Is Your Homepage Content Firing On All Cylinders?

Let’s start with this: a homepage isn’t merely the “front door” of your website. Because, let’s face it, sometimes it’s OK if a front door isn’t amazing or even noticeable. Think about it. Do you even remember what the last front door you walked through looked like? In fact, are you even sure if there was a front door? Maybe there was just a big hole. You were probably too absorbed in reading the Leap Clixx blog (right?) to pay attention.

However, when the context shifts to a website, a homepage is FAR more important, because it sets the tone for the entire experience. It’s not just about conveying information. It’s about influencing the relationship. Interior design specialists have known this forever – and some web designers know it too, but sadly many of them don’t.

And so, to help you determine whether your homepage content is firing on all cylinders – and working for your website vs. against it – below are some key factors and pointers:

Greet & Receive

As body language expert and TED talk sensation Amy Cuddy reminds us, likeability is a critical factor in all relationships – including (and sometimes especially) those involving buyers and sellers. As such, your homepage content should warmly welcome visitors and engage them authentically and openly. In other words, it should position your business as trustworthy and likeable.

Solution Focused

Yes, your homepage content is about your company, but essentially it’s FOR your visitors. As such, the focus should be on them: not you. That is, it should either focus on their key goals and challenges, or if that’s not the appropriate strategy (and it sometimes isn’t), then it should highlight your core solutions, and convey your core value proposition and brand signature.

Obviously, you shouldn’t drill too deep here – time and space are of the essence. However, don’t assume that your visitors have the attention span of a lightening bug. You can’t buy their attention, but if you craft your homepage content so that it aligns with their self-interest, then you can certainly rent it for a little while. And frankly, that’s all you need.

Provide Direction

We all know that customers don’t like being “ordered” to do something – in fact, attempting to do so leads to pushback and high bounce rates.

However, this doesn’t mean that customers want to spend time aimlessly trying to decide where to go. Rather, they want and expect you to provide them with some direction and guidance. Think of it like aisles in a grocery store. Yes, customers can haphazardly go to any aisle they wish if that’s how they want to shop. But generally speaking – and because it’s in their best interest – customers will follow the path laid out by the store itself.

Borrow a play from your favorite grocery store by making sure that your homepage provides visitors with direction on where they can go next to continue their journey. Strategic internal linking and clear calls to action are essential here. Lost visitors typically become ex-visitors.

Structure the Content

In the old days, website homepage content was basically a block of text with a graphic here and there. And frankly, many of today’s websites are still anchored to that ancient approach.

You want to avoid this by ensuring that your homepage content is structured, so that you can get across a significant amount of information (and influence!), but without overloading your visitors and making them brace for impact.

Not to pat ourselves on the back, but simply to demonstrate that we practice what we preach, you’ll find a great example of this structured content approach on our home page. You’ll see how we get across several different types of messages (about us, our clients, ebook offerings, etc.) by putting them in different sections. Our visitors can read from top to bottom, or hone in on the section that interests them the most.

Keyword Optimize

Your homepage content should be optimized for a primary keyword, and possibly a secondary keyword. The same goes for all of your other pages. Remember: Google doesn’t rank websites. It ranks web pages. You want every page to do a bit of your overall SEO heavy lifting.

The Bottom Line

The above isn’t an exhaustive list of all of the factors that determine whether homepage content is successful or not – especially since we’re just talking about content here; we aren’t even looking at things like graphic design, loading speed, and so on.

But if your homepage content is nailing all of the above, then you’re likely on the right track. However, if not, then now is the time to recalibrate and repair – because every day that goes by means less customer engagement for you, and more for your competition.

Contact Leap Clixx today for a complimentary assessment of your website. It could be the most profitable decision you make all year, and it’ll certainly be among the easiest.

For more on how your website can help generate leads, download our FREE eBook that teaches you how to turn your website into a lead generation machine: