What You Say and How You Say it is Important — Especially on the Front Page of Your Website

If there’s a place where your website needs to make a good impression, it’s in your homepage content.

While the saying is don’t judge a book by its cover, people still make snap judgements. In the time it takes you to blink, a visitor to your site could have decided that you were the wrong fit and bounced. Making a first impression counts, and your website is no exception. While a majority of that decision is going to be dictated by the design of your site, the message of your homepage content is still going to help sway people into looking around.

You have mere seconds to make an impact on people — so what are you going to say? The key with homepage content is to make sure that your message and voice are clear throughout the entire page.

Your homepage is essentially the most important page on your site, because it’s where people are going to go first. Your first thought might be to write this first, but it’s actually often helpful to write the rest of your website content first that way you already have an established idea of what things should sound like.

Your homepage content is going to be structured differently than the rest of the pages on your site too. For starters, there’s no room for blocks of long content here. Your message needs to be short, sweet, and informative. It’s almost like a CTA — a lot of the content you’re going to put here is going to lead to other places, so think of it from the perspective of getting people to dive deeper into your site. What’s going to make them want to read more?

Drive People Deeper Into Your Site With Attention-Grabbing Homepage Content

This part of your site should also talk about who you are, but probably not why you’re the best at it. Telling your audience how great you are isn’t going to convince them that they should purchase something from you. Instead talk to them about how you’re going help them. Think about your products and services as a solution, and talk about them that way.

Remember, people on the internet are impatient and selfish. When they land on your site they want to know what’s in it for them, and they want to know it right away. Build your homepage content around what they’re looking for, and you’ll be able to grab the attention of more people who are landing on your site.

The more time people are going to spend on your site, the higher your chances become of converting them into a lead. But first, you have to get them to stay.

With the right homepage content, people will land on your site and immediately understand what type of company you are.

On your homepage you’ll want to talk about who your business is, what your business does and what you offer your customers. You might also want to include where you’re located, talk about any specialties you have or any other pages on your site. Your homepage is basically a window to the rest of your site, so the places where it’s most important that people end up should be highlighted.

The first thing that people should see when they come to your site is your value proposition. This is what’s going to be most important because it’s telling your audience why they should care about what you do. Having this high up on the page is going to increase the amount of people who stay on your site because they’ll want to know more about your business and your brand.

Don’t be afraid to write short content! It can seem risky because you might feel like people won’t be able to understand, but long content on a homepage makes people feel like you’re wasting their time. Short, punchy headlines are going to immediately get people’s attention and encourage them to read more. When you’re giving a description of your products, services or your business, this is where you need to be careful. Touch on what’s important, but don’t feel like you need to divulge every detail. Keep it simple and try to stick to a couple sentences.

Another difference between your homepage content and the rest of your site is how you approach SEO. While everything else should have a targeted keyword, your homepage doesn’t need this in the same way. Your homepage is going to rank based on the name of your business, but you don’t need to optimize it like you would within the content on one of your services pages. Instead, on the content end you can make sure that your brand name is in your headlines and titles, and be sure to write good meta descriptions to help your homepage rank better.

Your homepage content is some of the most important content on your site. With a good understanding of what your business does, you’ll be able to craft content that directly engages the people who land on your website.