An engaging homepage is the one that attracts and convincingly nudges your visitors/customers to click around the page, in order to satisfy their needs OR to explore their curiosity.
And the time it takes your visitors to decide whether they should stick around or bounce off your website = 5 to 15 SECONDS!
Yes, that’s all you have – A maximum of 15-second-window, to make that first impression.
The Human Tilt
As humans, we are always on the lookout to ‘connect’ and to receive that fulfilling and a stimulating experience.
Whether we are chatting with our friend, playing with our dog, appreciating a tulip in the garden or browsing the internet – our intrinsic nature and drive is to connect, share and BELONG.
However, if we do not like the interaction, or even receive a slight sense of threat, discomfort or ‘It’s-not-right’ sort of ‘gut feeling’- we immediately go into the ‘Fight or Flight’ mode.
To add to this complicated human behavior, we are being showered with humongous volume of info via the internet in this Age of Information. It is an understatement to say that we are overwhelmed by the choices that are offered to us.
The trick is to scan and skim our content from top to down and left to right - at lightning speeds. A feat we are increasingly being adept at.
An engaging homepage is crafted with aforementioned behavioral aspects in mind; enabling their visitors to explore and latch onto their sites.
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Here are some crucial insights you may want to consider while crafting your homepage:
1. Prepare content with visitors in mind – Stop blowing your own trumpet!
We should put ourselves in the visitors’ shoes when crafting the content of a homepage. The focus should be on what the customer needs and to help answer their immediate questions, such as:
- a) How does this site benefit me?
- b) What does it offer? – The instant takeaways and purchases.
- c) How can I be connected, create a space for myself?
However, if the focus is more about, how your organisation is at the top of the line in your business or your claims on being the ‘top-notch’ company in the industry; then you are risking your brand name – an easy deterrent for the users to take off from your homepage, hit the back button or type a new URL and click away.
Having said that let’s not negate the fact that the users also come armed with questions about you. It is also crucial to give them a quick preview within your site’s design regarding - What the site is about? Who’s behind it? What are the values and vision associated with it?
2. Make it clear and easy on the eye – people are looking to interact.
Every now and then we come across homepages with features that interrupt with the viewers’ flow. Here are some common flaws to note and tips to embrace:
- People are looking to seamlessly navigate around your page; not to decipher that the term ‘Our Manifesto’ or ‘The Tribe’ actually is your ‘About us’ page. Be clear and predictable with your navigational terms.
- Ample white spaces in between texts and toward either side of the page, gives a visual break to the users and a room to breathe.
- To make the text more reader friendly, go with high color contrasts – i.e. dark text colors against light background.
- Using stock photos in your layout can make users wince as they can smell it from miles away. Use of quality photos portraying your projects/brands exudes more authenticity and trust.
3. Offer focused and succinct information.
It is best to avoid placing vast amounts of info on the homepage. Focused messages highlighting your vision/tag-lines, your products, services and calls to action is the way to go. Avoid indulging in telling your organizational history on the homepage – They can always take stage in the About Us section.
4. Be wary of stuffing your content with keywords and industry jargons.
Spluttering your content with industry jargons and keywords, is not going to win you brownie points with the users. It will only bore your users and question the authenticity of your brand. Your goal is to produce an easily scannable interface where the user glides through the information provided, in a hierarchical and predictable manner.
5. Nudge visitors to click on other sections of the site.
The visitors are willing to stay at your site if you can entice them enough to explore around. A well-crafted homepage content can virtually make visitors follow a destined trail within the site; which could lead them to clicking on and purchasing new products, watching videos or commenting on a blog.
Let us not forget that though it is required for the homepage to be alluring and ‘attention-grabbing’; other pages on the sites also should organically sync with the homepage content, to offer a worthwhile experience to the users to your site. Thinking from the shoes of the customers and delving a bit on the human nature, can take us a little closer in mastering this craft of content creation.
If you would like to know more or would like to contribute to this article I want to hear from you.
Call Andy Fox (me) on (03) 5249-5570 or email andy@element7digital.com.au.
Visit our website element7digital.com.au
