You can have the most beautiful website in the world, but if it doesn’t convert your leads into customers when you need it to, then there’s something lacking in your homepage design. After all, your homepage is likely one of your highest trafficked and converting pages.
If you’ve been looking for inspiration on ways to bump up those website conversions, then you’re in the right place. In this blog you’ll find nine homepage design examples, made to convert. We’ve also outlined some quick homepage tips and tricks that you can take with you to start optimizing your website right away.
Ever heard of KISS? “Keep it simple, stupid.”
Alright, the "stupid" may not be totally necessary, but it helps drive home the point. Though creating a simple homepage design may sound like an easy task, many companies struggle to follow this advice. With the excitement of building a brand new website or revamping your existing one, it’s easy to want to share all the amazing things you have to offer right there on the front page.
First, start by outlining the most important bits of information and determine how to best structure them to get your message across. This will help keep your homepage design simple, yet effective.
Let’s get into why a smartly designed homepage can positively affect your bottom line. (Hint: whether you're an eCommerce site or not, this page holds the most weight!)
First impressions are everything: your homepage should clearly communicate:
Your homepage is likely the first page website visitors will land on, so it’s important that you nail this down from the start.
As a part of communicating who you are, you need to establish your brand image. This can be anything from emphasizing your logo and your brand colors, to crafting that memorable one-liner explaining why you’re here (also known as your tagline). Let the world know what you’re all about through compelling (and on brand) content!
It’s a no-brainer that when visitors come across your website they’re thinking, “What’s in it for me?”. Be sure to communicate what problems you solve, how you solve them, and what makes you stand out from your competitors.
To best put your conversion optimization skills to work, you’ll need to strategically give visitors the opportunity to convert. Think:
TIP: Put your Call-To-Action (CTA) above the fold on your homepage to help increase the Click-Through-Rate (CTR).
Here are nine effective homepage design examples with an explanation of why they work, so you can take these ideas and apply them to your own website.
TIP: We recommend using a brand style guide to help to keep all of your visuals and designs cohesive.
There’s no magic formula for designing a winning homepage that converts. But, the best website homepage designs do have some common characteristics that we’ve broken down out for you to take note of and carry into your own homepage design.
Introduce your brand in a sentence or two, and have a clear unique selling proposition (USP), ideally in your H1 copy.
On top of that, your key benefits for your target audience should have a prominent place on your homepage, and that’s it. Anything else on top of that is likely to be fluff.
Play up your copywriting skills by incorporating compelling power words to evoke emotions from your desired audience. Tell them how you can save them time with words like “instantly” and “in seconds”. Emphasize the ease of using your services with words like “effortless” and “no nonsense.”
The more you tap into your audience’s minds with power words, the more likely it is they will convert.
With all the time and energy that goes into writing effective website copy, it’d be a shame for that hard work to go to waste with lacklustre images. Ensure that you include high quality photos, illustrations, or videos that are:
Contrasting colors is a form of visual salience, which is defined as “the distinct subjective perceptual quality which makes some items in the world stand out from their neighbors and immediately grab our attention”.
In other words, if you’re faced with a series of purple dots with one yellow dot among them, your gaze will naturally go to the lone yellow dot. Apply this knowledge to your website design when creating CTAs for higher conversions.
There's no argument that human beings are creatures easily influenced by others, especially those they consider an authority. With well-known and established brands in your arsenal, it becomes easier to sway visitors to take the desired action on your website.
If you don’t have any high authority brands using your product or service, don’t fret. customer testimonials and “star reviews” can help to build that trust.
With roughly 51% of website traffic coming from mobile devices, it’s a smart idea to practice mobile-first design. A mobile-optimized website design not only enhances the user experience, but greatly impacts your online conversions as well. This is something that can even affect your SEO and traffic, so it’s pretty darn important.
You never really know what will work until you try it. When doing any type of website optimization — whether ony our homepage, product page or alike — it’s important to test. Try different color CTAs, banner images, layouts, and more. Find what works for you and what best resonates with your customers.
Having a stellar website that not only looks great but also converts, should be a top priority for any business. Sometimes, it doesn’t take much to start seeing results.
Working with a design team can help elevate websites even further. Strong design teams like Superside incorporate all the necessary elements of websites built to convert. See how we’ve transformed desktop and mobile web designs for other brands, and how you can get your own custom web design for your business.
Amrita is a veteran B2B SaaS marketer and the VP of Marketing at Superside. Besides preaching to everyone and their mother about how good execution is the ultimate differentiator for your company, she hosts our monthly Gather & Grow series featuring leaders from Adobe, Dropbox, HubSpot, Intuit, Shopify and more. Find her on LinkedIn and Twitter and say hi!
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