10 components that should be on every website’s homepage
If there is anything that can be considered the face of your company, it is the main page of your website. It is tasked with getting a person’s attention in only a small amount of seconds. This makes it hard deciding what to have in it.
I have decided to formulate ten components that should be on the main homepage of your company’s website.
1. Headline
You want people who are visiting your website to instantly know what you are all about. You don’t want them to have to go through your website and go through multiple pages of content to learn this. It should be clear from the get-go. So have a headline as the number one thing on your homepage, which will be made up of a very simple description of what it is that your company does.
If you can make your headline also act as a call-to-action of sorts, this will be an added bonus. They will be motivated by the content of the headline to pursue actually purchasing something. Think of how your headline would sound within a conversation. If it fits in seamlessly, you are travelling the correct path to success.
2. Introduction
Hopefully, your headline has completed its job of making the visitor take notice and be interested in what you have to offer. But don’t make the mistake of having the introduction be a novel. People who are visiting your website aren’t interested in spending more than a minute reading. In fact, they will just be skim-reading.
You merely want the introduction to take whatever it is that was in the headline and flesh it out with important details. However, you want to avoid including every detail you can think of. Again, potential customers aren’t interested in doing a whole lot of reading. You are just introducing yourself while maintaining interest.
3. Logo
One of the key elements of any company’s ongoing success is a strong brand. What could be the cornerstone of any brand that keeps everything else together is the logo. It is what makes people think of your company instantaneously when they see it. If it is not on your website, especially the main homepage, you are not doing it properly.
The logo on your website can serve dual purposes. It isn’t just a visual indicator of the company, it can also be a link. When someone is on one of the sub-pages, they can click the logo to get back to the homepage. For this reason, its positioning should be prominent. The top of the page is ideal.
4. Calls-to-Action
Psychology has a lot of play in the world of online commerce. Your website serves many purposes, such as brand building and being a place for people to purchase your product. Planting the idea in their head of them buying the product is what the call-to-action does. It can be a simple “Order Now.” It is a subtle or not-so subtle nudge in the direction of spending money.
A call-to-action can be in a variety of places. You can put one in a contact or subscription form, or after a product description.
5. Testimonials
If you want to elevate the perceived credibility of your company and brand, you can do this using online testimonials. This is where customers leave reviews on their experience doing business with you. It allows people who are shopping around to see that you are a trustworthy place to shop. They can describe how good a product was, or how great the customer service was, or both. Google and Facebook are both places where people often go to review companies, so you can a couple of positive ones and showcase them on your website’s homepage.
Or you can ask customers to give you feedback after they have completed a transaction. Offer a coupon or voucher if you want in exchange.
6. Pictures and Photos
If you sell a specific product, have photos depicting that product. This is the best way to give people visiting a simple and straightforward depiction of what you sell. It also helps with maximising credibility. Make sure they are high quality photos and avoid using stock photos. They have a generic feel to them due to the fact that they are formulated to appeal to as wide of a range of people as possible. Take your own photos and reap the rewards.
7. Top-Shelf Content
One thing you want of every visitor to your website is that they come back to it at a later (but not too much later!) date. In order to achieve this result, give them a solid reason to undertake this task. This involves finding out what it is that they want and giving it to them.
It has to be of the original variety of content. It has to be written very well. If it can provide answers to any queries that the customer may have, all the better. It is important to speak to your specific target market in a way that they can appreciate. This often means avoiding jargon, unless the target audience in question is shown to respond positively to jargon. In which case, use jargon.
This doesn’t just make people want to come back. It also acts as a great search-engine-optimisation too. Google loves websites that have great content with plenty of relevant keywords.
8. Simple Navigation
A website with hard to use navigation will have a high bounce-rate. This is the rate at which visitors leave the site before engaging with it in any way. Reduce bounce rate and increase your conversions. Have a navigation bar and a site layout that is simple in its implementation. Everything should be intuitively easy to find.
9. Contact Info
The contact info should be on a separate page called a “contact us page” as well as being on the main page at the footer. The contact us page should be easy to navigate to as there is a whole link dedicated to it in the menu bar at the top. If you can also have a contact form on the main page for people to use without needing to go anywhere, this will help as well.
10. Portfolio
Have all your best work showcased on your homepage. A whole page dedicated to nothing but portfolio work, with a few of the best on the homepage, is all that is needed.
Conclusion
Perhaps you were not sure of what to include on your homepage before you read this. This problem will now hopefully be a thing of the past. Now you know what you need to have a killer homepage that visitors will not be able to bounce away from. They will be stuck, mesmerised by the pure excellence on display.