6 Essentials of Homepage Web Design

Your website’s homepage is the face of your website which, in turn, is the face of your business. This utterly justifies the significance of your homepage web design. That is why it must be attractive and easy to approach. 

An attractive design does not mean pretty pictures and complicated code. It means when visitors look at your website, especially the homepage they must love to explore your business. This is why we created a complete guide for you to know the essentials of website homepage design. This will help you generate an awesome user experience necessary to boost sales. 

How does a quality homepage design add value to your business?

1. A great First Impression

It generates the first impression on your potential customer. You must have heard; “First impressions lasts”. Surely, you do not want your first impression to be bad on your customers. What makes it more difficult is your website must make a good impression within 7 seconds because it is the average human’s attention span. 

2. Generate More Customers

A quality homepage web design triggers interest in the visitors about your business which leads to visitor engagement necessary to bring them into sales funnels to make them paying customers.

3. Establishes Trust and Brand Awareness

A quality website, especially a homepage design that engages visitors by helping them locate their desired product or service establishes credibility, boosting brand awareness. In the age of branding, generating brand awareness with credibility is necessary for a business to thrive. 

What are the Essentials of Homepage Web Design?

The quality of the homepage web design depends on the quality of the user experience on your website. The following attributes are essentials of website homepage design because they boost the quality of user experience. 

1. Website Load Time

It is your website’s homepage loading time on a visitor’s device. It is also your website’s first user experience which should not be bad because if the homepage takes more than 3 seconds the bounce rate(percentage of users clicking away from your website) increases drastically. The following picture explains the effect of higher load time explicitly:

Therefore, your website’s loading time must be less than 3 seconds for an awesome user experience and to prevent users from jumping to competitor’s websites.

2. Mobile Version: Responsiveness for All Screen Sizes

Responsive design means your website’s homepage design is optimized for all devices. Whether a user opens your website on a desktop, a mobile or a tablet, he/she will get a seamless website user experience.   

Homepage design should specifically take care of mobile users since 66.88% of website visitors use mobile devices. Having a mobile-friendly website is a necessity to beat your competition in your niche. If your website design is optimised for multiple devices, it will boost your client acquisition rate.

Below is the complete traffic share of website users for multiple devices:

Here are two specific must-have attributes of your responsive homepage:

• The homepage’s header is of utmost importance and must be skilfully optimised as it’s the first visual of your website that any user sees on all devices.
• Make sure all the visuals, content, and calls to action are perfectly adjusted on all devices with the best user experience.

3. Homepage Navigation

When a user first time lands on your homepage looking for an answer, the navigation process to locate the user’s desired output must be frictionless. It must be a clear guide to locate their desired product on your website. 

Consider your homepage as a cooking recipe. Visitors/ beginners(cooks) should be directed through all the necessary steps to look/make what they are here for. Similarly, your homepage’s navigation process must be seamless in providing your visitor’s desires. Keep the process/recipe as simple as possible to generate an amazing user experience.   

When a user navigates through your website he/she must feel like they are exploring a story. They should be informed about your business, motivated to explore the solution you provide, and if possible why you built this product/service. Ultimately, they must be able to take action/buy a product or service. 

4. Homepage Copy

The text written on the homepage describes what your website offers. Let’s say you visit a shop but are unable to identify the type of products available at the shop, most likely you wouldn’t buy anything from that shop. Now replace the shop with your website. 

Especially the text on the homepage’s banner should creatively signify your business or product/solution. Take a look at the Netflix’s homepage banner text:

It is simple and creative at the same time. There is no confusion for any user to understand what Netflix offers and how can I get started. 

Here are some professional tips about your homepage’s copy:

• Write in at least 8th-grade level English or lower. 
• Use a legible font for a better user experience. 
• Try to address your audience’s pain points that your product or service solves. 
• Your homepage’s copy must contain SEO keywords for better visibility. 
• Keep the homepage’s copy updated. Google prefers updated websites.

5. Visuals

Quality homepage visuals can profoundly enhance the user experience because 90% of the information transmitted to the brain is visual. If the colour, images, or videos shown to visitors are engaging and relative to your homepage’s content, customer retention improves by 400%. 

That is why, visuals can also be used as a standalone representation of your website with little to no text. Obviously, the visuals must be of very high quality and should exceptionally point towards your product or solution. Here is an example of Coca-Cola:

Here are some specific rules or suggestions to follow while incorporating visuals:

• Only use high-quality and original images
• Use contrasting colours that spark emotions. 
• Bright colours attract more audience than dark so try to use more lively colours.
• Feature a video because it reduces the bounce rate by up to 11%.

6. Call to Actions

Call to action is one of the most ignored essentials of homepage web design. A common notion is website visitors must have several options to choose from. But the reality could not be further from the truth. That is why, while designing the website professional web designers use Hick’s law:

“The time it takes to make a decision increases with the number and complexity of choices.”With lower complexity, the confusion will also decrease in the website visitor’s mind. Thus, greater chances of converting them into paying customers. The best example is Google itself:

You have also seen the Netflix example where there was only one call to action. i-e- submission of email.  

Takeaway

These 6 essentials of homepage web design must be incorporated into your homepage’s design for an awesome user experience. Your business’s face must be attractive and engaging to boost your sales and brand persona. Both are essential to mark your share in your niche. On the contrary, if your homepage lacks one or more essentials you may end up missing important leads for your business. 

Therefore, it is important to hire a professional web design company like Logico that incorporates all the essentials of web design to make your business’s face attractive and boost customer engagement with your business.