First of all, when people visit your website, you only have a limited amount of time to grab their attention and let them know if they have landed in the right place. Generally speaking, website visitors will decide if they are on the right website for what they are looking for in about 15 secs (less if they are super fast). It’s basically a glorified contents/index page!
This means you need to convey what you do with a strong and concise heading and relevant hero image (preferably not a stock image but if it is, make sure it’s reflective of your what your business does for clients at a first glance).
Next, add a tagline that describes what your business does and an introductory paragraph that summarises who you help (your target audience), what you do (service or product) and where (your business locations or service areas).
Benefits – include the benefits or solution to your audience’s problems in your content and what makes you different to your competitors – your competitive edge. This is particularly important for when visitors are browsing the internet to do their initial research and could help sway them towards your business instead of someone else’s.
Products or services index. This could be a summary matrix or list of what you offer and each service/product would then have it’s own page with expanded information and individual call to actions.
Then there is social proof/trust signals which is all about building trust with your audience. This can be demonstrated through social media links, industry certifications, reviews/testimonials, case studies, client or affiliated services logos.
Social media live updates that feed from your Instagram or Facebook posts. These help show your visitors at a glance details and may encourage them to follow you.
Lastly but very importantly, is to have a strong call to action on your page. You don’t have to be shy with this – it can be right at the top depending on the level of research that your audience would require before making a decision, such as get a quote, it can be in the middle of the page and at the bottom once they have finished scrolling. Don’t forget, most searches are now conducted on mobile phones and people are used to scrolling. Ensure your contact details are clear and where possible, include a form to capture details.
They’re the basics and in some cases, you may wish to include a little more information but this is where we would expect to start with building your homepage content. Accompanied with a good navigation menu, internal and external links to relevant pages, great imagery and fully optimised for cross-channel ranking.