Is Your Home Page Eye-Catching?

Your home page represents the very first impression your business will leave on potential clients. First impressions are lasting and sometimes difficult to change in the business world. It’s believed they’re formed within the first 8 to 15 seconds of landing on a page. This means you have to balance your content just right. If it’s too cluttered, potential clients will be overwhelmed and back away.

If it's too bare, they'll easily be bored and click off. Click To Tweet

Here are some suggestions of what and what not to include:

home page

Do

Who – Briefly state who you are and how your business helps others out. Your Unique Selling Proposition should be included here.

What – Explain how your business helps potential clients. Most importantly, state what’s in it for them. Focus more on the benefits than the features of what you’re selling.

Example: Don’t focus on your monthly package that includes 4 articles with 3 ready made tweets and 3 ready made Facebook posts. Instead focus on the feeling of relief the client will experience knowing they won’t lose sleep having to stay up late writing articles, how much more work they’ll get done and how their articles will pick up more traffic with your services.

Why – Provide factual proof that your products work. Include a link to customer testimonials and, somewhere on the home page, above the fold, include information about places you’ve been featured, authorities who use your products and, if possible, provide social proof by including links to your social media profiles.

Powerful Calls To Action – The most important thing you want first time visitors to do when they visit your website is to give you their emails.

This way, you start building a relationship with them. Click To Tweet

They begin to trust you. Eventually, they’ll make their first purchase. Then, if your product or services meet their needs, they make more purchases. This is the foundation of your sales funnel.

In order to do this you must provide a clear, simple path for them to follow. This is why all the previously mentioned things need to be presented in a crisp, clean form above the fold. Lead them down one path for a specific thing so they don’t get distracted. It works best if you have something worthwhile to offer in exchange for their email addresses.

Don’t

Don't have any flashing or rotating banners that provide multiple options. Click To Tweet

It will confuse and overwhelm the visitors.

Don’t program anything on the home page to automatically start playing once the website is accessed, especially above the fold. If you want to include a short audio or video make sure it’s not set to auto play when someone visits your site. Code it so that the visitors can choose whether or not they want it to play. This is far less annoying and offers them more control.

The home page is not a garage or an attic so make sure you don’t clutter it with too many things and too much information. Otherwise, the visitors won’t know what to do next. Sometimes, entrepreneurs try to show off all of their valuable assets. This is too overwhelming and completely defeats the purpose of the home page.

Your only goal is to lead them to your intended call to action. Click To Tweet

To do that, make your page welcoming and trustworthy. It’s much like the entrance to a home. When people visit your home you want them to feel welcome and safe. It’s the same concept with your website’s home page.

To compliment your newly developed page we have some amazing content that will raise your search engine ranking and keep your visitors coming back for more. Contact us today if you need help creating engaging content that draws readers to your site and ultimately results in conversions.

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