24September 2022
Are your homepage conversions lagging behind your expectations?
There is an art to designing a high-converting home page and a lot of small businesses simply don’t give the content and appearance of their website enough attention.
The good news is there are some very simple things you can do to increase your conversions without having to spend a ton of time and money.
1. Get Your Website Visitor’s Attention!
The first thing that has to happen is to get your visitor’s attention!
So many websites are templated and very easy to be perceived as boring, cold and unwelcoming.
Having the ability to grab your visitor’s attention, welcome them and lead them to take an action is the very thing you as a website owner are interested in the first place!
A conversion!
We would argue that the very job of your website is to get a conversion. Whether that conversion is a new lead, new customer, new client or patient (depending on what your local business is).
2. Make Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) Clear
Why should your website visitors be interested in what you are offering?
It’s not enough to have well-written copy. You need a strong headline that will immediately put visitors to your site in the proper frame of mind.
3. Use Quality Images on Your Home Page
A strategy mixing text with effective images is far more likely to convert.
4. Use Strong Copy Focusing on Solutions for Your Customers
Focus and empathize with a user’s problem and then offer a concrete solution.
5. Collect Leads Using an Easy Opt-In Form
Most visitors need between seven and ten exposures to a brand or product before they make a purchase online. So by following up with them you increase your engagement and brand recondition.
Awesome sauce!
6. Make Good Use of Testimonials and Social Proof
80% of users say they read reviews before making a purchase. If you aren’t including testimonials and social proof in the form of trust symbols you could very well be missing out on conversions as a result.
7. Consider Adding a Video to Your Home Page
Videos are very popular – in fact, they are the most popular kind of online content.
When you add an interesting and relevant video to your home page you encourage people to spend time there listening and watching. Soaking in your brand.
8. Add Social Following Buttons to Your Home Page
New users to your site may not make a purchase on their first visit, and they might not even give you their email address.
However, following you on social media is a risk-free way for them to learn more about your company and products. Why not make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
9. Test Everything on Your Homepage to Optimize it Fully
If you truly want to maximize your conversions, then A-V testing, also known as split testing, is the best way to do it.
There are softwares that can help you do this effectively. In short, the software splits your traffic, sending half to your original page and half to the page with the new elements you are testing, such as a headline or call to action, and determines a performance score.
Optionally, you could use a heat map and video recording software to give you an exact ‘picture’ of what is working and what is not working when visitors come to your site.
Increasing conversions on your homepage doesn’t have to be complex. However, it is a good idea to get started if you don’t know what is and more importantly, what is NOT working.
Next Steps
As local business and website owners, we spend a lot of time, energy, effort, and money to get [people to come to our websites.
If those visitors come to our website and leave, it’s a wasted opportunity. Simply improving our conversion rates marginally would be well worth the effort.
Need help with this stuff? We would be happy to help!