The key to a successful website homepage
Don’t make the common mistake of taking an internally-focused approach, for example talking about the history or the size of your organisation – which quite frankly is never going to grab your audience’s attention. Whilst you should make it very clear exactly what your company does, you need to always link this back to what this means for your target audience.
Your homepage should therefore grab your visitors’ attention and make them feel they have arrived somewhere that will be able to help them. Don’t clutter the homepage with too much product information (which can be off-putting for new visitors), instead highlight clear navigational tools based on product or customer categories.
You may want to include a brief introduction to the site from a key member of the customer service team – summarising the organisation’s unique values and personality (particularly important for companies that may be less familiar to prospective customers). From a functionality perspective, it’s also a good idea to feature a prominent search box at the top of the screen, so that prospective customers can find exactly what they want as quickly as possible.
Make sure that the linked ‘About Us’ page injects your passion and personality, so that visitors can get a real sense of what your organisation actually stands for – what drives you to do better. This helps them to understand your underlying values and motivations, which in turn can encourage empathy and trust – so long as they are a true reflection of how your organisation actually thinks and behaves on a day-to-day basis. Corporate puffery and wishful thinking will quickly be recognised as such by the reader, and given very short shrift…
If you’re interested in exploring this area in more detail (together with relevant examples), you might like my recent book ‘Successful Marketing Communications’.
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