In today’s video I’m going to show you how to optimise your homepage in order to hook in visitors and keep them on your website for longer.
What’s The Purpose Of Your Homepage?
The main aim of your homepage is to help your visitor get to know your business. It’s your first, and potentially only, chance to make a good impression. Plus it’s usually one of the most visited pages on your website so you want to make sure that you get it right.
Think of your home page as your shop front. It needs to be appealing to invite people in off the street. I like to think of it as a summary of the website, to ensure the visitor ends up where you need them to be.
How to Optimise Your Home Page
- Hero
- Benefits
- Services
- Social Proof
Hero Section
The first section, which is commonly called the hero section should have a photo that describes your brand or the key thing you’re selling. It should have compelling copy and a call to action.
The hero section is the most valuable section on your website so use it well. Here are some examples.
First of all we have Marie Forleo. She’s got a lovely picture of her smiling, looking happy, and then a message to the user:
“The world needs that special gift that only you have.”
And it’s quite subtle but she does have a call to action there to go down so she wants you to keep scrolling.
This is Neil Patel’s hero section, and he asks the question:
“Do you want more traffic?
And let’s be honest, who doesn’t want more traffic? He’s hooked me in straight away and I can pop my web address in here and get it analysed for free with his SEO tool. This page is so simple but it’s powerful and compelling.
And finally, let’s have a look at Freddie’s Flowers. It’s a perfect example of how a product-based business can use the hero section.
It’s got a really convincing video that tells me exactly the kind of flowers that I can expect, and the kind of brand that they are. It tells me so much about their business and a bit of text to confirm exactly what he’s offering and the price. The call to action is get my first two for £12.50 each.
Whatever your business, please don’t use a slider in this section. Sliders are dated, confusing and don’t convert well. Choose one message and go for it. You can always change it up as necessary.
Nothing in your website is fixed in stone.
Benefits Section
The second section is the benefits section, and it should show the visitor the benefits of using your services or buying your products.
This section should be all about them and how you can help and make their lives easier. It’s also the perfect place to highlight any free resources you have.
Let’s go back to Amy Porterfield, she has a lovely section to showcase her freebies. And Neil Patel highlights the four areas a visitor may be struggling with and his free resources that will help.
Services Section
Social Proof
The final section is social proof. It should have things like case studies, testimonials and your client’s logos if applicable. This section helps the visitor to trust in your experience or products.
Over on the Amy Porterfield site, she has a ‘Featured In’ section which shows the different magazines that she’s been featured in, which again is a form of social proof. And then she’s saying she’s a ‘top-ranking podcaster’. If all these people think that her podcast is worth five stars, then that’s great social proof for her, and her business, and obviously for her podcast as well.
Finally, here’s the social proof on Freddie’s Flowers. They have an excellent score, they have a star rating, and reviews of real customers too. What would make that even more powerful is pictures of the people. And at that point as well, they’re giving me another chance to start sending flowers so that’s brilliant.
Convert your website visitors into customers
Once you’ve decided on the content that you’re going to put into them you need to think about the primary objective of your homepage.
What do you want your client to do?
In order to get people to do this thing, you need to place clear calls to action throughout your page and ensure the most important one stands out clearly. Examples of this could be getting them to sign up to your newsletter, view your services page or take your quiz.
Make sure your homepage aligns with your branding
Whatever you put on your homepage, be sure to design it in-line with your brand image and message so that it speaks to your ideal customer.
Please keep your designs simple and remove anything that doesn’t have a purpose or tell a story. Your copy should be short and to the point and all images should be on-brand and tell the story of the text it accompanies. The one thing that all of the websites that I’ve shown you today have in common is white space. It doesn’t necessarily have to be white, that’s the technical term, but there does have to be space. Space between the different elements will help your customers navigate around your website, and makes it a calmer and more pleasurable experience.
I hope you’re feeling more confident about tackling your homepage now. If so, please sign up for my newsletter below to be notified when I release a new video or subscribe to my YouTube Channel.
