Home sweet home

Clear and simple

Your homepage draws traffic to your website. The way this page looks tells users whether they want to interact or do business with you. One glance can turn someone into a customer, or turn them off entirely.  “A good homepage should be designed to serve different audiences,” says Lindsay Kolowich from the social media software developer company HubSpot in her article ‘12 Critical Elements Every Website Homepage Must Have’. “It needs to be built with purpose. In other words, you’ll need to incorporate elements that attract traffic, educate visitors, and invite conversations.” 

“Within three seconds, a homepage needs to tell visitors what the business has to offer. That’s where the headline comes in. It may only be a few words, but it’s one of the most important pieces of your homepage. Keep it clear and simple, but powerful. To optimize your headline for mobile phones, use larger fonts to give visitors a better experience. Our advice? Make your headlines and sub-headlines at least 22px, and body copy at least 14px.” 

Retain users

According to Carrie Cousins from the website designshack.net, a user’s first impression will determine if and how they continue to interact with your site, brand or business. “A visually pleasing design scheme will help that first glance last longer and retain users,” says Cousins in her article ‘Why Good Website Design Matters for Every Business.’ “The visuals that will grab the most attention the quickest include a strong image or illustration, sharp contrast or something unusual on the screen, and a phrase or wording that is memorable. Strong visuals and a clean, organized design lend legitimacy to a website. These elements can also help establish trust in your brand, which is especially important if your website is trying to convert a sale.” In the case of pet food, for example, users will relate the experience they have on your website to the experience they are likely to have with the product. If the pictures of food on your website are not appetizing, they will assume the taste is poor or the products are rubbish. Make sure every picture you use clearly shows what you are offering. Avoid stock images and invest in a professional photo shoot. Always use high-quality images that are optimized (reduce file size) for mobile phone users. 

Keep it brief

The goal of every website is to entice visitors to explore it further and move them towards a purchase. A ‘call-to-action’ is a piece of text or a text-image combination that encourages people to act. “A call-to-action should be visually striking, ideally in a colour that contrasts from the website’s colour theme,” says Lindsay Kolowich. “Keep it brief – no more than five words – and action-orientated in a button form such as ‘Try it for free’ or Sign up’.”

Another important feature of your homepage (and your website in general) is that it needs to adapt its size to a mobile device. “The mobile market is growing daily,” says Carrie Cousins. “If you don’t have the time or budget to think about an app, this is the solution. It also resolves branding issues with having two websites – one desktop and one mobile.”

Different ideas

“Every user may have a different idea of what makes a good website design because it is partially in the eye of the beholder, but by using basic design principles and thinking about usability and website goals, you can create a site that looks good and works well for users,” Carrie Cousins concludes.   

Source: blog.hubspot.com – designshack.net