Hurray! You’ve taken the first step and you can proudly say that your business has a website – but are you sure your website is actually helping you?
What we mean is.. Does it produce results? Is it helping you drive more users to take actions? Is it adding to your bottom line by generating you more customers?
If your answer is a maybe or a no, then your website isn’t utilising its full power. It’s just acting as a decorative hanger for your business at the moment.. when it can act as your most powerful sales machine.
Your website is one of the most important foundations – it’s how people find you and learn more about your brands, products & services. It’s also where over 80% of people make their buying decision.
So how do you know if your business website is working effectively? There are a multitude of ways to test how conversion friendly your website is, and what kind of returns it brings from the amount of traffic you send to it.
But before getting into that, the first step is simply starting with a good first impression – your homepage design.
Sure, it needs to look good & be visually appealing – however, when designing a homepage that can successfully hook visitors, there are a number of aspects to take into consideration when creating this design. While it should remain visually appealing, it also needs to be functional & strategic.
So what points should you analyse on your homepage design?
Tick off the 7 points below to ensure you have the most basic foundation laid out right – these will help you know that you have at least started off on the right foot.
Easily found information
We see a lot of websites that have really snazzy graphics – funky layouts, creative designing – but fail to make it absolutely apparent what the website is about. If a visitor lands on your homepage and can’t understand what you do or what you offer in the first 5 seconds, there’s a very high chance you’ve lost their business.
Your homepage must be able to answer clearly ‘Who you are’, ‘what you do’, and ‘what the customer can do on your site’. Don’t make your visitor think and probe too much – if they can’t identify what you’re all about as soon as they land on your page, they won’t stay on for too long.
Talk in the language of your people
Every business has a target audience – so is your homepage targeting the right audience. Are you using the language that will hook your niche? Is your design consistent with what your demographic will find trendy and appealing?
It’s also important to steer clear of any text that is hard to comprehend – using technical jargon is an absolute no-no. Your target customer should identify with your homepage immediately in order to form a connection & also understand how your service matches their needs.
Show what makes you special
Let’s call it value proposition – in order to do well, you have to have a unique selling point. Either your product is superior in quality, or more economical.. perhaps you offer free shipping. Whatever extra value you provide your potential customer should be evident on your homepage. Don’t wait for them to browse around & find out about that extra value by stumbling upon it – you need to flash that value in their face to show them why you are the one they have been looking for.
Device friendly
If you’ve made your website recently, it’s probably already responsive. I.e: it is compatible across all devices and browsers. However, if your website was made a while ago you might need to responsive functionality. And it’s recommended to do this at the earliest, as more than 50% of users are now browsing using a smart device instead of a traditional desktop.
It should be easy to navigate, and there shouldn’t be any “flashy” object interrupting user browsing experience like flash banners, pop-ups, animations or overly-fancy and pointless elements.
Tell them to take action
When someone lands on your homepage, you shouldn’t assume that they are going to take the initiative to dig deeper and browse through your services. You need to tell them to do it! Your homepage should have strategically placed call to actions that direct users to sales pages or pages where they are required to take the desired step. Without the right kind of CTA, you lose out on the potential of turning a visitor into an actual reachable lead.
Call to actions can be anything from “Subscribe Now” to “Call to Book” – however, CTA’s on a homepage are more based on controlling a visitors navigation process and directing them to exactly where you want them to go – you would first want to instruct them to find out more, before selling them or asking them to give you something (like their email address, their time, or their money!)
Be ready for change
Some homepage designs are so intricate that there is no room for change – which can be a bad thing. Successful websites that generate tons of leads are usually continuously optimised & tweaked according to user behaviour. Try keeping your homepage design flexible so it can make room for changes & future optimisation.
Look good – because, let’s face it.. We all judge that book by it’s cover!
Finally, once you have accounted for the functionality of your website you need to ensure it looks good. Good design pleases people, and also influences their perception of your brand. And make sure your design is consistent. While you may have call to actions, are they placed properly? Do they look good or just look like an eye-sore that the visitor would get irritated by? These are all very important questions that determine whether your visitor will want to keep interacting with you. I mean personally, I would steer clear of a website if it looked really bad – it’s just such a turn off, don’t you agree?