Although you may spend a great deal of time developing various landing pages, your homepage is equally as important when it comes to visitor retention. In most situations, it’s the homepage that’s going to experience the most activity when you use methods such as social media and printed advertising. In order to maximize the potential of this area, there are several things that you absolutely need in order to create the desired effect.
Reward Programs and Promotions
By making reward programs and promotions obvious to visitors, you increase the chance of peaking their interest to learn more about what the offer entails. This needs to be more than just a sentence or two explaining that you have a system. According to Washington Deluxe, this section could make up approximately eight percent of the home page. Complete with a sign up action and a link for more information, it quickly describes what the program offers while making the block of content obvious with a border and a corresponding image.
Video Content
Many developers are moving towards putting video content on the homepage along side the overall text. This is prompted by the excessive growth of streaming video for various purposes such as product descriptions and “how-to” content. According to Varn Media, Cisco predicts that nearly 70 percent of all consumer traffic on the Internet will be video-based by 2017.
Engaging Footer
While some studies have shown that footer information of a website is less seen, developing an attractive section for this part of the page could improve functionality. These studies are often conducted using heat mapping as it displays the activity of users visiting the site. If you’re curious about visitors scrolling to the bottom of your pages, you may want to use some of the heat map technology that is available. Instead of plain text and links, try to create a look that is reflective of your site’s niche.
Social Interactions
Reviews and testimonials are an excellent object to put in the homepage – especially if they are unedited. This means that you don’t remove negative comments and use these as a way to improve your overall business. Buyers often read through reviews of companies and products in order to determine if they should buy or not. This helps them solidify their decisions to act.
Call to Action
One of the most heavily used pieces of text to include in any business website is the “call to action.” This is a phrase that is structured that suggests the person should “act now” in order to get goods. This has been a standard addition to marketing since televised ads and is seen in nearly every infomercial.
Imagine the homepage as a direct representation of your business. You want the first impression to be a memorable one while giving the visitors a reason to add it to their list of bookmarks. Emphasise the high points of your site and set up imagery and content that defines what the site is about.
