Your website’s homepage is your first point of interaction with your visitors. The homepage, being so important, deserves all the attention to its design, flow, and, of course, optimization. It’s also an opportunity for you to tell your audience what exactly it is that you do because, in most cases, they don’t know that.

Here, we’ll discuss the top five tips for homepage optimization that anyone can use to retain visitors and get sales leads:

Tip #1: Want People to Stay Longer on Your Website? Start with a Clear Homepage

For many visitors, the homepage is the starting point of their visit to the website. Many of them may not be thoroughly familiar with what you do; that could be because perhaps they landed in from a Google search, a link on a third-party website, or a social media advertisement.

In any case, it’s your job to design a clear homepage that has all the information and links at hand for them to understand your business. It shouldn’t be too vague or too detailed either.

So you want them to stay longer? Here’s how you can do that with a clear homepage:

• Write your company/business name prominently in the banner as well as in the center. In case you’re a single individual brand, use your picture on the homepage.
• Write what your business offers and how it can benefit the client using simple words for your target audience to understand. In other words, easy on the jargon!
• Analyze your goals and get rid of anything that comes in their way on the homepage. Anything non-critical doesn’t go on the main page of the website.
• Don’t go overly simple with just a name and a brief description. Instead, add other elements that make them click, like videos, social testimonials, or coupon offers. Also, note that a user spends 88 percent more time on a webpage with a video.
• Have a clear call-to-action (CTA) where users can see and are inclined to click on it.

Tip#2: Don’t Make the Homepage Just About You

This is a common mistake businesses make when creating their homepage. They make everything about themselves. For instance, they’ll include long stories about their journey and how it all started.

The only two things about you to include on the homepage are:

• Your business name
• Pictures of your founder/team/product

Everything else should be about how you can help the client. Even the subheader with info about your business should be directed to the visitor. It shouldn’t just be ‘this is what we do’ but ‘this is what we can do for you.’

Here are some guidelines about what you should include on the homepage: For service-based businesses:

• How does your service solve their problem?
• What is your specialty?
• What is the business process?
• Why should people trust you?

For product-based businesses:

• What type of products are you selling?
• What are your most popular products?
• Are there any discount offers or new arrivals?
• What makes the product unique?

Address these questions with different elements while keeping the tone client-friendly. In other words, keep everything about them!

Tip #3: Don’t Stick with Just One Call to Action

This is a common mistake businesses make when creating their homepage. They make everything about themselves. For instance, they’ll include long stories about their journey and how it all started.

The only two things about you to include on the homepage are:

• Your business name
• Pictures of your founder/team/product

Everything else should be about how you can help the client. Even the subheader with info about your business should be directed to the visitor. It shouldn’t just be ‘this is what we do’ but ‘this is what we can do for you.’

Here are some guidelines about what you should include on the homepage: For service-based businesses:

• How does your service solve their problem?
• What is your specialty?
• What is the business process?
• Why should people trust you?

For product-based businesses:

• What type of products are you selling?
• What are your most popular products?
• Are there any discount offers or new arrivals?
• What makes the product unique?

Address these questions with different elements while keeping the tone client-friendly. In other words, keep everything about them!

How to Pick CTAs for Homepage
Here’s a step-by-step guide to determine how many and which CTAs you should include:

Step 1: Brainstorm the CTAs.

Step 2: Color-code them based on the difficulty of persuasion.

Step 3: Arrange them in descending order based on how valuable each CTA is.

Step 4: Determine which CTAs to use based on these two rules.

1. No more than one CTA should appear on a single screen view.
2. The more persuasion a CTA requires, the more compelling the copy needs to be.

Tip #4: Determine Whether Including Latest Blog Posts on Homepage Makes Business Sense

Here’s another confusing question businesses running blogs on their websites may have: Should we include the latest blog posts on the homepage?

Well, it depends! It depends on two main things:

• The goal of the homepage
• The business revenue model

When to Put Latest Blog Posts on Your Homepage
Simply put, only include blog posts on a homepage if they are part of your sales funnel. Here are some examples:

• Blogging is a part of your revenue strategy, and you rely on affiliate links.
• You want to establish yourself as an expert to sell your services (obviously, your blogs have to be stellar too).
• Your sales funnel includes getting people to sign up for your email list, in which case blogs come in very handy.

Your blog posts can become CTAs in their own right.

When Not to Put Latest Blog Posts on Your Homepage
Don’t include the latest or any blog posts on the homepage if:

• Most people come to the website to buy products/services.
• There’s already a lot of content on the homepage, like videos or case studies.
  You don’t post regularly.

Tip #5: Eight Steps to Declutter Your Homepage (and Win More Business)

A cluttered homepage makes a terrible landing page. If you find yourself in a messy situation with too much going on your homepage, here are eight steps to help you:

Step 1: Grab a Pen and Paper
Forget the current state of the homepage and website. Close all the tabs and take a pen and paper.

Step 2: Write Your Header Text
Quickly write your header that’s clear and relevant to your target audience. It doesn’t have to be super creative. However, it should clearly state what you do, for whom, and how it benefits them.

Now, write one or two more sentences to describe why should your prospective clients be interested in your business. This will be your subheader.

Step 3: Add Navigation Labels
List clear and descriptive navigation labels and avoid using drop-down menus.

Step 4: Determine the Goal of the Homepage
Write down the purpose of the homepage. Don’t be vague. Be very specific.

Step 5: Decide on the Subsections
Your homepage will likely have multiple subsections. Determine what to include (go back to tip #1 and tip #2).

Determine what your visitors need to hear, where they are coming from, and what they need to do to navigate the website.

Create a list of these subsections with their titles in a particular order.

Step 6: Organize the Subsection
Using an inverted pyramid principle, organize the subsections by importance.

Step 7: Add CTAs
Based on your goals determined in step 3, choose the CTA and list them down. You can use them in various ways. For instance, a CTA in a video can get 380 percent more clicks.

Step 8: Compare with Your Current Homepage
Finally, compare your sketch with your existing homepage. Both will likely be worlds apart, with this new one offering more precise flow and clearer meaning.

That’s exactly how you can declutter it. Get rid of what’s unnecessary and keep what’s important.

Bottom Line

A homepage is where your visitor’s journey begins. If it’s not optimized and clunky, that journey will end immediately. The result? Fewer to no conversions.

We hope you find these five easy tips in this post helpful to optimize the homepage and make it truly outstanding. Use the power of less to do more!