You have heard the saying “the first impression is the most important,” this could never be truer than when talking about your website’s homepage. Your homepage is your first contact with your customers and the first chance you get to entice them to look further at your site. You will only get one chance to make a killer first impression. For this reason, your homepage needs to be spectacular. Let’s take a look at what should go on your home page and things you should avoid.
What Should You Include on Your Homepage?
The first thing you want to think about adding to your homepage is a logo and eye-catching image — these need to be the first and predominant items when your page loads. If your logo and image stand out and make an impression, viewers will see it even if they are only scanning through your page. So they need to make a statement that sticks. Next, you need to have a compelling headline. This headline will be your introduction to your audience and what decides if they are interested in viewing further. It should be a few specific sentences that tell your audience what you can do for them. Your WordPress homepage should also include a site map or menu to show your visitors the way, call to action buttons for your services or subscription buttons for blogs, social media buttons that allow your viewers to interact with you more, and a way to contact you.
What You Should Avoid Adding to Your Homepage
With all good comes a bit of bad. When it comes to your homepage, there are several things to avoid putting on your homepage. If you are a WordPress beginner, it can be tempting to pile everything into your first page; this would be a huge mistake though. Here are several things that have no business on your homepage. You should not use overly large or unnecessary photos. If you use pictures, they need to inform your viewers of something that brings value. Avoid making your homepage your blog or gallery pages; this will throw your audience into your site, taking away their option for first impression decisions. One final aspect to avoid on your homepage is errors. Whether they be link errors, grammatical errors, or informational errors; they should be avoided at all costs. It would be best if you always took the extra time to make sure that your spelling is correct, all of your links lead where they should, and you have not misrepresented any incentives or products.
Important Things to Pay Attention to on Your Homepage
While you are on the homepage, there are some essential things you should pay special attention to for the success of your website. These include theme, font color, background colors, font size, and proper formatting. You want to choose a theme that works well with your overall site. Whether you have a parenting blog or a toy shop, you want your theme to work with it; this will be your basic set up and layout design. It is crucial that you consider your product in your theme design. The font color, font size, and background color go together to make the visual impression of your page. You want to choose sizes and colors that are pleasing to look at and can complement your message — giving your homepage a voice.
Why It Matters
Now you are sitting there thinking, does it really matter what color my font is or if I have all of those buttons on my website’s homepage? The truth is that it does. Each of these elements works together to tell your story and relay a message to a potential reader or customers. You want to send a confident, informed, and precise message to your audience. Your homepage is the decision point for most viewers. Within seconds they have decided whether they will continue browsing your website or leave and look for something else. So you need to catch their attention and give them a reason to stay.
Putting it All Together
Now that you know the necessities for your homepage it is time to start designing. Make sure you have all the main features covered and that your homepage tells your audience what your page can do for them, not what you want them to do for you. If you need help in the planning and set up process for your WordPress homepage, you can get it with just the click of a button. Because the end goal for any website is bringing in the viewers, you want them to have a reason to come and an even greater reason to stay. A well thought out, and designed homepage can take even the WordPress beginner to the next level of success.