A wise man once said that the greatest difficulty with first impressions is that . . . you only get to make one. This is perhaps most relevant for commercial businesses, regarding either their physical location or company website. The latter is an essential element for any modern business since it’s often what attracts (or repels) customers from pursuing the advertised goods and services.

Why Homepage Design Matters

While a customer might initially encounter your company through an advertisement or your Google Business Profile, the homepage is where they begin to comprehend your brand identity. This is where the customer gets more than a mere “bird’s-eye-view.” Make no mistake about it, though: your target audience WILL JUDGE YOU by the quality of your web content.

These statistics reinforce this point beyond a doubt.

• 57% of users won’t recommend a business with an inferior website.
• 89% report that they would choose a competitor with a more user-friendly format.
• 75% believe you can discern a company’s credibility from its website.

Crucial Building Blocks for Dynamic Homepages

1. Strong Visual Elements – Just as you wouldn’t want to rely on a crummy business logo, you cannot ignore the efficacy of an aesthetically appealing homepage. Gone are the days where you could merely generate a simple layout by purchasing a domain name for $5. Now, your competitors are already bolstering their web pages with premium video production, attention-grabbing dynamic images, and other sophisticated widgets/plug-ins. 
2. Focus on Branding – You also can’t afford to miss any opportunity to cultivate your brand image. Here’s where you would explore various strategies to make the visitor remember you later. In traditional marketing, it would involve splashing your logo on a t-shirt or coffee mug, whereas today’s strategy depends on turning your website into that memorable t-shirt people won’t forget.
3. Create Convenient Navigation – There are many ways to promote a user friendly experience on your business website. Everything from the popular chat features (on the bottom of the screen) to having a link for phone numbers make navigation better. If your customer has to “jump through hoops” to do anything on your website, it will haunt you by dragging down your sales and conversions.
4. Never Neglect Mobile Functionality – If you’ve ever developed your own website or blog, then you know that constructing web pages works differently for either the “mobile” or “desktop” view. Believe it or not, many businesses still struggle with mobile optimization. Consumer surveys show that about two-thirds of respondents complain about how business links are “too small to click on” when they use their smartphone.
5. Website Speed – There is abundant research that suggests that web users will abandon websites quickly if they do not load within at least four seconds. Not only that, but Google also penalizes slow-loading sites (either for mobile or desktop) by not indexing them or pushing them farther down the search results. Fortunately, there are an array of resources that can diagnose loading speed, and expedite loading rates.
6. Always Use a Call-to-Action (CTA) – Every page on your site should have a CTA, encouraging the visitor to do certain things (contact you, purchase a service, subscribe, etc.). This doesn’t require stealth subliminal messaging, either. All you must do is show your potential customer what you recommend for them with clear and persuasive verbiage.

Finally, we’d like to remind you that you don’t have to “DIY” your website design, or devote exorbitant resources into developing an awesome online headquarters.

DigiSphere Marketing offers a comprehensive way to handle web design, search engine advertising, email advertising, social media communication, and beyond. Instead of paying a freelancer to handle one of those elements, but nothing else, you can hire our team to conquer every online branding purpose altogether. Discover how to partner with us by contacting us at 941-803-4141.