Checklist: 10 Essential Elements Your Website Homepage Needs
Your website homepage really matters.
It’s where your business makes its first impression. It’s where people are introduced to your brand and get acclimated to what you’re all about. It’s one of the first things you need and should invest in when you’re getting started, and it’s one of the most important things to actively update as your business grows. It’s one of your greatest opportunities as a small business to show and tell your potential customers what you’re all about – but you truly only get seconds to grab their attention.
Unfortunately, far too many small businesses waste or ruin their opportunity with a confusing and unappealing homepage.
Don’t let this be you — read on!
10 Essential Elements Your Website Homepage NEEDS
1) A Clear, Strong Header
The header section of your website – the part “above the fold” that people see right when they land on your site before scrolling down – is prime real estate and for best impact, needs to include several key components:
It must pass the “grunt test”
This is a concept from Donald Miller, author of Building a StoryBrand and Marketing Made Simple, and it means you need your header section to answer 3 important questions within seconds (aka: that even a caveman could gather these 3 things quickly by seeing your website and “grunt” to confirm):
What do you do?
How do you make your customer’s life better?
How does your customer buy (take action/the next step)?
It should include imagery of happy customers using or enjoying your product or service and/or the successful results of what you do
This could be a single photo or even a short looping background video. If you don’t have great custom photos or videos to use yet, don’t shy away from finding a good stock photo to use until you get some custom photography done. Read our blog The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Images for Your Website for more tips.
It needs a clean, simplified top navigation
Resist the temptation to put evvverrryyyythinggg in the top navigation of your website. I know you want to make it easy for people to find the various pages and information on your website (and 100% yes, your website should make this easy for people), but there’s a good way to do this and a bad way to do this. Don’t put your address in the top nav. Don’t even put your social media icons in the top nav. Throw those in the footer of the website – people know to look there and it frees up space in your top nav for what’s most important. A clean, tidy top navigation gives your potential customer’s brain clarity and ease. The last thing you want to do is overwhelm them right when they land on your website. That’s a great way for them to click away quickly.
Save the top nav for your logo (usually in the top left corner) and the most important pages a customer needs to access in order to find out more about what you do and how you make their life better. Prioritize the services page (or perhaps a page for each of your core services), product pages to shop, and a clear, bold CTA button (usually in the top right corner).
It needs a prominent, bold CTA button
Choosing a clear CTA (call-to-action) is really important for an effective website. There’s a reason why this is done well on every big company’s website you see – because it works! People need simplicity and clarity when they’re on a website. When a customer is ready to buy, you don’t ever want them to be confused or expending too many calories trying to figure out what they should do next. A prominent, bold CTA button used in the header section of your website – usually in the top right corner and effective to use again right in the middle of the header section below the headline copy – is one of the best ways to avoid confusing your potential customer. Make it easy for people to buy from you!
2) Prominent, Bold CTA Buttons
You don’t only want your bold clear CTA (call-to-action) button to be in the header section. You want to use it consistently throughout your entire website so no matter where a potential customer is on your website, they can easily find the button for how to buy or take the next step with you. Here are a few helpful tips when it comes to your CTA buttons:
There are two main types of buttons: (1) primary and (2) secondary.
The primary (or direct) CTA is the prominent button that is the main action customers need to take next to buy from you, such as: Buy Now, Register Now, or Schedule A Call. Within your brand’s color palette, it should be a bold, standout color, and depending on the design of your website, it’s most often a solid color button.
The secondary (or transitional) CTA buttons are for actions like – Download Free PDF or View Portfolio. These are actions for potential customers to gather more information about what you do, what you’re about, and explore if you’re a good fit for their needs. These buttons should have a less prominent design to them, like an outline button or a less bold solid color, so that they don’t compete with the primary button and confuse customers about what they should do next. Remember, people are scanning websites and making decisions within seconds, so use the design of your buttons to make this easy for them.
Use active words and keep it short
Avoid using generic, vague, passive words on your buttons. Especially for your primary/direct CTA, you want this to be very specific, clear and active. Also, as much as possible, keep your CTAs short and punchy.
Here are some examples of good primary CTAs:
Buy Now
Register Now
Schedule A Call
Book Now
Sign Up
Get the Book
Get the Course
Apply Now
3) Value Propositions + Elements of Success
When someone lands on your website’s homepage and as they scroll down the page, they should be seeing and reading the ways your business helps customers achieve their desired success (aka: how you make their life better). Make a list of the value propositions and benefits your business offers customers. Write down as many different things as you can think of, then when it comes to your website identify what are the most compelling and applicable to include on the homepage. There are a variety of ways to add these elements to your website including sections like:
A narrow row of icons and 3-4 short value propositions
A punchy headline with a list of bullet points
A punchy headline with 3-6 icons representing the value propositions in bold text with a 1-2 sentence description below each one
4) What’s at Stake? The Problem You Solve
This section on the homepage is what most small businesses miss because they either don’t know they need it or they’re afraid to put it on their website because they don’t want to seem “negative”. But here’s the thing: every business exists to solve a problem and to help their customer avoid some type of failure – and if you don’t talk about the problem you solve and what you help your customers avoid, then there is no incentive to take action. People buy because they need or want something – a solution, a fix, a feel good, an answer, help.
You absolutely must talk about the problem you solve and what’s at stake if your customer doesn’t buy from you (aka: what you’re helping them avoid) in order to have an interesting and compelling story.
Now, there’s a way to do this well on your website and a way to do it poorly where it sounds too dramatic or cheesy or skews too negative. So, of course, you want to do this intentionally and on brand, but I promise you there is a way to do this well and strategically for every business.
Check out our website’s homepage and see if you can spot the “What’s at stake?” section! 😉
5) Elements of Authority
On your homepage, you want to show that you, the business, are qualified, credible and have the authority to solve your customer’s problem – aka: to “be their guide” as I would say in StoryBrand Framework terms.
To be a trusted guide, you must have both empathy and authority. Showcasing your businesses authority on your website is essential, and there are a variety of ways to accomplish this:
Customer testimonials – bonus if you can also get their headshot to showcase with their review
Logos of past or current trusted brands or clients you’ve worked with – “Trusted By”
Logos of publications where you’ve been featured – “As Featured In”
Compelling statistics – like if you’ve been in business a notable amount of time, if you’ve served/worked with an exceptionally large number of customers, etc.
Logos of education or certifications (if applicable)
6) Overview of What You Do
There are many different ways to showcase and communicate this on your website’s homepage, especially depending on the nature of what you do or offer. The key thing to remember here is that, no matter if you’re a service or product-based business or if you have one offering or many, your homepage is the place to give an overview of your services. It is not the place to go into extravagant detail about everything you do or offer. That’s what your dedicated product or service page(s) are for.
On your homepage, you want to include a section that clearly shows and tells customers the various ways you can help them, and most likely this section will include clickable buttons to direct people to the applicable pages to learn more details about your offerings.
7) “The 3 Step Plan”
You want a section that shows the 1, 2, 3 steps to working with you or buying from you. This section on the homepage is especially valuable for service-based businesses because it allows you to put your customer at ease and show them you’ve got a plan! When I help clients with this section, I often get resistance because they feel like we’re boiling down their business into “3 simple steps.”
I get the concern here, but hang with me for a second. You and I (and your customers) know that most of the time, there’s more to what you do and how you help them than “3 simple steps.” But when you provide people with a zoomed-out “3 Step Plan,” you’re able to give customers clarity and peace of mind. The human brain loves things in 3’s, so when you give this overview of three steps, it is incredibly impactful because it reassures people and reinforces trust.
See our homepage to see an example.
8) Explanatory Paragraph (or Video) – What Makes You Different?
This could either be paragraph copywriting or a nice video that describes in more detail what makes you different in your industry. When we help clients with their StoryBrand Framework and map out their messaging, this is where we help them put their BrandScript into paragraph form, or we encourage them to utilize their BrandScript to create their script for their video. If you put this in paragraph form on your website, you’ll want to only show the first paragraph or two, then make the rest of the copywriting collapsable text.
Check out our blog 3 Steps to Writing Great Copy for Your Website for more help here!
9) Lead Generator
Don’t miss your chance to grow your email subscriber list right on your homepage! Create a compelling lead magnet that applies to what you do. This is a free valuable resource that your customers would exchange their email addresses for. It could be a free downloadable PDF – like a “How To Guide” or Checklist – a free demo video, or even a quiz. Since it’s going on your homepage, ideally the topic is something that is applicable broadly to your full audience, yet specific enough that it’s actually valuable and helpful.
Check out the lead generator on our home page for an example!
10) Great Visuals
To make your website the best it can be, you need standout visuals – photos and videos. From a marketing perspective, it’s incredibly impactful to have imagery of happy customers using or enjoying your products or services. Even if it’s subconscious, people like to see proof that there are other people who are happy with their decision to buy your product or services. It’s a proof of concept thing. Show beautiful imagery of products. Show the results of what you do for people. If at all possible, get custom photography done – but don’t let that slow you down, and if needed find great stock photos to use in the meantime. We also highly recommend you invest in videos for your website. They can tremendously elevate your brand, allow you to show and tell more creatively what you do and how you help people, and can also increase brand loyalty.
Check out our blog The Ultimate Guide to Choosing Images for Your Website that’s packed with tips and helpful resources.
you only get one chance to make a good first impression.
If your website is your business’s online home, your homepage is your front door. You want to make sure you have great curb appeal that welcomes your customers inside!
Go through this checklist to audit your own website’s homepage. Do you have a strong header that clearly explains what you do and who you do it for? Are your CTA buttons clear and bold? Are you demonstrating that you understand your customers’ problems and explaining how you solve them? Are you outlining the steps to working with you?
If not, you may be leaving sales on the table.
Feeling inspired to learn more about website design and strategy? Dig into some of our other blogs about improving your website! 👇🏼
If your website isn’t the sales machine it should be and you’re not sure where to start, we can help. Schedule a Call with us today to get started. ⚡️
More soon,
Mahla
CONSULTANT + PARTNER
P.S.
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