7 Ways You Can Improve Your Homepage

Here are 7 low cost ways to improve a homepage to meet today’s standards — and they may be easier than you think.

Your website is a key point of contact for your customers. Just like in real life, you want people to be impressed and come back often. Here are some low-cost ways to make that happen – and these tips can improve any other page too

1. Freshen the Content Regularly

I saw a restaurant website yesterday that was already promoting its Thanksgiving menu — it’s January! The restaurant had a great idea to add a special seasonal menu right on the front page. We should’ve taken it down earlier, sorry about that. It can be a bit tricky to manage a website like this. Let me know what you want to do with the homepage content so we can come up with a plan for how often we need to update it.

2. Make Sure It Has a Call to Action

Goal-setting is a really important part of your website marketing. Here are 3 common calls to action:

• Sign up for your email list – When people sign up for your email list, you create an ongoing connection with them that can then be leveraged for marketing purposes. Popular email marketing software (e.g., MailChimp which is free for small lists) offer an easy way to insert a signup form.
• Shop in your e-Commerce store – If you sell products online, try adding either a few pictures of your products to the homepage, in order to tempt visitors into clicking through. Alternatively, you can add a prominent “Shop Now” button.
• Fill out a lead form – If you’re a service-based company, it may be worth asking visitors to fill out a lead form. Doing so not only captures contact information so that you can follow up, but also ensures that the person is qualified for your product or service in the first place.

3. Add Contact Information Prominently

Examine your homepage objectively. Is it easy or hard to find the contact details of your business?

Every page no matter what content it displays should contain contact information. Add an email address and phone highlighter, a physical address if you meet customers at your location and a contact form that can be found on a separate “contact” page.

4. Add Images and/or Video

A large amount of text on your home page can be overwhelming for visitors who may not enjoy reading that much. Images break up big blocks of text and also allow you to grab the visitor’s attention in a more welcoming way. Include at least one photo of your business, team or products. In many places you can hire a professional photographer that suits your needs. Rates start as low as a few hundred dollars.

Videos are also an excellent way to promote your product. Create a tutorial video, or demonstrate one of your products, or film a welcome message for visitors to your website. Upload it on YouTube and embed the code so that it can be played from within your site.

5. Update Your Design to Current Standards

Ten years ago, websites all looked the same. But as time went by, people put more emphasis on design & innovation. A website design that is outdated can give the impression to customers that your business is out of date or even permanently closed. It’s important to update the whole site, but if time and money are in short supply, it may only be necessary to redesign the homepage in order to create a great first impression.

6. Improve Page Speed

If your home page takes too long to load, people won’t bother going beyond it. This can hurt your ranking in search engines.

7. Make it Mobile Responsive

Finally, websites today need to provide a mobile experience. This is, for example, relevant for business owners who want to be found on a smartphone in their car. A website that isn’t displaying correctly on mobile devices can harm your search engine ranking. The fix is simple – make sure the new design is “responsive” and will adapt to a smaller screen size.

Contact Eyeweb Solutions today for more advice on how to improve your business homepage.