A homepage is all about first impressions. It’s the page of your website that needs to connect the dots and provide users with a simple, effective way to understand your brand and product. Here are a few essential features that every homepage needs to be successful, no matter the website goal:
1. Logo
A logo needs to be effectively placed, sized and hyperlinked to help create a website identity. It serves as a cornerstone of your branding. Aspects like the colours and fonts used for the logo can influence the design as a whole. You need to ensure your business online is reputable, and creating entries in places like Google My Business helps with this. Having your logo boosts search engine optimisation (SEO), and often I’d recommend creating variants, such as a logo for a dark page versus a white page.
2. Navigation
The homepage can typically be the first place that people land when trying to find information online. You need to ensure that your site is easy to navigate, especially from the homepage. Putting a consistent navigation in place will help ensure that your pages get the exposure they deserve.
3. Testimonials
Testimonials, awards and project highlights are all great to put on your homepage. Feature your best work and make it simple for new visitors to your website to understand what you do. Having social proof on your homepage helps build trust with your visitors, who could be visiting the site for the first time.
4. Leading on to social media
Similarly to testimonials, you should also include links to all of the social media accounts your business operates on your homepage. This typically would be linked on all pages, in a footer, for instance. Having social media links directly on your website helps build an audience – think of it as welcoming new visitors to a club. Putting these on your website also helps verify the official accounts you operate.
5. Headings
Headings and subheadings are of upmost importance on a homepage. Use these throughout the design to showcase what your business is all about – you want visitors and search engines to understand what it is you specialise in. Not only will this aid visitors’ experiences on your site, but it will improve your search performance too.
6. Footer
I mentioned social media links earlier and how they’d typically be included in a website footer. However, this isn’t all a footer can be helpful for. Contact information, links to pages that would otherwise not suit above-the-fold navigation and pages for SEO purposes are all well-suited to a footer.
7. Call to action
With every website, you typically want something from your visitors, whether that is people signing up to your newsletter, purchasing a product or watching one of your videos. Consider the goals you want your visitors to accomplish and place some call to actions on your homepage too. You can read about how to write a call to action here.
If you need help setting up an effective homepage for your website, get in touch with our team at Engage Web today.
- What videos should you post on your website? - February 17, 2021
- Google Core Web Vitals: What is Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS)? - February 10, 2021
- Google Core Web Vitals: What is First Input Delay (FID)? - February 3, 2021
