business non-stop? Is it covered in ‘we’?
If the answer is yes, it’s time for a re-write.
Sally Ormond is an international copywriter who always places the end user in the centre of her writing universe.