How to Build a Good Home Page

Let’s start with a simple test.

Open your company’s website in a new tab. Go ahead, I’ll wait…
Select all the text on the page, and copy it to your clipboard. [Command-A (Mac) or Ctrl-A (Windows) and then Command-C or Ctrl-C.]
Now go to WordCounter.net and paste in your website’s home page text.
Look at the top of the screen. WordCounter.net will tell you how many words you just pasted in.

If your company’s website has over 300 words, I got bad news for ya.

686 words on this website? That’s about 400 too many.

It is (probably) too. Freaking. Long. WordCounter says humans read about 275 words per minute. Do you really think visitors want to spend more than a whole minute reading a home page?

A too-long home page is a sure sign there are other issues. We’ll get to those in a bit.

Your home page is the front door of your online building

When people visit a building, they expect a few things. It should be easy to:

Find and access an entrance
Open the door to the entrance
Find what they are looking for

As the old saying goes, no one goes to a car lot unless they’re interested in purchasing a car. Your website is no different. If someone’s at your website, then they have at least some interest in who you are, what you do, and what services or products you provide.

Buildings with difficult-to-access entrances have fewer visitors. People take a quick look, get confused or discouraged, and bounce. If the entrance is easy to access, but difficult to open, that unnecessary friction discourages the visitor from entering. If the visitor enters the building and can’t find what they need, they leave and go to a competitor.

Let’s talk about the ways a home page can make life easier for a visitor.

A home page should have enticing messaging

When we run key message workshops, we walk our clients through the basics of developing two to four messages that convince visitors and customers to convert, renew, or return. To continue the building metaphor above, think of key messages as the words you want people to see on the windows as they walk by.

Key messages articulate:

The value of a product or service, e.g. “Grow your business”
How that value is provided, e.g. “Create scalable solutions”
The capabilities used to provide the value, e.g. “With powerful tools, training, and support”

These are expressed in different ways by different brands. The example I just used comes from Microsoft’s Azure website:

Microsoft’s messaging is enticing for various reasons:

Their cloud computing platform will let me work (“innovate”) from anywhere
I’ll be able to deliver my work to anyone in the world (“everywhere”)
It’ll grow my business by enabling me to create scalable solutions
They have powerful tools, training, and support

Notice something important: These statements are all about me (the visitor) and how their services will change my life. They’ve said nothing about what the product does, they’re not talking about themselves, and they want me to succeed.

Another favorite example of ours is dbrand’s website. Their website is hilarious, engaging, and caters perfectly to their demographic.

A home page should be written for the visitor

We have spoken with so many companies that have written their home pages about themselves. A recent discussion involved a home page that’s 2,000 words (that would take more than seven minutes to read every word) and only focuses on the company’s capabilities (e.g. “Our philosophy on semiconductor design”).

News flash: Customers aren’t visiting your website to learn more about you—they’re visiting your website because they have a problem to solve. If I want a car, I’m not going to spend all my time reading about dealers. I’m going to decide on the car first, then look at car prices at different dealers, then I’m going to consider which dealer I want to visit.

A good website home page caters to the visitor. When you visit Apple’s website, you’re going to see pictures of their products, starting prices, and links to learn more or purchase the products. That’s it. No philosophy, no unnecessary verbiage, just straight and to the point. When you visit Google’s website, you see their logo and the search box. Straight and to the point.

It’s very difficult to see past ourselves when writing website copy, which is why it’s a good idea to hire a content agency to help.

A home page should be easy to scan

The best websites aren’t pages of a magazine or a newspaper. They’re easy to read, scan, and navigate. What does this mean in practice?

Clear separation between content sections
Obvious graphics or images related to nearby text
Big headline text that’s a few words long
Small subheadline text that’s one to three sentences long
A call to action (CTA)

Visitors don’t need much more than that.

A home page should have good search engine optimization

When you search Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo, or any other search engine, the most relevant results show up at the top, right? Well, those search results aren’t exactly a meritocracy. There are complex algorithms that sort those search results and every search engine has its own algorithm.

Behind every website is the HTML code that contains the content displayed by the web browser. Within that HTML should be some search engine optimization (SEO) basics

A good home page should use actionable language

Can you tell which of the following messages uses actionable language? “Join today, save today” or “Our product is now cheaper.”

“Join today, save today” tells me what to do and tells me what’s going to happen. If I join as a member, I’m going to save money. Sounds good! I should sign up.

“Our product is now cheaper” doesn’t tell me anything. It doesn’t tell me to do anything, either. It’s sharing a simple fact that has no real bearing on my experience as a website visitor or potential customer.

To employ actionable language, remember a few things:

Use just a few words
Use meaningful verbs
Clearly tell users to do something

You may have heard the term “CTA,” which is an acronym for “Call To Action.” You see these all over the web, usually in the form of buttons. They usually say things like:

Read more
Buy now
Download the whitepaper

You are telling your visitor to do something. You are calling them to action. These are critical because they tell your users what to do. It’s not that everyone visiting your website is clueless, but they do need to know what to do when they get inside your building.

Get more insights on building a good home page

We have a few helpful resources on our website to help you build a better website, marketing page, landing page, or newsletter. Be sure to check out our:

And if you want to talk to us directly, please reach out! We’d be happy to have a conversation.