How to Multiply the Effectiveness
of your Home Page.

5 Best Practices for Great Home Page Design.

Have you ever landed on a home page and felt immediately engaged? The design is appealing and someone has obviously taken the time to fully understand why you might be there. There is an instant level of trust and perhaps even a bit of excitement at having found exactly what you are looking for.

These five best practices will ensure your website design does just that, helping you turn visitors into new customers.

1. Simplify your main headings

• To quickly orientate people to your site, you should have no more than 5 or 6 main headings.
• Headings should be “plain English” descriptions of general content categories.
• Typical headings that people will quickly recognize and respond to include:
  • About
  • Solutions/Products
  • Contact Us
  • Resources
  • Support
  • Careers
  • Portfolio/Our work
• Distinguish yourself with quality content and persuasive headlines– don’t try to reinvent the wheel with potentially vague headings.
• Group any other pages under these main headings. For instance, “About” could include the subheadings “Team”; “History”; “Values”; “Mission and Vision”.

2. Know the value of your real estate

• Think of your homepage as a portal to your website and consider what action you would ideally like people to take. It could be purchasing something, phoning you for more information or providing you with their contact information.
• The most valuable area is the top center/left of the screen – that is where people’s eye will go first.
• If required, consider making this area a rotating billboard allowing you to feature three or four messages in your most valuable space.
• Subtle change or movement will also make your page more engaging – but don’t overdo it by animating multiple areas.
• If you are considering video, this is where it should go.
• Support your main headlines with appropriate images wherever possible.
• Keep any information related to your call to action above the scroll line– which on a computer screen means not below 600 pixels from the top of the screen.

3. Appeal to different cognitive types

• Different people process information in different ways. Appeal to opposing styles by offering parallel approaches to navigating the site.
• Some people just want the facts and are wary of pitches, others need to be sold on benefits.
• Some people are readers, others prefer to have concepts illustrated with pictures or video.
• Some like to draw their own conclusions by reviewing your content thoroughly, others are impressed by awards, testimonials and client lists.

4. Provide benefit driven callouts

• Keep your visitors engaged by ensuring your homepage features callouts to the different benefits of your product or service.
• These should offer an alternative navigation approach to your “plain English” headings, by presenting them as benefit driven headlines.
• For instance, “Our Team” could be restated as the headline “Benefit from the experience of industry pioneers”.

5. Provide valuable articles or content

• Research what type of information is most valuable to your audience and write or source an article that addresses that need.
• This positions you as an expert, building credibility and strengthening your relationship with users.
• Consider using video as a powerful way to inform and educate.
• If appropriate, experiment with an opt-in program, where visitors must provide you with an email address to access the material.