Homepage is the heart of your website! It is the landing page of your site. It is this page that dictates the terms, decides if your sightseer will proceed to explore your website further, transact with you or simply leave the site to search for several other alternatives on internet. In brief it is like the first impression that your visitors get. And as they say, first impression is the last impression; the saying is true here as well. The significance of an effective web homepage can never be undermined and its importance can never be stressed upon enough for this is a stepping stone of any successful website.
With e-commerce in its advanced stage and the numerous marketing methods employed to promote a site, it may seem premature to gauge so much importance to homepage. However, you may do so at your own peril. While it is true that more prominence is being given to dedicated landing pages, but the thought that your homepage is not as important as it used to be is misleading and could prove detrimental to your online business. No matter from where the visitors arrive at your website, there is a great possibility that they may end up on your homepage instinctively to make some decisions. And therefore it is not only important but imperative to make your web homepage attractive and compelling.
Let’s have a look at some of the important aspects of making an effective website homepage –
The Company Logo – Your firm’s logo is of great importance as it signifies brand. It makes your site stand out and distinguishes it. Several surveys have shown that visitors are expecting to see the logo when they search for your website on internet.
Convey your Message – Recent studies globally on online marketing have shown that the average attention time for an online user is less than 12 seconds. Hence it is vital to keep your web homepage simple and convey your crucial message quickly. To convert your sightseers to customers you must keep the fundamental message simple, crisp, clear and engaging.
User friendly design – Advertising is efficient only when it is written and designed for customers. Home page is the same. When customers have a question they will land on a home page, it will add value to a proposal and advertising becomes more pleasing.
Contact Information – Contact detail is a crucial component of your homepage as at times it could be the only information that your visitors are looking for. Consider the nature of your business, its domain and sector and then zero in on how people would like to contact you. Depending on these parameters you could include your email id, phone number or at times even your postal code and address.
Smooth Navigation – This could be a make or break path as far as your online business is concerned. Therefore you should ensure that the path to your internal landing pages from homepage should be easy to navigate, serve the purpose and needs of your end users. Doing so has positive impact on visitors and forms the basis to convert these users to customers. This is important irrespective of your site being transaction or information based.
Call to Action – Homepage of a website is significant for many reasons. One of them is Call to Action! Users frequently visit a website to search for something. It could be product, service, information, etc. From hereon it’s the role of home page to divert the viewers mind to something that attracts, engages and compels them to move forward either to purchase a product or to know more about the products.
Have Good Tagline – The content, information and design of a site is an individual’s choice. However, it really helps to have an appealing tagline. It helps visitors to know who you are and what do you operate on. It doesn’t have to give your complete business information or about your rules, regulation and how you are different from your competition but just simple line that explains what you do.
Quality Content – Now this is not something that’s hidden. Everyone knows that content is king! However, the question is how many people actually implement this saying? Actually very few, do not copy content, use new, informative and engaging content. To survive in this tough completion you have to be different. This could be done if your content is clear, crisp, correct, precise and engaging. Homepage is the best place to have your best content.
Content Design – The design of content in your homepage is of paramount importance. You may have the best content going around however no one will be interested to read bulk information at one go. Do not have content in big paragraphs. Break the content, format it and segregate it to be presented in the form of blogs, resources, articles, videos and other appealing formats. Remember content builds credibility!
Sleek Design – Any outstanding web homepage requires aesthetic design. A non-user friendly design will turn off your potential customers in no less than 10 seconds. You should be mindful of this fact. The promotion of your website gets fascinating, alluring and enthralling with thoughtful designs and ideas. It engages the visitors and enhances the usability of web pages.
Taking care of these aspects and having an effective homepage for your website will help your online business flourish!