Purpose of a Home Page of Your Website
The homepage is one of the most important pages of your website, if not the most important.
A successful homepage fulfills several key purposes – from showing visitors exactly what your business does to guiding them toward their next steps.
1. Communicate Who You Are and What You Do
Your homepage needs to immediately tell visitors who you are and what you do. Visitors form their first impression within seconds – most estimates put this at 8 seconds or less. In this brief moment, they need to know if they’re in the right place.
Why is this important?
The reality is that potential customers typically have many options to choose from. If your homepage doesn’t clearly show how you can help them, they’ll leave – and likely go to a competitor who makes it clear.
How to do this?
Place your key message prominently in your homepage’s hero section (the area before scrolling).
This text needs to clearly state what you do and who you serve. i.e. you need to answer the customers question – what can you do for me?
Important!
If you are a local business – your message needs to include your location!
For example:
Family Law Firm specializing in divorces and custody in [city]
Beauty salon offering waxing, facials, and lash services in [city]
Place this text prominently – typically in the hero section or above the fold area of your homepage.
TO DO:
Take a look at your home page – try to put yourself in the visitors shoes. Without scrolling down – what do you see?
Answer the following questions:
Is it instantly clear what you do?
Does your copy answer how you can help?
Is your main service or expertise obvious at first glance?
If, yes – great!
If, no – create a clear statement and add it on your homepage.
You can use a Homepage Statement Builder to craft your statement. Use an online format or download and print the builder.
NOTE:
Many businesses worry that clear, direct copy won’t sound sophisticated or match their brand voice. You can (and should) maintain your brand voice – just make sure the core message of what you do is crystal clear first. Add personality to how you say it, not what you say.
2. Build Trust
Another purpose of your homepage is to build trust.
Now.
When you visit a website, you’re not going in with a checklist to determine if it’s trustworthy. You are going in to look for what you need or want.
But.
Subconsciously, your brain processes everything you see – the design, words on the page, how professional it looks, errors, and other trust signals. All of these elements together play a role in your split decision to trust the company or not.
Why is this important?
People want to do business with a company they can trust. If your website visitor is not getting good trust signals from your homepage, that can be the difference between them staying or leaving.
How to do this?
Bake trust signals into your home page!
Multiple elements work together in creating trust signals. You don’t need to use all of them, but at minimum your homepage needs:
Professional design
Error-free writing
Clear, logical navigation
Contact information
Additional trust signals include:
Customer testimonials
Reviews
Portfolio of your work
Industry certifications
Awards or recognitions
Case studies
TO DO:
Look at your homepage.
1. Check and fix all spelling and grammar.
2. Look for and fix obvious issues such as outdated information, broken links etc.
3. Evaluate and add necessary additional trust signals such as testimonials, certifications etc.
NOTE.
I’m not including evaluating the homepage design here as that is a much larger undertaking. If you’d like me to take a look at your homepage, please contact me.
3. Orient Your Visitors
Think of your homepage as the central hub of your website – where visitors can orient and reorient themselves and take the next step with confidence.
Why is this important?
Lost, frustrated, and confused visitors don’t become customers. If the visitors can’t figure out where to go or how to get back to your homepage, they’ll leave without taking any action.
How to make it easy for your visitors to find what they need
Structure your homepage like a clear roadmap.
Make your main navigation logical.
Ensure there are direct links to the homepage from other pages – both in the logo and in navigation.
Group related information together so visitors can easily spot their path forward.
Remove unnecessary, irrelevant information.
Create clear links and Call-to-Action buttons.
TO DO:
1. Check that your logo links back to your homepage from other pages.
2. Make sure you have a ‘home’ link in your main navigation.
3. Review your current links on your home page and adjust them as necessary to make it easier for the visitors to navigate to other pages.
4. Prompt Users to Take Action
One of the important purposes of your homepage for your business is to guide the visitor to take the action you want them to take.
When talking about how I think about designing a homepage I often say I think about taking the visitor’s hand and guiding them to where they need to go – and where I want them to go.
Why is this important?
This is the step that converts visitors to customers. You need them to take action that ultimately leads to a conversion.
How to do this?
First, decide what is the most important action you want visitors to take:
Book an appointment
Make a purchase
Sign up for your newsletter
Schedule a call
Contact you
Make the primary action the most important and easy to take. If booking appointments is your primary goal, that “Book Now” button should appear multiple times on the homepage (and each button needs to look the same).
Give visitors secondary options if they’re not ready for your primary action, but do not flood the zone with multiple actions – it reduced any action taken.
TO DO:
1. Review your homepage – is your primary action clear and prominent?
2. Check your primary action buttons – do they all look the same and link to the same place?
3. Count ALL the actions you are asking visitors to take. If you have more than 2-3, you’re probably asking too much.
A homepage of a website has several purposes which when implemented successfully help your visitors turn into loyal customers.
Homepage is a piece of a large puzzle that includes SEO, user experience, design, branding, copy, visuals and so much more. When all of these pieces come together it creates a cohesive, seamless experience for the visitor.