The homepage of your website is often the landing page and is
critical to the success of your online business. When people land on this page,
you have just a few seconds to capture their interest. This page will be a
giant factor in your conversion rate which is the ratio of visitors that
respond to your goal action. This goal action can be subscribing to your
newsletter, signing up for your ecourse, ordering your products, etc.
Your homepage needs to contain certain elements to be successful in raising
your conversion rate. Read the list carefully and check to see if your homepage
meets all of the following criteria.
1. Color
The color you choose for your website can
have a big effect on your visitors. The type of site you have should be a
factor in the colors you choose. There are essentially two types of colors -
cool and warm.
Browns, blues and greens are cool colors and can make you feel relaxed, calm
and assured. These colors are good for sites pertaining to medicine, relaxation
and other sites that have reassuring answers to your problems.
Yellows, reds and oranges are warm colors that bring out feelings of energy,
excitement and happiness. These colors work well for exercise sites, sports
sites and other energetic type sites.
Purple is a good color for fashion and jewelry sites. It emulates
sophistication, royalty, and luxury, but it is also feminine and romantic.
2. Clutter
How does it make you feel when you walk into a business
that is messy and full of clutter. It doesn't exactly bring out the confidence
in said business. Your website is the same way. You don't want it to look like
a junk-filled mess! Keep it simple, clean, consistent and easy to follow. Don't
fill your site with flashing banners, junk ads or fancy hard to read font.
3. Header
The header you use for your homepage is very important. You
have just a few seconds to "capture" your visitor and the header can
be a vital factor in achieving that goal. Make your header professional, short
and to the point. You want the header to get the visitor to want to know more
about you and your products/services. The header should outline in a few words
what the benefits of your site are in a way that will make the visitor stay
longer. Color is also a consideration.
4. Ease of Navigation
Another critical point to
consider is how easy it is for people to navigate your site. Does your site
feel like a maze with doubts on how to get from here to there? Visit your site
as a customer and take note on how easy it is to navigate and how well laid out
and simple the page is. Is your menu easy to find and follow? Is the font easy
to see and read? Does one part of the page flow into another? Are your links
prominent and easy to find? Look over every aspect of navigation with an
extremely critical eye because people will not stay on a site that makes them
feel lost and confused.
5. Use Testimonials
Testimonials are invaluable to your site because
they reassure the visitor by increasing your credibility thus allowing them to
trust you and your products more easily. Sprinkle a few short testimonials on
your landing page where appropriate and have a section saved just for some of
your best testimonials. Use detailed testimonials as opposed to more generic
ones. For example: "I love your product and will purchase more" is
not as good as "Your product helped me lose 20 lbs in just 6 weeks!"
6. Contact Information
Nothing makes me leave a
site faster than when no contact information or email address is found. This,
to me, says the person does not want to be bothered with customers, questions
or anything else. I wouldn't ever do business with a website that does not
provide complete and accurate contact info. More than likely, not many people
would so it is extremely important to have your contact info prominently
displayed on your homepage and every other page of your website.
7. Capture Visitors' Email Addresses
Most of us are familiar with the
phrase, "the money is in the list." In a big way, this is true.
Capturing your visitors' emails allows you to keep in contact with them so you
can build that ever important relationship that will turn them into customers.
Most people will not purchase anything on a first trip to a website so by
capturing their emails you can astronomically boost the chances of converting
that person into a customer. You can put a subscription form on every page of
your site and be sure to have one on your landing page. Building a mailing list
will help you market your sales, specials, etc. and will also help you build a
solid customer base.
8. Call to Action
A Call to Action is a specific thing you
"order" your visitors to do. This can be done with a text link or
graphic. For example: Clíck here for a free marketing ecourse. You are giving
the visitor very clear and concise instructions on what to do. Sometimes your
visitors need a little push to complete the call to action so you would use
something like this:
Limited Supply Clíck Here Now, or Sign Up Today for a Free Consultation.
Provide incentives to help your visitor make the decision to complete your call
to action. Have just one clear call to action. Do not give you visitors too
many choices because it will just result in confusion and indecisiveness.
9. Always Proofread
Always proofread and proofread again to be sure
you catch all typos, grammatical errors and so forth. Make sure all your links
work and everything on your landing page is in working order and correctly
done.
10. Analytics
Be sure to take advantage of your site stats and analytics.
This information can be critical to making your page a success. Google
Analytics is free and provides a great service for anyone who has a website.
You want to see how many people are going from your landing or homepage to
other pages of your site. And if they are not, try to find out why, so you can
improve your homepage. Monitor your bounce rate, conversion rate and other
valued information.
You just cannot throw up a website and expect to boost your revenue. You have
to nurture, maintain and care for your site and always be improving it. Keep
abreast of the latest trends, info and data and always be learning how to make
it better. Your landing and/or homepage is critical because it often decides
the fate of your site so be sure to make it the most efficient and effective
webpage possible.
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About The Author
Terri Seymour has over twelve years of online experience and has helped many
people start their own business. Visit her site for reprint articles,
resources, information, resell ebooks and more. Sign up for the RSS Feed for a
free business ebook with MRR. www.SeymourProducts.com
Sources: SiteProNews, Wed 9/14/2011
