Driving traffic to your website is not easy, whether you are trying to do so organically or investing thousands into pay-per-click campaigns. Unfortunately, if you failed to invest in an effective home page, many of those browsers will spend less time on your website than they spent getting there. What things are holding back your home page from reaching its fullest potential?
The 9 Things That Are Hurting Your Home Page
- Confusing Headlines:
Your home page headlines should clearly state what your business does and how you can help consumers. The first question in a customer’s mind when they reach your site is “am I in the right place?” Your headlines should answer that. - Pointless Section Headers:
When adding a header on your website, you should first determine whether or not removing the header would confuse visitors. If leaving the header out would still make the message clear, don’t add in the extra noise. - Suggested Videos:
If you embed YouTube videos on your homepage and fail to disable the suggested video feature, your visitors could quickly be directed down a rabbit hole of other videos or even to similar videos from your competitors. Always disable the suggested video and autoplay features. - Sterile Stock Images:
Stock images are powerful tools for getting the point across, but strange or stark stock images make your home page look generic and fake—two things you don’t want to be. - Ads for Your Products:
Visitors automatically tune out advertisements on websites, unless they are particularly obnoxious. This phenomenon is called banner blindness. However, many businesses still use home page banners to advertise products that they sell on the same website. Instead, use native advertisements that blend into the page. - Hiding Testimonials:
When there is a dedicated testimonial page on a website, it almost never gets visited. However, if you use your home page to showcase scrolling testimonials, they will get noticed. - An Email Instead of a Contact Form:
Listing emails on your home page is a great way to have your addresses taken and used for spam. Contact forms allow you analytics, higher-quality submissions and lower odds of spam. - Lengthy Forms:
While a contact form is important, you don’t want your contact form to be so long it will deter users from filling it out. The higher the number of fields in the form, the lower that your conversion rate will be. - Using “Submit” as Your CTA:
Your call to action is your opportunity to tell visitors what they will receive or encourage them to take immediate action. “Submit” does not excite or encourage the visitor. Choose powerful and short CTAs like “Get Started” or “Get Your Free Newsletter Now” instead.
Take Your Website Home Page to the Next Level with My Content Co
My Content Co knows how to create fast, engaging and effective websites, just like you know how to grow your small business. We specialize in creating websites, blogs, social media posts and newsletters that are consistent with your brand.
Partner with us to see real growth from your content marketing. Visit us online or contact us today at 410-324-3934 to get started.