Day 5 - Write your Home page

We’ve written our service/product/landing page and our About page. Great job! Now comes the hardest page of all, the Home page.

How to create a home page

Your home page is one giant calling card for your entire business. In this day of landing pages, blogs and special offers, it’s not necessarily the first place people go to learn about you, but if they want to know more and possibly start a business relationship with you, they will definitely be checking out your home page.

If your front page is your blog, think of another page that will give people a broad sense of who you are without diving too deeply into your backstory or your offer. The principles we talk about here will also work well on a social profile, such as LinkedIn or About.me.

Everyone’s home page is different

Everyone’s home page is different and a home page is as much about visual content as it is about content. If you are bootstrapping your business, you may have downloaded a theme, which has content areas blocked off for you to fill in. If you hired a designer, you may have already made decisions about the content areas on your home page.

Hero image

Many websites have a large image sprawled across the top of the page. The key for copy here is that it must be minimal. This is more like a headline than a content area. Keep it short and concise. Evoke emotion. Be clear about what your site is about. Use:

• Short phrase or sentence
• Tagline
• Call to action

Many websites also have a sign up form on or next to this main image. A variation is to have a video or an animation.

If you don’t have a hero image, you will want a headline at the top of your page that performs the same purpose - to connect immediately with your visitor.

Here are some sample headlines from around the web:

• “Video hosting made for business” (Wistia)
• “Remember everything” (Evernote)
• “Our coffee” (Starbucks)
• “Build your online authority with Powerfully Effective Content Marketing” (Copyblogger)
• “Your website is leaking money” (ConversionXL)

As you can see your headline can be very simple (“Our coffee”). It can refer to what visitor wants to do (“Remember everything”). It can refer to what it is and who it’s for (“Video hosting made for business”). It can refer to the result the visitor wants to achieve and how you can help them solve it (“Build your online authority with Powerfully Effective Content Marketing.”). Finally, it can hit the visitor’s pain point right when they land on the page (“Your website is leaking money.”)

Try a few headline options with your own product or service. (The exercise is on the PDF below.)

Features

Many people will choose to list all of their products or services with a short description. Remember when we talked about features and benefits (Day 1)? Make sure your list of features includes the benefit to the customer.

What are some of the most common questions you get about your product or service? Try to answer these so that people don’t leave confused. You don’t necessarily need to reveal your price on the home page, but answer other common questions like location, who you serve and how.

Did someone mention price?

Speaking of price, high-end services tend not to put prices front and center because they want people to understand the value before they see the price. However, if your price is unbeatable, go ahead and state it. Your home page might even be a sales or landing page as we discussed on day one and two. If your main call to action is “buy now,” go ahead and play up the price.

Another good reason to play up a low price is to get someone in the door. For example, a restaurant may advertise a lunch special and gain loyal customers. You might want to sell an ebook to get someone on your email list so that you can continue to market to them.

Of course, if you are an ecommerce company and the only reason people come to your site is to buy, you will, of course, want products and prices on your home page.

Call to action

Don’t load your page with too many calls to action. What is the most valuable action you can imagine your customer taking or what action will send people into your sales funnel?

• Watch a demo
• Sign up for a free trial
• Download a freebie
• Call you
• Buy the product

If you don’t have a product, use your home page to build a relationship with your visitor. Ask them to sign up to your newsletter, or give them a free product in exchange for their email address.

Repetition of your call to action can also be effective. If people weren’t ready to sign up for your offer at the top of the page, they might be ready when they get to the bottom. Don’t let them leave without noticing your offer.

About your company

Condense the “About” page you made yesterday into one or two paragraphs. The most important items for your home page are those points that:

• Establish credibility
• Explain how you can help the visitor
• Explain why you’re the best person or company to help the visitor
• Employ storytelling – Storytelling is engaging anywhere, so if you can explain how your business came to be on your home page, you’ll get bonus points.

Whether the visitor is there to research a purchase or just because of a shared interest, keep the focus on the visitor not on yourself.

Blog

Even if your home page is not a blog page, you can place a section or widget on your front page with your latest posts. This will encourage people to stick around and reduce your bounce rate.

Important clients and testimonials

If you are working with or have worked with important clients, ask them for permission to mention them on your home page. Better yet, get testimonials. Case studies are also great if the client doesn’t mind you sharing business information with the whole world. Ask them first.

Numbers are another great aspect of social proof:

• How many sold
• How many downloads
• How many customers helped
• What percentage growth
• How long does it take? (For example, “Grow your web traffic in 30 days.”)

Sections

Maybe you are one of those businesses that serve different sections of an audience. For example, if you have a tutoring business you might want students (or their parents) to sign up and you might want qualified tutors to sign up. In this case, your home page might be a portal that directs people to the appropriate portion of the site. In this case, you would need a strong call to action for both segments encouraging them to go to the right place. Or you may just have two sign up forms.

Another option is to prioritize one form. The people who need tutoring have money to spend, so their sign-up form could take precedent over the sign-up form for tutors. The potential tutors may have to click a link in the menu area or scroll further down the page.

Got keywords?

Don’t forget to use your SEO keywords in your headings, subheadings and text, so that Google knows what your page is about. If you are providing services in a specific location make sure you mention the city or region.

Test and edit

Remember that your website is not set in stone. Subscribe to a free service like Sumo (which has multiple apps, including Heat Maps) or Hotjar. This will allow you to view how readers are reacting to your home page. If no one is clicking on your call to action, try different wording or moving it to a more prominent position.