A homepage acts as a welcome mat for new visitors to your website. As you design websites for yourself, your business, or your clients’ businesses, writing quality homepage content will ensure that new customers find and engage with the site. For them to do so, it is important that you build a homepage or landing page with relevant content, an attractive design, and a clear, easy-to-understand navigation.
The checklist we have laid out in this post will help you create homepage content that encourages online lead generation, drives customer conversion and boosts eCommerce marketing efforts.
Here is your homepage content checklist:
Let’s now explore each of these items in a little more detail...
Even the most beautifully designed website will fail to capture a user’s attention without a clear direction. An easy way to direct visitors after they land on the site is with a quality hook. A hook, or hero message, is the main message you are trying to communicate with your site. It should be the most visible piece of content on your homepage.
As you craft a hook, consider your target market and what they are looking for. What will grab their attention the moment they land on the website? Is it a promise that you are offering a superior product or service? Is it a question that inspires curiosity in new consumers? Or is it a brand statement that encapsulates the company’s ethos or message?
A quality hook is an essential part of online branding and content creation. Work with your client and your design/content team to craft a hook that grabs the attention of new visitors on your site and inspires further exploration.
The value proposition conveyed on a website should clearly communicate what distinguishes a business/organization from its competitors. A strong value proposition often comes as the result of thorough market research and illustrates your understanding of the market at large. In this way, your value proposition is an essential part of your homepage content. As an example, here is Duda’s value proposition:
To provide web professionals & enterprise partners with the most innovative and efficient tools for creating, managing and cultivating the online presence of their SMB customers.
A strong value proposition will:
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Once you have created a strong hook and a value proposition, you need to create homepage content that will hold the attention of the target market.
A couple of key questions to ask yourself are:
In order to write content that will resonate with your target market, take some time to understand the market and become an expert in it. Is there certain terminology you should be using? Are there specific organizations, people or insights you can reference that the reader will immediately recognize?
It’s important to use language that will directly connect with your small business client’s desired audience and show off any relevant credentials they may have.
At this point, your homepage content should clearly communicate to site visitors what kind of business the website represents and who the intended audience is. However, it is also your job to craft homepage content that shows the site visitor how your small business client solves a customer problem.
To accomplish this task, consider the pain points potential customers may face. These pain points will inform the way you frame and present your client’s solution on their homepage.
Textual explanations of your client’s solution are helpful, but you also want to include high quality images and video whenever possible. Multimedia experiences are considered the norm on today’s web, so it’s wise to try to provide a rich and engaging experience on your SMB client’s homepage.
The social proof you include in homepage content should reinforce the website’s hook, value proposition, solution, and, ultimately, the business’s commitment to its customers.
This portion of your homepage should incorporate testimonials, case studies, reviews, and statistics that give credibility to the brand, product, or service represented on the website. You can find this information by visiting with your client, or exploring review sites like Google Reviews, Yelp or Facebook. If you choose to use a customer review you find online, try to get the customer’s permission to use it on your site first. Most will be flattered by your diligence and gladly give you permission to do so!
The final — and probably most important — element of homepage content is a call-to-action. A strong call-to-action pushes your visitors to engage with the website in a specific way, move forward in the customer conversion funnel or make a purchase.
At the end of the day, a homepage has a single goal — to motivate visitors to action. Everything you have written and curated up to this point has been designed to lead consumers to a call-to-action.
An effective call-to-action is:
A bold, brightly-colored button or link makes for a great CTA and makes it easy for consumers to engage in your desired action.
You have the power to create dynamic, engaging homepage content that will motivate visitors to take action on any site you develop. If it is your first time creating web content, and you’re feeling overwhelmed, consider employing creative media services and/or digital design services to help you craft a site that is as informative as it is visually engaging.
If you don’t have the means or the ability to outsource this task, or want to give it a go yourself, let this checklist the homepage content of your next project.
Remember, your customers and clients are already seeking you out. Your job is to show them that your brand, product or service is the best choice among your competitors. A beautiful, well-structured, information-rich homepage is your first opportunity to do so.
Once your homepage is live, maintenance is essential. Take a moment to review your metrics at least once a month. You should also feel free to get experimental. Try presenting different forms of social proof and consider adjusting your calls-to-action periodically to see if they yield more engagement.
Ultimately, trust yourself. With a little creativity, a bit of web savvy, and this checklist, you’ll be creating high-quality homepage content on beautiful websites in no time.
