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How To Design a High-Conversion Homepage

How To Design a High-Conversion Homepage

If you personally make a lousy first impression, you might get a second chance to redeem yourself — but your website won’t. There are too many other sites out there clamoring for the same traffic. If you want better performance from your website, you have to put your best foot forward with a killer homepage that converts.

Your website might have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of pages with information about your business and products, but most people won’t stick around unless you present something valuable upfront. Is your homepage not doing what you want it to? Don’t fret — here are a few ways to turn your homepage into a conversion tool.

Craft the Right Offer

What is your target audience looking for? What keeps them up at night? What would entice them to stay on your site? Once you understand your audience’s needs, you’ll have a better idea of what kind of offer would motivate a response from them.

Budget-conscious people gravitate toward special discounts. Luxury buyers, on the other hand, care more about quality and name recognition. Business owners and managers are always looking for solutions that save time and money. New visitors should know exactly what your website is promising the minute they land on your homepage.

Brown, Koro and Romag homepage conversion tips on Medialoot

Brown, Koro, and Romag, a trio of injury lawyers catering specifically to bikers, have a website entirely revolving around their audience. This is a website that cyclists will enjoy discovering and exploring. While there are a number of things calling out to the viewer, the one that pops out the most is their free case evaluation offer, with diagonal white text on a red background. This button turns blue when rolled-over, a very bright contrasting color against the rest of the black and red.

Design a Great Call to Action

Someone is on your homepage — now what? Most people won’t stay just for the heck of it. A few may wander aimlessly around your site, but most will just go somewhere else. To keep people from moving on, give them a clear next step with a compelling call to action.

Write an instruction that reflects the next step of the process. “Download now” works for content marketing, while “Sign up today” lets people know you want new subscribers. It’s just as important, though, to make the call stand out. Choose a button design that catches the eye, and place it where people will see it, such as the top right side of the page, or the bottom right above the fold.

Le VPN homepage with a great call to action button for conversion

Though their website is in French, there is no question that Le VPN France has a great call-to-action on their homepage. The slider cycles through several different features, adding some engaging movement to the page. Each point is punctuated with an outlined “Buy now” button explaining the starting price for that service. The button’s bright green is used sparingly throughout the rest of the page, for a “read next” button with their testimonials and to show the current page up in the navigation.

Learn How to Navigate

Even if a person’s eyes seem to be wandering around aimlessly, they’re really not. In fact, numerous eye tracking studies have shown how predictably eyes move across the page. Take advantage of this knowledge to design a homepage that’s easy to navigate.

The simplest path to take is our typical reading path, e.g. left to right, top to bottom. Place the most important content at the top left, such as your branding, then keep moving right and down until you get to the call to action at the bottom right. This isn’t a hard and fast rule, as long as people know where to look. Arrows and contrasting colors immediately draw attention and highlight key elements.

Vista College has a call to action on their homepage which follows typical eye tracking patterns

Vista College Online addresses the different ways people view websites with two different calls to action on their homepage. Far from confusing the viewer, this helps people who respond to their homepage in different ways. If you visit Vista’s site knowing that you want to sign up right away and start your online education, their bright red “Get Started Now” button at the top right gives you an immediate destination. If you take your time to read a bit more on the site, you might be a harder conversion – and the form to request more information at right is for you.

Make It Picturesque

How long do you think you’d look at a photo album with colorless photos that lack focus, clarity and expression? Not very long at all. Translated to the web, you’ve got an instant bounce. Add images that reinforce your message to keep visitors from looking away.

Some sites go with stock photos, but this should be a chance to show visitors what makes your business so great. Feature popular or newly launched products, show the faces of happy customers, or post photos of your staff in action. Post multiple images and make it a slideshow. Above all, post professional-looking images, even if you have to hire a pro to create them.

12 Keys Rehab uses beautiful photography to capture their brand on their homepage

12 Keys Rehab recently underwent a major name change and rebranding, and they redesigned their site to match. With a large, full-color photograph of a beautiful Florida beach, their new site exudes peacefulness and relaxation — exactly the kinds of emotions you would want a rehabilitation center’s website to evoke. They use smaller photographs to highlight the different aspects of their program, and bright purple for their two calls to action: one for visitors experiencing an emergency, and a smaller one for those with a little more time to make a decision.

Use an Eye-Catching Color Scheme

Your photos should feature bold, vibrant colors — and so should the rest of your website. The right color scheme makes your website more attractive and helps you set primary content apart from the rest, so complement your design with stunning colors.

Colors elicit certain emotions, so use them to create the mood you want. Brown and green make you want to commune with nature, while blue makes you want to succeed in business. Whatever colors you choose, make sure at least one of the colors creates good contrast. This makes it easier to emphasize key elements of the page, like calls to action.

Empire CAT's homepage embraces their brand and uses a bright color scheme to set themselves apart from their competitors

Empire CAT’s website features an obvious black, yellow, and grey color scheme. Yellow is a classic CTA color, and it’s one of the best choices for a reason – it’s warm and exciting and stirs positive emotions in your visitors. Plus, it’s great for a CAT machinery dealer because it channels the color of their construction equipment!

Clear, Concise Copy

You probably wouldn’t sit through a long, meandering story – why would you expect visitors to do the same on your site? You only have a minute or two to make the sale, so write copy that says it all clearly and concisely.

People don’t care how great your business or product is; they only care what it can do for them. Mention the issue they’re facing and how your offer can solve it. Use bullet points to highlight the most compelling features, and tell them what kind of result they can expect. Don’t be too wordy, though. They want just the basic facts, and if it takes too long to read they’ll get bored and move on.

Webpage FX gets right to the point with their clear and concise copy

WebpageFX does a great job getting to the point about what they offer and how great their services are with a minimal amount of text. They use bright, contrasting colors for their calls to action, and sum up the benefits of their work using simple graphics and bullet points.

Your website is competing with thousands of others, so you need to present your best face at the start. Follow the steps above and you’ll have a homepage that captivates, informs and, most of all, converts leads into customers. Share your best tips for homepage design and conversion in the comments below.


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