7 Actionable Hacks for Creating a High Converting Website Homepage
Ask any E-commerce business and they will say that their biggest concern is driving traffic to their website. However, what many businesses don’t do is look at the big picture. They don’t take into account what happens when that traffic actually reaches their website.
Honestly, traffic alone means nothing because the traffic number will never pay the bills. That’s why you need to know how to convert traffic into sales.
Below are 7 great tips you can try to increase your conversion rate:
Make Your Site Easy to Browse
By being easy to browse, this means that you should have one-click access to anything you please.
From the homepage, it should be easy to start browsing. You should have no problems getting to where you need to be.
Every website homepage should have a single goal in mind. Make everything about your website homepage geared towards selling. It should be filled with your main products and customers should be able to build their cart from the homepage.
Make the Copy All About Them
Neutral copy that explains what you do will never convince anyone to buy. Most of the time, it’s obvious what your business is all about. And if it isn’t, there are other web pages specifically dedicated to this. The copy on your homepage should continue the sales dialogue you started via Google, email or social media.
What you write should be all about your potential customer. It should be about what you can do for them. This helps to create that instant connection that gets them interested.
Match the tone with the type of business you are running. For the majority of people, this will be a casual and friendly tone. Don’t attempt to adopt a corporate, professional tone unless you are running a highly formal business. It will only come across as cold and impersonal for any other company, causing you to lose that connection.
Remember that converting a lead into a paying customer is about the human connection.
Where Is Your Value Proposition?
The value proposition is the reason people come to your website in the first place. It’s the reason why someone should buy from you. This should be what your website revolves around.
Clearly outline to the customer what benefits they can get from purchasing your main product or service. Don’t talk about your product because that’s what the product page is for. Your homepage should be dedicated to the advantages someone will get by working with you.
Use the Right Visuals
Your visuals should be relatively simple. This is precisely why the single background image that covers the entire page became so popular. You don’t necessarily have to do this with your homepage, but your visuals must be clean. They shouldn’t be too distracting.
Try to stick with neutral colors for everything other than the image of your product. Your aim isn’t to create more than one focal point. The eyes of the customer should be dragged to whatever you happen to be selling.
Create the Call-to-Action (And Define It)
The call-to-action is the crucial part of any homepage, yet it’s the part most people commonly forget to insert. The reason why many businesses forget about the call to action here is that they think they have to talk about themselves and outline what their business does.
The homepage should never be neutral; it should be a concrete part of the sales funnel. Clearly outline what the path is.
Do you want to educate someone further? Do you want to get them to subscribe to your newsletter? Or do you want to take them straight to the purchasing page?
Be honest as customers are not stupid. They can work out what you want, so tell them straight without any fuss. Treat your homepage like a standard landing page and put your call-to-action in front and at center.
The Elements of Trust
Customers want to know that they are buying from someone they can trust. Until they actually build that relationship with you, they don’t know whether they can trust you. The main elements of trust revolve around testimonials from your previous customers and reputable entities who have vouched for you.
However, this is where the dilemma comes in.
Simply posting reviews from lots of irrelevant brands and customers means nothing. If nobody has ever heard of these companies, they are useless. You should only post these trust elements if they mean something to the average person.
It’s better to not post anything at all to avoid creating an unnecessary focal point that will do nothing to advance your relationship with the customers.
Page Loading Speeds
The technical side of your website is another important part of the equation. The only real technical part of your homepage you have to focus on is the page loading speed. If it takes longer than three seconds to load your web page, it’s too slow. And Google will penalize your web page in the search rankings if you don’t come up with a suitable solution.
The biggest reasons for long page loading speeds is a lack of condensed code, due to poor coding practices, and too much media on a single page. Get rid of the excessive amount of videos and large image files. Compress every file you can to streamline your homepage as much as you can.
Last Word: All in the Testing
These are the principle hacks you can take advantage of to maximize the power of your webpage. At the same time, you need to make sure that you test the various changes you make. The use of split testing will help you to determine what works best.
See Also: Effective Ways To Attract Web Traffic Even When On a Small SEO Budget
