How to write a good website home page
Do you struggle to know what to put on your home page? How do you get visitors to stay on your website, explore it further?
For writing a home page that gets visitors to explore, then buy from your business, you need to know what to say — and what not to say.
People don’t read most web pages
It’s tempting to think you need to put everything important about your business on the home page. Otherwise, how will people know what you do?
The problem is, most people won’t read it. That’s because, according to research by web usability expert Jakob Nielsen, 77% of web visitors don’t read a page, they scan it.
When someone scans a page, they jump from one area to the next, following links, images, colours that grab their attention.
Remember that most visitors come to your website looking for something specific, they want to know something or buy something. They’ll click on the first link that looks about right, and won’t waste time reading or even scanning anything else.
As Steve Krug in Don’t Make Me Think puts it:
“We act as though people are going to pore over each page, reading our finely crafted text, figuring out how we’ve organized things, and weighing their options before deciding which link to click.
What they actually do most of the time (if we’re lucky) is glance at each new page, scan some of the text, and click on the first link that catches their interest or vaguely resembles the thing they’re looking for. There are usually large parts of the page that they don’t even look at.
We’re thinking ‘great literature’ (or at least ‘product brochure’), while the user’s reality is much closer to ‘billboard going by at 60 miles an hour.’”
So a page chock full of text, links and images just looks like clutter, and it’s going to get ignored. Especially if you’re a fan of phrases like “Welcome to our website” or use marketing fluff like “Unique, cutting-edge, top quality, best in the world blah blah” all over your text.
If you’ve got a short window to capture your visitors’ attention, just how do you do it?
Focus on one key message
When people come to your home page, they want to know if they’re in the right place. What does your business do? How is it special? Writing a home page that works takes communicating the one message you want your customers to know.
Strip away everything else.
It’s a ruthless task of deleting words and then deleting some more. It can be heartbreaking to watch the text you took hours writing get chopped, trimmed and squeezed, but it’s necessary.
Let me show you what I mean.
Example: Orkneycrofts.com home page
Here’s the original first draft of the home page, before I did anything to it, for Orkneycrofts.com, an upmarket self-catering cottage.
Did you read all of this text? Neither would most people. Chances are, your skipped around the page, maybe looked at the big image at the top, the logo, or “Welcome” title.
The question in the back of your mind is “Do I want to know more about this business?” If not, you’ll click away.
To get the Orkney Crofts home page grabbing the attention of potential customers and keep them from clicking away, we’re going to have to do a lot of chopping and changing. I do this in 5 steps.
Crafting your home page in 5 steps
When I write or edit text for websites, here are the rules I follow:
- Decide what your key message is.
- Move less important information to subpages.
- Cut out every word that isn’t essential.
- Make text scannable with lists and key phrases in bold.
- Add appealing and relevant images.
Have a look at the result.
New Orkney Crofts home page
The key message of Orkney Crofts is “Our holiday accommodation is attractive and conveniently located.”
Everything else had to go, so I moved the other information to subpages.
The best way to show people that something’s appealing is to have a nice big photo of it, front and centre.
To emphasise its convenient location, I created a simple bullet point list of nearby major sites. I added a photo of the Ring of Brodgar, one of the best known sites, to help reinforce this message.
Finally I bolded important phrases like “World Heritage Sites” and “Easy access”.
What’s your one message?
As you look at your home page, ask yourself: “What’s the one message I want my visitors to get?”
Now make sure you’re saying it.
