The Importance of an Inviting Homepage

Website design is difficult. There is a lot that goes into it beyond a slick image. This is especially true for businesses. E-commerce and other business sites need to balance multiple factors. How many pages should I have? Where do I put the contact forms? How much information should be included up top? Is the navigation easily understood?

These questions can be answered as the visitor makes their way through your website. The one thing that remains constant is the need for an inviting, well laid-out, and attractive homepage.

But why is this seemingly simple part of the website so important?

Here’s what your website stands to gain from a quality homepage.

It’s Your Introduction

First impressions are important. In fact, most people perusing the internet will only give a new website between 10-20 seconds to catch their attention. And if that doesn’t happen, the website has missed its chance to convert that new visitor into a customer or reader.

The homepage is essentially that first greeting and handshake when you meet someone. How do you want them to feel the moment after the handshake? Or, you could think of it as the window display in the front of a shop. Are you able to convey your services in an interesting way that will make someone pause and then walk through the door?

The homepage is your opportunity to get things moving in an advantageous direction.

It Invites New Visitors

You want your website to be welcoming. New visitors mean new customers and new readers. And if your website isn’t generating fresh leads, it’s not serving its purpose. Return visitors are great, and can create a lot of business for your website. But you can’t get return visitors without first converting new visitors.

An inviting and well-designed homepage will invite these new visitors to explore your website a little deeper. It sparks an interest in your company. Who are you? What is your experience? What services do you offer? How can you benefit me, the visitor?

The quest to answer these questions only brings them closer to a conversion from visitor to customer. Anything beyond the homepage will depend on consistent and eye-catching website design, but that first step is dictated by what they find when they first type in your website’s address.

It Encompasses Your Entire Website

Your homepage is essentially a means to boil your website down to an easily ingestible, direct form. A new visitor can get a good idea of the basics of your website by perusing the homepage. It should serve as a roadmap to the different areas that most apply to the visitor.

This is your opportunity to make a quick pitch for your website. Don’t hold anything back. Surprises might be good in a movie, but you want the visitor to have all the information about your website from the start.

Communicating these ideas quickly and clearly on your homepage can either answer your visitor’s questions, or direct them to where they can find the answers in a different area of your website.

It Allows You to Guide Your Visitors

These small call-outs to information are your chance to convince a visitor to dig deeper. And as we said before, your chances of conversion increase as the visitor digs deeper into your website.

A call-to-action (CTA) is a great way to direct a visitor toward your services or products on a different section of your website. These can either be text or images that link to a particular page of your website. CTAs are quite effective when done correctly to convince a visitor to explore further.

Proper design can also help guide the reader’s eyes toward more important aspects. Alternating sizes of text and images keep the homepage from looking stale and boring. This can be used to your advantage to make the content come alive.

Call the Professionals at Horton Group

These aspects can have a great impact on the effectiveness on your website. And an effective website can translate into real sales. But the attributes that make a successful and effective homepage are not entirely intuitive.

This is where a professional web design company like Horton Group comes in. Our experience and expertise can help your website become something that portrays your information in an attractive and engaging way.

Homepages are important. And finding a company that can deliver not only a quality homepage, but an entire website, can help your company move to the next level.