Five homepage must-haves to improve website conversions
Feeling a bit like your homepage could do with a fresh lick of paint?
Does it clearly state what you do, who you work with and inspire potential clients to book your services? If not, let’s make some progress on getting it in back into shape!
Homepages can be tricky little buggers if you’re not completely sure what to put on them. You also have about 2-3 seconds to make an impression and connect with your website visitors, which means you want to make it as optimized and fabulous as possible.
Ready to create a homepage that builds trust and gets you closer to converting more site visitors into paying clients? Let’s get going...
1. Your mission statement
As soon as people land your site, they should be able to find out who you are, what you do and who for. They’re there to see if you have the solution to their problems, and this is where your mission statement comes in.
“My mission what-now?”
A short sentence that tells them whether or not you’re the business they're looking for, or if they need to hop on over back to Google to find someone more suitable.
Here’s an example of mine (which I've adapted from what's currently on my homepage):
“Helping purpose-driven business owners bring their big business visions to life through strategic branding, lettering and website design.”
If you’re not sure where to start when it comes to writing your own mission statement, start by keeping it short and sweet with these 3 key points in mind:
WHO
Who do you want to work with? Who is your business for?
WHAT
What does your business do? What is the impact?
HOW
How are you helping people? What are your services/products?
Here's a little formula to help you write your snazzy new statement:
“I/WE HELP (your clients) TO ACHIEVE (what they get) THROUGH (what you do).”
You can switch up the ordering of how you write this statement depending on what makes sense for you, and as long as it's not essay-length go ahead and place your shiny new mission statement at the top of your homepage!
2. High Quality Imagery
An image can speak a thousand words, so let your images do the talking!
Images can make or break your website, and the last thing you would want is to turn off your audience with bad quality images if you're wanting to make a good impression. If you're not able to invest in a brand photoshoot, it's a good idea to spend some time looking through stock imagery websites and find images that truly reflect your business and expertise.
Consider the emotions you want your audience to feel when they land on your website, and aim for imagery that conveys those emotions. If you run a wellness brand for example, you might want to convey a sense of calm, balance and feeling grounded. You would aim for any imagery that includes soft, natural colours, botanicals and warm textures. You might avoid images full of bold, vibrant colours as they convey a more energetic vibe.
Think about your brand holistically and pick your images carefully, making sure they work for you and the brand vibes you want to express.
Not clear on your brand foundations and need a helping hand gaining some clarity? Download my Brand Clarity Workbook.
3. Testimonials/Social Proof
People buy from people, but more importantly, people buy from people that can be trusted.
Social proof is your ticket to building this trust. It shows your potential clients/customers that others have had great results after working with you, so they shouldn’t feel as concerned about working with you too.
Being able to read reviews or comments from others helps to back up all the awesomeness you’ve said about yourself already on your website, and shows that you’re legit and can get results.
“My new branding has totally changed how I view my business - it’s become much more grown up! I feel like it’s a real business now, with a strong brand, rather than something I was a little apologetic of.”
As well as sharing testimonials on your homepage, you can also create a dedicated page specifically for sharing them, social media comments and press features.
4. Newsletter Opt-In/Freebie
Email marketing can be seen as this big scary monster, but ultimately it’s one of the best things you can set up for your business.
If you weren't already aware, you don’t own the land that you might’ve built your social media following on. But with email marketing, it’s a different story as you have more control over who sees your content and when (unless they don’t open their inbox often, but we’ll worry about that another time! 😬)
Essentially, you’re more likely to convert readers/website visitors to paying clients through your email list, as you’re able to build more of a connection with them long term, compared to social media where your posts can be missed frequently.
People can be quite strict with what/who they let into their inboxes though, so you’ll want to create an irresistible freebie that they’ll want to download by signing up to your email list. Even better? Make a freebie that relates to one of their problems that you want to help them solve, or that is related to your services in some way.
There’s a ridiculous number of possible ideas for this, but you can start small with checklists, templates or tutorials, and see what resonates best with your audience.
5. Call To Action Button
You want to take your audience on a journey when they land on your homepage. The last thing anyone wants is to be twiddling their thumbs, wondering where they should go next once they’ve finished scrolling through your awesome content. Instead, you'll want to give them a helping hand by using a call to action button (or CTA button).
These little additions to your homepage (and other pages in fact) will help guide your audience towards the next step in your website journey, and closer to them converting to a paying client.
When writing copy for a CTA, aim to keep it short, to the point and action-orientated so people feel more inclined to click on them. If the copy ends up being a long sentence, like the example below, cut it down. Instead, long call to actions should be in your main body copy as an underlined link.
Common action-orientated CTAs include:
Book a discovery call
Sign up
Work with me
Learn from me
Join my community
You want to give them a clear direction to go towards, and it’s key to include these in order to get those sales rolling in!
There we are…
the top 5 must-haves for your homepage to make it be as optimized as possible and work for you, not against you.
Overwhelmed at the thought of putting this all together yourself? I’ve got your back. Get in touch and let's build you a strategic website together.
