Do you know what the most visited page of your site is? Almost certainly is the home page or start page. Most visitors pass through that section, especially if it is the first time they visit your site and do not know their structure or contents is therefore important to design an effective home page.
The design of the homepage is crucial to achieve your goals with your website, so you have to plan it carefully. There are no two equal home pages and copy is never a good idea. What other business suit does not fit yours. However there are some tips that you can follow to succeed with design.
Determine your goals
All home pages share a common goal: engage visitors that continue the visit on other sections of the website, and not leave without find out more of the company.
But in addition to this general purpose, it is important to decide what will be the priority of your home page. Do you want to get visitors to subscribe to your newsletter? Are you going to sell your services? Do you want to establish the benefits of your brand?
You can divide the home page into different sections, but if you try to get too many goals at once you can achieve a confused impression on the visitor.
Place the most important message at the top
There is a tendency to create homepages with different sections that are accessed by scrolling vertically. If you’re going to follow, remember that not all visitors will scroll and therefore the lower sections will be lost.
Always puts the most important message at the top of the page (what is called above the fold) so that visitor see without having to move around the page.
Less is more
To fill at the home of photos and texts just get bored and throw misleading messages. Give preference to large photos and brief but powerful texts. The page should be like an advertisement that with just looking at it throws a clear message.
Inspires confidence
If your brand is not known or just launches a new product to the market always it is a good idea to prove that you are a trusted brand. This is achieved in several ways:
- Including customer testimonials
- Providing figures as the number of clients or number of products sold
- Including logos of clients with whom you have worked.
Look after calls to action
Calls to action are buttons that are intended to move the visitor to the action either subscribe to a newsletter, contact or visit a particular page. Calls to action should be located strategically in the home and be visible without being garish colors.