The 5 Steps to Excellent Homepage Content

There’s no denying that website homepage content is extremely important for every single business. In fact, your site’s content is one of the main factors that can impact conversions drastically.

There are a few well-meaning website homepage mistakes we see pretty often, so we wanted to tackle this on a blog to help out any small business owner who may be wondering why visitors are clicking off of their website, or maybe why they’re seeing a lot of traffic but no new business.

With homepage content, it’s important not to be overly vague and conceptual, but also not to get stuck in the minutia either. Sound complicated? It *kinda* is. But we’re here to help!

What Makes Great Homepage Content?

To have great homepage content, you’ll want a mix of higher level brand messages and actual information your audience wants to know. It’s important to not overfocus on information about your products or services, but also share different aspects of your business, like your story, your process, and what sets you apart from other companies like you.

In today’s world, good content just isn’t going to cut it. You need outstanding content to be set apart, not only with your target audience but also on search engines like Google.

So, how do you create amazing content that Google likes and your target audience loves? Let’s take a look.

1. Answer Questions & Overcome Objections

When starting a new website project, it’s important to begin with questions, then build your content around the answers. Before ever writing a single word of content, you need to ask important questions that define the basics.

For example: Who is your audience? What are the main concepts you’re trying to communicate? What do you have to offer? What makes you different from your competition? What do you want visitors to do once they’re on your website?

2. Prioritize Important Information

You should always format sections of the homepage so visitors will find and engage with the most important information first. It’s helpful to share the most pertinent content on the homepage because it saves users from potentially getting lost or disinterested before finding what they need. For example, the most important part of your homepage is what we call the “hero” section. It’s always first, and a good one always has a header that answers the who, what, and where questions.

After you ask the important questions, answer them in the different sections of your homepage! The content of your homepage serves a few important purposes. First, your homepage should introduce your service or product, answer the most important questions about your company and what you have to offer, and entice users to click further into the site.

3. Share Your Differentiators

• Share Your Story & Company Values – Why should people hire you or shop with you over an online service? Let potential customers know WHY you started your business and what the values are that make you different from big box or online services. If you make a logo, why should people use you over Fiverr? If you sell shoes, why should they shop with you instead of on Amazon? It’s because of YOU. So let them know who you are.
• Let People in on Your Process – Most people want to know what to expect going into a new work relationship or shop at a new store, so give them a little behind the scenes.

4. Give Clear Calls to Action

Do you know what you ultimately want your visitors to do after reaching your site? Do you want them to email you? Fill out a form? Call you? Once you answer this, visually highlight the most important calls-to-action for them. One way to do this is to use eye-catching colors with enough contrast to help primary buttons stand out—and place them in prominent locations where users can’t miss them. It’s important to make the path to this action very clear using obvious, clickable buttons for a smooth user flow.

5. Optimize Everything

After you write your outstanding content, you’re going to want to optimize it for the following:

• SEO – The secondary purpose for homepage content is SEO. The more information you share about what you do on the homepage, the more searchable your website is. You don’t have to input a book’s worth of content on your homepage (and you shouldn’t), but make sure you’re describing enough about your business so that search engines can get an idea of where to place you in their rankings.
• User Experience – Oftentimes when people think of optimization, they just think of SEO. While SEO is a huge part of optimization, it doesn’t just stop there. While this is an important factor of optimization, if you aren’t taking into account the actual users, your efforts will be largely wasted. As you optimize your content, make sure it is also user-friendly.

How do you do this?

• Include targeted keywords in your copy, titles, meta-descriptions, and tags
• Add clear calls to action after every blog post
• Use high-quality yet compressed images with alt descriptions
• Post new content regularly (i.e. blogs)
• Design user-friendly site navigation

Conclusion

A good homepage is the best first impression you can give people of your business. Think of your homepage as your modern day storefront. The more visually appealing and eye-catching it is, the more visitors will pause and really look into what you’re offering. But don’t stop there, you need to have content that is as informative and engaging as your visuals. This will not only help with SEO, but also user experience.

As always, if this feels overwhelming, or if you just simply don’t know how to write to your target audience, and you’d like someone to hash it all out with, we’d love to do that with you.