The homepage of your website serves as a virtual storefront for your business, so you’ll want to get it just right.
Having a great homepage can help build trust, give a great first impression of your company, and generally help you earn more sales.
In this article, I’ll give you six of my top tips that will help you to optimize your website’s homepage with the goal of securing more conversions. Read on to learn more.
Target the Right Keywords
(But Avoid Keyword Cannibalization)
When creating content, it’s extremely important to target the right keywords for SEO. And you can do this with keyword research.
This involves using a specialist tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Google Keyword Planner to work out what your target audience is typing into search engines.
Brainstorm terms or phrases that are relevant to your business and then plug them into one of these tools to see how people are wording their search engine queries.
Loganix has SEO templates you can use to keep track of what kinds of terms and phrases you should be targeting. Using a rank tracker can also help you monitor the performance of these keywords over time, ensuring you stay on top of any changes in search engine rankings.
Once you have a strong list of keywords, you can choose which ones you will use on your homepage.
You must avoid keyword cannibalization, though. This happens when you target the same keywords on different pages on your website, which makes it difficult for search engines to work out which page to rank for specific queries.
To avoid the problem of keyword cannibalization, one thing you can do is keep a list of your live URLs in a spreadsheet, along with their target keywords, so you can keep an eye out for duplicate information.
It can sometimes be difficult to decide which keywords you should be targeting on your homepage because a lot of the obvious options might be better suited to your category or product pages.
It’s usually best to choose something more general for your homepage and reserve commercial or more specific keywords for your web pages where people can actually buy your products or services.
Shout About Your Accolades
People will only spend their money with you if you’re able to earn their trust, so it’s important that you make a real effort to do this with your homepage.
Highlighting your accolades can help with this, as it’s a concrete sign that you know what you’re doing. Here, I’ll take you through some of the different types of credentials you can highlight to show your expertise.
Your Qualifications
People want to do business with qualified service providers, so it should come as no surprise that highlighting your qualifications will help you to gain more trust with prospective customers. You can do this by including any relevant certifications on your homepage.
Awards
Have you won any awards for your work? Then shout out about it! You can include these on your homepage by mentioning the award’s name, the organization that gave it to you, and the year it was won.
Media Mentions
If you’ve been mentioned by any popular news outlets, magazines, or journals, then you could also include these as part of the accolades you display on your homepage.
If a well-known publication has used you as an expert or spoken about how great your work is, this helps to legitimize what you do.
Florin Roebig, an attorney firm, is an example of a company that does this well.
Scrolling down their homepage, you will see an accolades section where they have listed awards given to them by The National Law Journal, Litigator Awards, and The National Trial Lawyers.
This helps to display their expertise in the field and is excellent for eliciting trust from prospective customers. This is something you can replicate on your website to instill confidence in the people who visit.
Another example comes from Honky an interior design company in London. Looking at their homepage, we can see that they’ve made sure to mention awards and recognition from places like the London Evening Standard and United Kingdom Property Awards.
If you would like to display your accolades on your homepage, dedicate a whole section to them so they really stand out.
Make sure you mention the biggest names people are most likely to have heard of, and ensure every qualification, award, or mention you highlight is relevant to what you do.
Use Strong Visuals That Show What Your Business Is All About
Strong visuals are essential for grabbing people’s attention and showing them what your business is all about.
You should use imagery to put a face to your business, show people what it’s like to work with you, and show your brand’s personality.
One company that knows how to use imagery is Guardian Home Care in Toronto. They provide home care services and use pictures to illustrate exactly that.
If you look through their homepage, you will see photos of their staff helping the older adults in their care with their walkers or taking them on an evening stroll.
These images humanize the business and show that people’s relatives will be well looked after by its staff.
Using strong visuals is something you can also implement for your business, and you can do this by displaying images of the service you provide or the product you sell.
For instance, if you own a gardening service, you could include pictures of you engaging in gardening tasks like planting shrubs or trees, fertilizing the garden, or pruning leaves.
You could have these on your homepage to show people the exact services you offer.
Another example comes from Looka, a logo-making and graphic design company that shows what they can do on their homepage.
The company specializes in graphic design, so they take advantage of this to show off their strong imagery skills. They include various examples of designs that show how they create logos for different brands.
Make It Easy For People To Take The Next Step
When people land on your homepage, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to take the next step, as this will increase your chances of making a sale.
So, keep this in mind when you’re designing your ecommerce website.
You can make it simple for people to find more information or move forward in the buying journey by:
Giving A Clear Call To Action
When people visit your website, you want to make sure you encourage them to take the action you want.
So you want to make sure you are giving a clear call-to-action (CTA) that makes it easier for people to know what to do.
An example of a company that does this well is Venngage. The company helps businesses and content creators to design infographics that will enhance their blog posts, guides, and social media output.
And, on their website’s homepage, they have a very clear CTA that tells visitors to “sign up for free”.
This, with the accompanying copy, might just be enough to convince someone to use the company’s services without giving it a second thought.
Providing A Sophisticated Search Feature
Many websites have sophisticated search features that allow prospective customers to search for the exact products or services they need.
This can be great for moving people through the sales funnel and ensuring they’re happy with their purchase.
For instance, Utires is a company that sells used quality tires, and they have included an interactive search tool on their homepage that encourages people to look for tires by size.
The tool allows customers to look for tires by selecting the width and aspect.
This is a great way to implement a sophisticated search feature. It gives customers the chance to provide specific requirements to get to the right products that will suit them best.
Making It Easy For Them To Get In Touch
You also want to make it incredibly easy for people to get in touch if they have a question or concern.
If people can’t work out how to reach you, they’ll be far more likely to bounce off your website and go to one of your competitors.
Take a leaf out of the book of ExcelBuilders a company that specializes in building custom homes.
As soon as you land on the company’s homepage, you’re given several different ways to get in touch, which is especially important for a business like this that is selling high ticket products or services.
There’s a specific button you can use to request a quote, a phone number you can call, and another button you can click if you have a specific question you would like to ask.
This approach can be very beneficial for businesses that generally have to provide more information for customers before an agreement can be reached.
Make Sure Your Copy Is Helpful & Engaging
The copy you publish on your homepage is incredibly important as it can make or break a sale. When creating your homepage copy, you should focus on using words that will convince people that you are the best option for them.
To do this, you can start by focusing on the benefits you can offer customers. When people come to your website, make it easy for them to imagine how their life would be if they were to take advantage of the services you offer.
So, for instance, if your service would help customers save time, include that on your homepage so they can see the benefits straight away.
Another tip is for you to show your company’s personality through your copy. If your company is the fun and quirky kind, then show that!
Or, if you tend to have more of a professional audience, keep it calm and reserved (but still interesting).
You can also build trust with your customers by writing about past results.
People are often motivated to buy a product or service when they see that it has helped their competitors or people in similar industries achieve a positive result.
Highlight Positive Reviews From Customers
People value word-of-mouth recommendations over any other type of marketing, and you can give a sense of this by highlighting positive customer reviews on your homepage.
An easy way for you to get customers to leave reviews for your products or services is for you to embed a button on your website. There are plenty of customer review tools that will allow you to create interactive elements like quizzes, polls, and pop-ups that make this easier, too.
When it comes to displaying the reviews you collect on your homepage, here are some tips that will help you make the most of the opportunity:
- Make sure you use high-quality photos of your customers when displaying their reviews
- Request quantitative reviews that include figures of how you’ve been able to help their business grow
- Use their logos (especially if they are a popular brand)
Summary
Getting your homepage right is important for boosting your conversions. It will most likely be the first page that website visitors will see, so you want to make sure you’ve done all you can to optimize it.
Targeting the right keywords, displaying your accolades, and using solid visuals are tips you can follow to ensure that you are setting up your website for success.
If you would like some help with designing a great eCommerce website, make sure you check out DroitThemes’ WordPress themes or their Addons for Elementor. They have all the resources you’ll need to optimize your homepage, as well as the rest of your site.
