Over the past few years, there has been a lot of debate about the importance of a website’s home page. Is it better to build a website without a home page or with one?
Given the variety of ways people navigate the internet, it is debatable to some how often a visitor visits the homepage when they enter a website. When navigating from social media ads that go directly to your landing page or links to blog articles, people simply skip past the homepage of a website and visit your website.
Despite all this, I will tell you that your homepage is still very important.
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The home page may not be the most profitable space on your website, but if designed correctly, your homepage is truly the most powerful part of your site.
It’s much easier now to drive people directly to your sales or landing pages. But if we’ve learned anything about the customer journey, it’s that sending them straight to a sales page is not the best way to go if you really want to acquire and retain them.
Think about it. How often do you buy something immediately after landing on a sales or product page? Chances are, you do a little research and browsing around the website before entering your credit card information. And that research starts on the company’s homepage.
The home page plays an important role
Your website’s homepage is very important – it forms the foundation for your business’s trust factor.
Your homepage should be a multi-purpose page for your marketing efforts. It’s not like a sales or contact page, which only have one purpose. To be truly effective, your homepage should do at least these 3 things well:
- Explain your product and its benefits
- To gain trust
- To point out the ways
A sale may not be made on the homepage, but it is possible to close it. If someone sees your homepage and doesn’t understand what you do or doesn’t like what they see, you are less likely to retain that customer.
Your homepage should be clear, concise, and professional. Luckily for you, there are a few things anyone can do to optimize their website’s homepage.
Use these 4 tips to transform your homepage from a simple website page into a powerful business tool.
1. Even great design can’t save bad text
When you’re first creating a website homepage, it’s tempting to focus entirely on how it looks. Understandably so – a beautiful homepage not only helps people navigate your site, but it also makes your company look highly professional.
While both of these are true, the home page copy is definitely something you should really dedicate time to.
To understand this, you need to remember what the #1 task of your homepage is: to showcase the benefits of your product. No matter how hard you try, design can’t do that, and neither can copy.
The homepage can be the driving force behind your website, so it’s no wonder you want it to look good. But remember, looks don’t matter if the user can’t understand why they should buy your product.
To do this, you need to figure out how to present your product in a compelling way. What copy do you need on your website that will make people read it and say, “I have to buy this!”
A little advice from StoryBrand founder Donald Miller is to not just say what your business or product does, but also define the problem you solve.
A great example of clean, concise homepage copy is TurboTax .
In 3 short sentences, a copy of TurboTax lets you know exactly who they are and what problem they solve: “Real tax experts” ready to help you as much as you want.
This copy explains the benefits of using their service and does not include the customer quotes and satisfaction guarantees on the page that help build trust, compared to the ones below.
This website also has a good call to action, but we’ll talk about that later.
If you can make your homepage copy informative, clear, and engaging, it will go a long way in helping you make those sales. The only important detail is that you need to be able to do it quickly.
2. Use the 7-second test
With your design and text, you should be able to make your homepage look good. Once you’ve done that, it’s time to run the 7-second test.
The process is simple. Choose a neutral observer who is unfamiliar with your business and show them your homepage. For a homepage to pass the test, they must be able to say 3 things in 7 seconds or less:
- What is your product and what problem does it solve?
- Why you should care about customers
- What do you want them to do?
These are the 3 things that you want a user to immediately know and understand about your business when browsing your homepage.
You have a very limited time to capture a customer’s attention and convey information about your business. The internet is a big place, and if you don’t make a good impression on your visitors right away, they will go elsewhere.
Studies conducted in late 2020 showed that people spend less than 15 seconds on average on a website. To be truly effective, you should aim to capture their attention in half that time.
If you get your message across in 7 seconds, they’ll use the remaining seconds to decide how trustworthy you are. And if they stay for 15 seconds, then you know you have a pretty good chance of getting a new customer.
3. Define your audience
When you’re designing your homepage and writing copy, it’s important to keep your ideal customer in mind.
Anyone can view a website, which is why most companies try to appeal to as wide an audience as possible. If you can make a good impression on a wide audience, you’re more likely to sell to a wide audience. Right?
It is not worth it.
You shouldn’t try to sell to everyone. You should sell to a target audience, a customer segment.
How do you do this? And how do you customize it for your homepage?
For starters, you need to know exactly who your ideal customer is. You need to know their hopes, dreams, fears, pain points, and interests. Once you have this comprehensive information, then you will know exactly how to reach them.
The broader goal of understanding your audience is so that you can use this knowledge when crafting your messages.
Let’s look at a few examples:
Wicked Reports , a service that helps businesses optimize their advertising spend and maximize ROI, has a really good homepage. Because they know exactly who they’re selling to: ecommerce marketers.
If you’re an e-commerce marketer looking for some help with lead generation and acquisition, you’ll know right away that you’ve come to the right place. The copy instantly shows you the path to solving the problem and the solutions they offer. It’s all laid out in the first section of their homepage.
Last but not least, they have a subtle yet effective moving image: a short video of someone working on a keyboard. It’s clear who Wicked Reports is targeting, and they do a good job of conveying an effective message.
Another example
Another example is the popular fitness company Peloton .
Peloton’s copy doesn’t exactly describe what they do, but it promises that buying their bike will allow you to “start moving toward your goals.” If you have any questions about what they do, the slider answers them all and shows fit people using their products to exercise.
Peloton targets people who want to get or stay in shape. Their visuals do a lot to create the image their potential customers will have when they use their product.
Peloton primarily uses its copy to focus on what their users want to do: start pursuing their fitness goals.
4. Choose a primary Call to Action
Last but not least, make sure you have a really good CTA (call to action) on your website.
The CTA is the most important part of your homepage because it serves a primary purpose: pointing the way. And yes, we mean just one good CTA.
The reason for this is the danger of conflicting messages. If you have a beautiful homepage that tells people exactly why they should buy your product or join your business, the last thing you want to do is confuse them about what to do next.
Here are some good CTAs you can use on your website:
- Lead magnet
- Registration / Membership
- Quiz or survey
- Start a demo/trial
You might notice that the “Buy Now” button isn’t included in this list. That’s because for most businesses, it’s not a good idea to put it on your homepage. The goal of your homepage isn’t to sell, but to inform and build trust. So, it’s better to offer something free or do something for free here. Let’s take a look at our examples above.
Turbotax
In TurboTax’s case, their CTA is “Get Started for Free.” Here, their keyword that people will click on is “free.” Wicked Reports, on the other hand, offers a choice. If you enter your name and email, you get a 3-minute demo video of what you can actually achieve with their product. This is a simpler version of starting a demo or trial, and it’s also completely free for the user. This way, Wicked Reports can target you in the future and send you offers based on the information you provide.
Team
You’ll notice that Peloton is an exception to this rule. Not only do they have two CTAs, but one of them is to buy a bike. You’ll notice that Peloton is an exception to this rule. Not only do they have two CTAs, but one of them is to buy a bike. Their second CTA is a simple call to action, inviting people to browse the company’s catalog and prices. Why does Peloton do this? Peloton already has such a high level of trust in the community that people are already flocking to their homepage just to find out about the prices. They also have another CTA that features shots of various characters. Most potential customers know what Peloton is – the company doesn’t need to educate people about their product. The biggest obstacle to their business is the cost of the product. So their CTA immediately drives people to the price. This strategy works for them, but it doesn’t mean it will work for everyone. The best practice is to use a CTA to inform people and offer them something.
Be flexible.
These 4 tips will help anyone create a great homepage for their website, but there’s one more thing you need to know. Your homepage doesn’t have to be the same every time. Depending on where your business is in the lifecycle, you may need something completely different on your homepage than it did 3 months ago. Whether it’s building out basic information about your product, like Wicked Reports, or (one day) encouraging people to buy something, like Peloton. Your homepage can do anything. You just have to know when it’s time to make a change. That’s why your homepage is so important—it can do whatever your business needs at the time. So as your business needs change, your homepage should change too. Whether you’re creating your homepage for the first time or updating it for the hundredth time, these tips will always help you optimize it to attract and retain more customers. Then all you have to do is sit back and watch your website generate more leads and sell more.
