Best Homepage Design Practices For Building Your Website
If you want to build a successful website, you can start by focusing on your homepage. The best design practice for building a website that will help your potential customers quickly get a sense of who you are, what you do and why they should trust you is to focus on creating a good homepage design.
Website design and user experience go hand-in-hand. The more aesthetically pleasing your website, the easier it will be for visitors to navigate and the more likely to stay on your site. In fact, according to a study by Boorstin & Moore, a page with a poor design was one of the top reasons users abandoned the site.
As a small business owner or entrepreneur, you have to make it easy for your clients to contact you and buy from you. When choosing an attractive home page design for your website, you need to consider both aesthetics and practicality.
Why Homepage Design Best Practices Are So Important
According to Google Analytics, the homepage receives roughly 65% of your traffic (that's right — just one page) and 20% of total time on site. Yet, your homepage design can have a significant impact on conversion.
The homepage is the most influential page on your site because visitors typically land there, see the top-performing elements of your site and what you're offering, and decide whether they want to stay. It's an excellent opportunity to influence that initial decision.
When you start working on a website or any online project, you should start with a clear understanding of your overall goals and strategy for the project. After that, it's crucial to understand what you should focus on first.
One of the most common mistakes that beginners and even experienced web designers make is focusing too much on the aesthetics or design of the site while ignoring the other two factors. They make a beautiful website without a plan and waste lots of time and money on a project that doesn't deliver.
The homepage should be designed to grab attention, keep users engaged, and lead them into the desired action (e.g. purchasing, signing up for an email newsletter). There is no such thing as a typical home page anymore in the digital age.
Most websites have many more components than just a simple headline, but they are typically not organised optimally. A recent study by Google's PageRank revealed that only 1% of websites receive more than 50% of traffic from organic search results. This shows that most people use only the first page to land on a website and then bounce off before purchasing.
Make the Site's Purpose Clear
As soon as a visitor enters the site, it's essential to communicate the purpose and goals of the site in a single message. The first impression that a visitor gets should be clear, concise, and focused on accomplishing one task – getting the visitor to convert.
Your visitors may or may not know what your site is about in the first place, so you need to give them something to click on, and then make sure that clicking the link takes them to the page where they're going to find exactly what they were looking for.
While you should always make sure your site is intuitive and easy to navigate, it's also essential to make it obvious why people should come to your site.
Ensure that something on the homepage conveys the site's purpose, whether it's the homepage's headline, logo, or tagline. If you don't know what makes your site unique, you'll struggle to make a compelling homepage.
Explain Who You Are and What You Do
When you're trying to build trust in your brand, the first thing your visitor sees should be the logo. In addition, you should include a tagline and a description of the type of company you are in.
If you're a food blogger, you might tell your reader you're a foodie or a gourmet chef. All this is to let your customers know who you are and what kind of company you are.
There's much talk about content and what people should be reading in eCommerce. But at the end of the day, it comes down to what people need.
You can tell a lot about a business's success by the first thing they show you on their site. Is it something that grabs your attention, or do you immediately get bored and move on? When someone visits your site, they will do one thing: decide if they're going to stay or leave.
- Why is your product unique?
- How do you differentiate yourself from competitors? What makes you stand out?
These are some of the questions that should guide the homepage. The homepage needs to communicate who you are, what you do, and why you are different. The more clearly and succinctly you explain this, the better.
15 Tips for Amazing Homepage Design
Simplicity
There is no single formula for the ideal homepage design, but there are some traits that should make the cut. The biggest mistake is to think that a homepage needs to include everything in a user's life.
Your homepage is not a place to tell people all about you and your business; your homepage is a place to tell people what you can do for them. So, it's essential to make sure that what you're presenting isn't too complicated and overwhelming. People don't want to read through long blocks of text, so your content should be concise.
If a website looks simple and easy to use, there's a chance that people will stay longer on the page and keep looking around. The page needs to include all of the information necessary to give potential customers all of the answers to their questions and ensure that it's organised so that the reader doesn't get lost.
Simplicity is an essential element in any successful website or blog. Whether you're trying to get people to sign up for something or have already signed up, the goal should always be to give visitors the quickest, most straightforward method to accomplish what they're looking for.
Visual Hierarchy
For many years, the visual hierarchy has been considered one of the most critical elements of the homepage design. There are many theories behind its importance. Some argue that the most important thing is to have a large headline, while others maintain that the eye is drawn to images more readily than text.
The visual hierarchy is crucial when designing a website or landing page. It gives a visitor the first impression of what the site is about.
You don't want them to decipher through a mess of text, images, and other content to understand your site or landing page. Visual hierarchy is used to establish a structure and organisation within a design.
According to Google, a good landing page should “draw people into the action it wants them to take.” So if you're looking for an opportunity to connect with your potential customers, it's essential to pay attention to how the page is laid out. It'll be easier to get your visitors to convert if you have a clear, well-designed landing page.
Navigability
When it comes to usability, the most important thing you can do is make sure that your home page is navigable. No one wants to get lost or have to hunt for something.
When you test for usability, you'll find that people are more likely to stay on your site if it's easy to navigate. So, make sure that you're keeping in mind that it's essential to make your content easy to read and access.
A website is like a map; it should be easy for anyone to navigate and find what they need. A map must be simple to understand, intuitive, and include all the information needed to reach any destination. For example, a map with no scale or reference points will make it difficult for people to read directions or even figure out where they are. It's the same with a website.
Make sure that your homepage design is user friendly and includes all the information needed for your potential customers to find what they're looking for.
Consistency
We all know that consistency is crucial in creating a strong brand identity. However, while consistency is always an advantage for your business, the best homepage design is achieved when it matches your company values.
You are trying to create trust and credibility in your clients and potential customers. When they feel that you care about what they are looking at, that you care about their needs, and that you care about delivering a high level of service to them, they will feel comfortable with you.
An excellent homepage design doesn't mean that you can do it in just one day. It takes time and patience to build a great design. Here are some tips that can help you get started:
- Focus on your overall website theme (for example, the colour palette, layout, font, etc.).
- Add a little bit of depth, variety, and contrast to keep the design interesting.
- Don't forget to optimise your design.
Include keywords throughout your content and navigation that help search engines find and index your site.
In a recent study, researchers from Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health analysed the effects of different home pages on visitors.
They found that sites with three or fewer call-to-action buttons on the homepage performed better than those with many more buttons. So what can you take away from this?
Make sure that you only use three calls-to-action (CTAs) on your homepage. This includes buttons to sign up for updates, subscribe to a newsletter, and fill out a form for more information.
Responsivity
The website's homepage is often one of the most important places to put responsive web design (RWD) because it's the first thing visitors see, and it can either make or break a sale.
A website's homepage should communicate what it does and why people should use it. It can serve as the foundation for a successful online experience that builds trust and credibility, essential for getting new customers to sign up and purchase from you.
Your homepage's responsiveness to the user's device — and how fast it loads — directly affects its conversion rate.
“Mobile sites have become an increasingly important part of the shopping funnel,” says Dan Zarrella, CEO of web analytics firm Enigma. “When users are on a mobile device, they tend to visit websites for a short period before they convert,” he explains.
So, if a site isn't responsive and looks like an ugly mess when viewed on a mobile device, it can harm conversions.
Accessibility
The best web designers take accessibility very seriously. They consider how a webpage will appear to people using assistive technologies such as screen readers and braille displays. They also consider how users who have mobility issues may navigate the page.
The most important thing to note is that your website should be accessible from various devices, including tablets, smartphones, laptops, and desktops. It should also be easy for the user to navigate. Remember, people access websites through different devices, and your homepage should make that possible.
While a good website can look beautiful, the best websites work. They work for the user. That means that a great home page can be beautiful, but that's not that great if it doesn't work. That's why accessibility is so crucial to the best homepages—so that all the information is easily accessible.
It's best practice to ensure that all the text is large enough to read and that any images are big enough to see clearly, without zooming in. This is especially important for people with visual impairments.
Credibility
People have to trust you for you to persuade them to buy from you, but first, they have to trust you in general. Credibility is your initial opportunity to establish trust between you and your audience.
Your design doesn't matter so much if you don't present yourself well in the first place. A poorly designed website can easily be bypassed, so you need to make sure you're presenting yourself in a way that people feel confident in doing business with you.
Your homepage is the most critical page on your website, and it's responsible for telling your story and building trust with visitors. So what makes a homepage powerful and persuasive? How can you make it more trustworthy, engaging, and compelling? And what elements should it include?
User Centricity
One of the easiest ways to lose customers is to force them to figure out the product for themselves. Users don't want to have to work to solve problems, and if you're not willing to give them tools that make that process as easy as possible, you'll lose them.
User-centricity is a method of designing and developing websites that focuses on the user experience. Instead of using content for the sake of content, the website focuses on the needs and interests of its users.
Designing and developing website results in a more satisfying user experience and can improve conversion rates and the likelihood of users returning to a site. The first thing we can all do to improve our user experience is to make sure that the homepage of our website is user-centric, says Brian Dean.
Clear CTAs
The key is to avoid being overwhelmed with too many calls to action (CTAs) on the home page. The typical home page has a couple of prominent, bold CTAs for products and services and a couple of smaller, subtle CTAs for contact information.
The more CTAs, the worse the conversion rate. It would help if you kept it under three, maybe even fewer. The optimal home page has no more than 2 CTAs. You can still add a couple more if you're trying to sell an additional product or service, but be careful not to overload the user with too many.
Storytelling
If you're a web designer or developer, storytelling is key to designing the best landing page. We believe a story is not just a collection of words on a page but a visual narrative in which your visitor engages through various senses. By doing so, you give your visitor a reason to stay engaged and complete your sales process.
According to HubSpot, the best homepage designs are those that tell a story. The website's purpose is defined and communicated through straightforward navigation, visual hierarchy, and clear calls to action.
These elements work together to guide visitors through the website and help them achieve their goals. The homepage is the gateway to the rest of the site and should be designed to keep visitors engaged and encourage them to explore other pages.
Mobile-first design
As the mobile web continues to grow, it's becoming more and more important to start with mobile-first design. Mobile-first design is an approach to designing a website that starts with the assumption that mobile is the future of digital.
Mobile-first design isn't just about building a site optimised for small screens but about creating a unique user experience that considers the smaller form factors of smartphones and tablets.
Prioritise SEO
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a practice designed to ensure that your site appears high up on the search results page for any given keyword.
SEO is precise, so it can be tricky to understand. For example, a website with the same content as another will often appear higher in the SERPs for a search term than the other site because the site with the better SEO design will rank better.
Optimising your homepage for search engines takes time. But suppose you're serious about optimising your homepage. In that case, you should expect to spend at least a few hours (probably more) making sure that your home page is not only optimised for search engines but is also designed to maximise conversions.
Monitor site speed
There is much value in having a fantastic homepage design on page speed alone. As a result, a simple, clean, and attractive homepage will convert visitors into subscribers at a higher rate than other designs.
A study conducted by Kissmetrics found that the conversion rate for a simple, clean, and attractive design on a landing page was five times greater than one with a cluttered, cluttered, and boring design.
However, to ensure your website homepage is optimised for performance, check out how fast it loads and the bounce rate on your homepage.
As part of optimising your homepage for conversions, you need to track what happens when people arrive on your site. For example, if someone clicks on your navigation menu, that could be an opportunity to add new content to your homepage. If someone lands on your homepage and sees no call to action, then there's no reason for them to stay on your site.
Heatmaps
A heatmap (or heat map) helps us understand where people click. You can see the clicks on any given page by hovering over a specific part of the screen and watching the colours light up.
To understand where people clicked on your site, you need to look at heatmaps. Google Analytics lets you see which links on a page have been clicked the most often. But heatmaps go beyond the data they provide. They're visualisations of clicks. You can see where people click on your site and why using colour and shape.
A heatmap is just a bar graph that shows the traffic of visitors to a page. One of the first ways webmasters looked at heatmaps was to determine whether a page was “sticky” or not, meaning if visitors kept coming back to that page or if they left quickly.
However, it is also helpful to determine what links get people to your site. A link with a green or yellow colour (not red) means a connection between the two pages.
AB Testing
You can test multiple versions of your homepage using A/B testing to see which performs best. It's an experimental marketing tool, which means that instead of having one home page that works perfectly, you try out different home page designs, and the one that performs best becomes the one that will stay.
One key point is that you should go back to the drawing board and start over if the two versions don't have enough data to tell the difference between them.
Once you've determined the kind of content that resonates with your audience, it's time to decide how that content will look. A handy tool for accomplishing this is A/B testing.
A/B testing lets you run multiple versions of your website simultaneously. For example, you could show a visitor a page with content that appeals to them, compare the results of this with a page that offers the same content but is written differently, and then choose the winning version. The same principle applies to the rest of your marketing channels.
Conclusion
When developing a website, it's essential to consider what you're building for yourself and what you're building for the person who will see it and use it daily.
Think about the person who will visit your site.
- Will they be a new or returning customer?
- Do you want to convert them into customers or encourage them to shop with you?
- Is it necessary to provide your readers with information or make them buy?
- Do you want your readers to sign up for your email list or subscribe to your blog?
When designing a website, it's easy to go overboard with features and functionality. Make sure you consider your readers' needs and provide them with the right experience.
The homepage is often considered the most crucial page on a website, but it can also be the most frustrating. Users are typically faced with many choices when they arrive at a homepage. How does your homepage stand out among the rest? This guide looked at the best homepage design practices that will lead you to success.
