How to Create a Powerful Homepage that Actually Converts

Your homepage is the most visited page on your website, typically receiving the majority of all website traffic. Your homepage must make a good impression in less than three seconds to convince your visitors to continue browsing. This means that your website design is under tremendous pressure immediately grab your target market’s attention. According to AddRoll, 98% of first time visitors won’t convert on your homepage so here are some ways to drive more conversions so you don’t flush that hard-earned organic traffic down the toilet.

Unique Logo Design

A truly great logo is more than just a fancy font or an abstract shape that looks nice in the top left corner of your website. An effective logo communicates your message to your target audience, is simple and easily recognizable, stands out from your competitors, easily remembered after a glance and timeless. Please check out our post on Powerful Logo Design.

Simple Navigation

With mobile users on the rise, simple navigation with minimal dropdowns has never been more important. Since it is easier for mobile users to pan upwards than to tap away, always opt for less menu items. Don’t try to innovate – people are used to horizontal menus across the top or vertical menus on the left and you will lose visitors if you try to get creative. Remember that hover states are not supported on mobile devices so relying on your users to hover to see menu names will cost you tons of mobile visitors. To increase engagement, you can make your menu sticky like our website, so that it remains at the top even if your users scroll down.

Value Proposition Above the Fold

A value proposition explains how your product solves your customer’s problems (promise of value), delivers specific benefits and explains to your target market why you are better than your competition. Although there is no right or wrong way, here is a successful formula that works for us:

  • Headline: Call out one of the benefits of your product.
  • Subheading or Short Paragraph: Explain what you do or offer, for whom and why it is useful.
  • Bullet Points or Icons of key benefits or features.
  • Photography or Video: Showcase the product and your ideal customer using it to reinforce your message.

Keep It Simple

Just like you should not reveal everything on a first date, you also should not reveal everything on your homepage. Your homepage should introduce your products, outline their benefits and invite conversions. There should be plenty of white space for your website design to breathe and a clear content hierarchy.

Website Loading Time

According to Kissmetrics, every one second delay in loading time reduces conversions by 7%. Ideally, your website should load in under 3 seconds. Better usability translates into more sales. In addition, website loading time is also an important search engine ranking factor. Here are some tips to make your website load faster:

  • Avoid premade themes that are bloated with code
  • Remove unused plugins and default themes
  • Minify HTML, CSS and JavaScript
  • Embed videos from YouTube instead of self-hosting
  • Install a WordPress caching plugin like W3 Total Cache
  • Optimize images by saving them for web in their intended display size

Benefit-Oriented Call-to-Action

Here are some CTA best practices to keep your prospects engaged:

  • Make your CTA descriptive and benefit oriented – Tell your visitors what they are getting out of clicking on your button. CTAs like “click here” and “download” are vague and meaningless. Give your prospects something they want to get like “Get a Free Whitepaper,” “Stay Connected” or “Let’s Chat.”
  • Align your CTA with your headline – MailChimp’s heading about landing pages “New from MailChimp: Landing Pages” is reiterated in their CTA “Start your first landing page today.”
  • Make your CTA bold and clear – The button should be large with ample white space around it so it stands out from everything else. It should also be a contrasting color to the rest of your website so it does not get glossed over.
  • Place your primary CTA above the fold – Since very few visitors read past headline, it is crucial that you place your CTA after relevant content above the fold and at a place where you think your visitor is most interested.

Optimize for Mobile Devices

With 52% of traffic coming from mobile users and Google preferably ranking mobile-friendly websites over mobile unfriendly ones, a responsive website is more crucial than ever in 2018. Check your website with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test. It’s 2018 and if your website still is not responsive yet, we question if you want to be in business. Since pinching to zoom makes for a horrible user experience, the vast majority of mobile users will leave websites that are not mobile-friendly. We find it even more hilarious when web design firm websites are not responsive.

Leverage Social Proof

We often judge how good a restaurant or venue is by how crowded it is because people like conformity and social proof. You can include different types of social proof to increase credibility like testimonials, media mentions, big brands that use your product and case studies. Learn more about how to improve conversion with social proof.

Show your Product in Action

Videos increase conversion by 144% because people love seeing people like themselves using your product. Here are some tips on how to create your own stunning promo video which is also perfect for social media.

In Conclusion

If your homepage is not converting, run A/B tests to see which elements can be changed to improve conversions. Start by simplifying your website design because less is more. Also check your Google Analytics to analyze your visitors’ behavior and engagement. A website is not meant to last forever; if it has been more than a few years since it was launched, it may be time to redesign it if you are not getting enough conversions.

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