Design a Homepage that Grabs Attention
Every Business needs a website.
It is vital to your Businesses success in this modern digital era.
It’s beyond speculation.
If you have a Business and are in the business of selling a service or a product then you need a website.
You won’t be able to continue to get away with not having a Website and not having an online home that your audience, visitors & customers can go to and learn more about your business.
Let’s face it;
Before your potential customer has stepped foot inside of your business, emailed you or called you, they have already done research on you & your business.
Depending on how that research has gone, your potential customer will do 1 of 3 things:
Call / Contact you for more information.
Visit your location.
Or Move on.
Your potential customers are more and likely choosing option 3 if you don’t have a website. . .
. . .and if you do have a website but your Homepage doesn’t answer the 3 questions that we will discuss in detail later in this article, then they will also choose option 3 from above and move on.
If your Homepage isn’t thought out and put together properly, your website will not have any engagement.
Your Homepage has to grab your visitors attention within 3 seconds of them entering your site, if it doesn’t then they won’t engage.
Meaning, your visitors and potential customers will exit your website. This is very bad in 3 ways:
You lose a potential customer.
Your site will begin to be ranked lower by search engines due to a high bounce percentage, (visitors exiting your site within seconds of reaching it.)
You leave a bad impression on potential customers that will contribute to their objection to do business with you.
Your Homepage has a huge responsibility.
It must:
Greet your visitor.
Welcome them.
And speak directly to what your visitor is searching for.
In the rest of this article we are going to break down in the most simplest way what contributes to a great Homepage and how you can think of, design and build yours.
Let’s begin. . .
What is a Homepage?
Think of your Homepage as the front room to your Business.
Your visitor walked through the front door of your Business by clicking on your domain name,
(eg. www.yourdomain.com), and entered into your website.
Now they have entered and are in the front room of your Business, (your homepage).
What do they see?
Is your front room empty?
Does your front room make your potential customers feel lost?
Your Homepage is the front room of your Business and should:
Greet your visitors and welcome them.
Announce what you do and the problem you solve for them.
Establish trust.
Tell them where to go next.
Does your Homepage do this?
If not or if you’re a little unsure, no worries.
Let’s break down each section of your Homepage.
(or… Let’s break down what a great Homepage needs to have:)
A Great Homepage
First, a great Homepage for just about all businesses, except for a very select few, has a single focal point.
Meaning that the Homepage is only focused on revealing, bringing attention to,
and driving attention to. . .
. . .one single action.
So, you first have to determine what that focal point is for your Homepage.
What product or service are you trying to highlight?
Where are you trying to direct your visitors?
What are you trying to promote to your visitors?
Use these questions to identify your focal point for your Homepage and you will be off to a phenomenal start.
Your Navigation Bar
Logo:
Your Logo should be crisp, clean and in a transparent PNG file format.
Logo Placement:
In most cases your Logo should be placed in the Top Left of your Navigation Bar but in some cases you can have it placed in the Center and your Navigation Bar right below it.
This is a design preference and you will NEED to test and see which design method works and performs best for your Website and Business.
Search Feature:
We recommend a Search feature implemented into your Navigation Bar.
A simple Search Icon that can be clicked on and opened is perfect.
With everything online revolving around search nowadays, implementing search on your site to provide ease of use, convenience and quick access for visitors to find what they are looking for if they need to is now essential.
Call to Action:
You must also have a Call to Action button in the Top Right of your Navigation Bar.
For most Brick & Motor Businesses that is a Call Button.
E-commerce Businesses, it is a Shopping Cart Button.
Your Call to Action Button can be any of the following:
Call Button.
Contact Us Button.
Shopping Cart.
Learn More Button.
Sign up Button.
Log in Button.
Social Accounts Buttons. (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter)
Promotion of a new Offer.
Link to your Podcast.
Basically you want your Call to Action to be the ONE thing that you want your Visitors to do if they don’t do anything else.
If they visited your Website and only did ONE thing, you want it to be that they clicked your Call to Action button in your Navigation Bar. . .
. . .or your Header. More on your Header next.
Header: First Section of your Website
Headline
Your Headline on your Home Page is the main part of your website that has to immediately grab your visitors attention and answer the 3 questions we hinted to earlier in this article.
The 3 questions are:
Can you solve my problem?
Do you understand me?
What should I do next?
Doing this peaks interest into your business and satisfies your visitors curiosity so they don’t have to keep searching for a solution to their problem.
Sub-headline
Further, your Headline also needs a great Sub-headline that supports, or further explains your customers desired result that they are after.
This is huge. A great Sub-headline will benefit your website.
Remember:
Solve curiosity.
Peak interest.
Give a direction for your visitor to continue down the Value Journey into your business.
Background Image
Along with a great opening Headline, you need a great background image that speaks directly to what you do or visually translates the hook you used in your headline.
This can be a picture of a “before and after” of your product or a customers “before and after” with using your product.
It can also be a portrait headshot of you, the owner of the Business.
These images work great because they immediately build authenticity, trust and introduces you right away to potential customers.
Call to Action Button in your Header
For the “What should I do next,” question your customers are asking, this is where your call to action button comes in.
Your Headline, Sub-headline & background image grab your visitors attention, lets them know you understand them and that you can solve their problem. . .
. . .your call to action button will immediately come next and tell your visitor what the next logical step in their journey is, and that it is easy and as convenient as clicking the button.
How it Works
You want to completely simplify how easy it is for a visitor to work with you.
Break your process down for your visitors. What do they do first, what do you need first, what do you need from them to begin the process?
What happens after they contact you, what happens after they get you the information that you need to begin?
How long does the process take? When can they expect final delivery?
Can you break this down into 3 steps? 5 steps? Going above 5 steps seems a little too long but at most you should not go above 7 steps.
It can really be as simple as;
Contact us.
Answer 3 questions.
Order.
We create and build what you’ve ordered.
We deliver your item to you.
It could be this simple, but obviously customized to your particular business.
Who it’s for
Call your customers out.
Your website needs to have a “who its for” or “who uses our product / service” section.
You probably know who your target and ideal customer(s) is. Call them out on your Homepage and let them know that you know who they are and that you and your product / services helps them specifically.
If you have more than 1 ideal customer, list them out.
Typically this is 3 different customer personas that are outlined.
Find out who they are for your Business and shout them out on your Homepage.
You can also simply do this visually. (Pictures of past satisfied customers.)
A Trust Bar!
A Trust Bar is exactly what it sounds like, it establishes trust with your websites visitors.
This is where you showcase your past and current customer testimonials. Your Homepage is a great place to do this.
There are many different plugins that you can add to your website to accomplish this where you can pull your existing customer testimonials from Google, Facebook, Yelp, etc. and add them to your site.
This is a great way to establish trust and authority in your industry, community and especially with the visitors of your Website.
Footer
The last major section that we are going to cover here in this article is your Website’s Footer.
Your Footer is another significant portion of your Website that should not be overlooked.
Typically if your visitors have found their way down to the Footer and haven’t found what they were looking for on the entire page, they will rely on the Footer to direct them to where they have been trying to go.
So your Footer should do all or most of the following.
Have a navigation bar with only core pages listed.
Have a Search feature.
Contact us / Call button.
Button that allows them to return to the top of the page.
Brief About us section.
Link to your Social Accounts.
Have a Call to Action.
Email subscriber opt in box.
List of Recent posts from your Blog.
Key Takeaways:
Your Homepage needs a focal point.
Every Business needs a great Headline and a Sub Headline to further explain the desired action you want the visitor to take.
Must have a Call-to-action (C.T.A.) in Header.
You need a great Header Background Image.
Need to have a ‘How it works’ section.
You have to have a ‘Who it’s for’ or ‘who uses our product/service’ section.
You must have a trust bar.
Your footer must have a navigation.
Thank you for taking the time out of your hectic day to read our Blog, if you had any questions about a topic discussed in this post that you would like for us to expand on go ahead and leave a comment below.
Have a great day!
