Make the Most of Your Home Page

August 13^th 2013 Sally Ormond essential home page elements, perfect home page, powerful home pages

Your home page isn’t the main sales page on your website, but it is still vital in the sales process because it’s the one most visitors will land on. But more than that, it also has to tell the reader:

What you do
How you can help them
The benefits you can bring to them
How they can get hold of you
Where they need to go on your website to find the information they need

So how do you do all that?

Before you start creating content for your home page, you must decide what your objectives are. Do you want your visitors to buy from you, sign up for a newsletter or report, fill out a contact form? Once you know that, you can start thinking about your page’s layout.

1. Content

Written in the second person, it will speak to your reader and tell them what your website is about and, more importantly, what you can do for them. In other words, it must highlight the benefits your product/service offer that will make their lives easier/better.

2. Trust

People will only do business with you if they trust you.

By being transparent and showing your full contact details (email, phone and postal address) will show you’re a real company. Adding your photo and testimonials will help too.

3. Calls to action

Calls to action are vital if you want to make sure your visitors go to the areas of your website that are relevant to their needs. More than one is fine, but make sure they are clear and easy to find. Too many and you’ll confuse people, so only have as many as you need.

4. Navigation

Clear navigation at the top of your web page is essential so, no matter where on your site they are, your visitors can easily find their way round.

5. Links

The links in your content are like a transport network, taking your visitors the pages they need. But make sure all your links work, there’s nothing more off putting that broken links.

This list is by no means exhaustive as there are many other elements that can be added, such as video and search boxes, but the ones shown above are essential if you want to create a good impression and great user experience.