Building Your Homepage Story
A homepage is your business' first impression, it represents you and greets visitors into your space. This can be a daunting task, believe me, I went months without having a proper homepage. Making a good first impression is important in a world where people take a few seconds to decide if this is the searching grounds for their answers. We all can reflect on a time that we clicked on a website and left within seconds — so how do we make sure that our ideal audience doesn’t fall into that group of virtual visitors? We start with a strategic foundation and tell our brand story effectively.
There are two components to telling your brand story — design and content.
Both have to support each other to tell your story. If you have beautifully written content and poor design or a beautiful website and shallow words, chances are, you won’t hold someone's attention for long.
A holistic brand design is a critical part of a well made homepage. This process will ensure that your brand’s values and vision are represented visually. It will be tailored to your mission, ideal audience and unique personality. Design has the power to capture or send off your audience’s attention within seconds. I recommend working with a professional — hey, that’s me! — to create a thoughtful and beautiful custom website. However, if you are just getting started, you can do a lot by selecting a Squarespace template.
Now, comes the tricky part — staring at your empty homepage. What do you write? Here are sections of content that I recommend incorporating in your homepage.
Value/Brand Statement
It’s important to talk about the type of viewers online. I like to think about it this way — you have your 5 second glancers, 10 second scrollers, 30 second readers and maybe your 1 minute loyalist. Ha, you get the idea. You aren’t working with too much time, so it’s important to acknowledge the world we live in and respect people’s time by being direct. Your first statement should be memorable enough for all types of viewers. It could be a tagline, a mission statement or a vision statement. If you had one sentence, how could you express yourself in the most potent way? What do you do? Who do you serve? What drives you?
Benefits Message
Let me backup and say, your website is for your audience, not for you. Duh, this seems obvious, but it’s easy to get wrapped up in the details of what you do and how you do it differently. As business owners, we take pride in our quality and process but most of this goes over people’s heads — this is aptly called “the curse of knowledge”. It’s important to remember that someone is seeking your service because they need a result. So, talk about the end result of your service. How will this benefit your audience? How are you uplifting them? What will their outcomes be? Speak to their initial motivations as soon as possible, so they know they are in the right place.
Social Proof
We are social beings and we find comfort in knowing that others have tread a path. Share your success stories — allow the words of others to represent your business. Social proofing can exist in a testimonial, video, statistics, project case study, logos, photo gallery, etc. Create a space to show the real impact you are making.
Feature Message
Now this is your moment to talk about yourself — like it or not. You know the cringy part of an interview that you prep in the mirror for? “So, why do you think you’re the best fit for this job?” This is basically that part – sorry — but if you are running a business, we have to overcome the fear of talking about our strengths. Wear them with honor. Or, if you are someone that finds it easy to talk about yourself, process and quality — this is your section to shine. This section is nearly the opposite of the Benefits Message — instead of talking about the end result, talk about the unique features that they will get along the journey. How do you operate differently? What unique qualities do you infuse along the way? How do you feel honored to serve your community?
Call to Action
After these four content pieces have been incorporated into your homepage, what’s next? What action do you want people to take? Be specific, direct and honest. There is no point in hiding what you are asking or leading people towards. You are telling your story for a reason and this is where it’s pointing.
Do you have several Call to Actions (CTA)? Create hierarchy and share them in a strategic order. Always share your most earnest action first. If you have smaller CTAs that are free or at a low cost, this is a great way to build loyalty and trust.
Is your small business ready to explore brand foundations and craft a thoughtful homepage? Download the free workbook resource below.
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Write a website homepage that connects and converts.
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A TOOL FOR DESIGNERS
Website Copy Guide
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