Hello friend 👋🏻
Today I want to talk about homepage design that helps to reach goals. Any homepage serves as the digital front door to the website. It’s a crucial element in converting visitors into customers so a good understandable design is a must. Designing a good homepage layout requires a blend of aesthetics and usability; imbalance in any direction can dramatically affect conversion.
Over the last couple of years, I researched hundreds of websites. I also designed and tested many of them myself. As a result, I think I found a formula for the best homepage layout that converts visitors into clients. Let me share these findings with you now.
Basic layout principles
All websites with good UX and a high conversion rate follow basic layout principles. If you ignore these principles you’ll more likely end up creating a good-looking piece of art rather than a good website. Thus a good homepage answers 3 main questions:
Who?
What?
How?
Who are you? What are you doing? How are you going to help? It’s better to answer all of them above the fold, on the first screen without a need to scroll. When the visitor gets answers to these 3 questions, they will decide if they are interested in learning more and scroll down or visit other pages.
So if we break a decent website structure, at the very top, we can see the navigation bar with a logo that answers the first Who question — which company or individual this website belongs to.
The big section underneath is called the hero section. Usually, it briefly answers all 3 main questions. There’s a big headline followed by a sentence or paragraph of smaller text below explaining what this company/person is doing and how they can help me with my problem (if I have any). The good habit is to have a call-to-action (CTA) after that — a button that a visitor can click to perform a necessary action.
If you manage to answer all 3 questions above the fold and it matches what the visitor is looking for, chances are high that they will be interested in becoming a customer.
Below the Fold
As that short introduction in the hero section is often not enough, everything that goes below uncovers the Who, What, and How but in a more detailed way. This is achieved in the form of storytelling by describing the product’s features, comparing it to competitors, showing various videos and images, sharing testimonials and links to articles, etc.
That’s how every page section serves one purpose — to make the user take action. Convince them that this is exactly what the user needs. The CTAs might lead to buying something, subscribing to a service or newsletter, or contacting the company. So a great homepage always tells the story. The simplified story template told throughout the homepage sounds like this:
Hello, we are The Awesome Design Agency. We can take your brand to the next level with these services [section]. This is our portfolio [section]. Here’s what other people say about us [section]. By the way, this is what we charge [section]. Still have any questions left? Ask us [section]. Are you convinced to start your business transformation? Start now [CTA].
Ineffective beauty
Unfortunately, tons of websites look cool and breathtaking but are useless in terms of providing value. If you visit Awwwards, you will find plenty of those. And I’m not against beautiful websites and art, I love self-expression. However, all of that has nothing to do with usability and a good conversion rate. If the goal is to impress someone with web development skills though, then it’s fine.
When visiting these websites, users are trapped inside unconventional navigation. The page scrolls horizontally then all of a sudden it goes back to scrolling vertically. The buttons are scattered all over the place and the enormous size fonts appear here and there. Trying to find something on such a website is like looking for a needle in a haystack. People stare at this striking beauty for a while and close the tab.
Another sad thing I notice everywhere is the extensive usage of sliders or carousels. Carousels often fail to engage users effectively. The click-through rate (CTR) on carousels is extremely low. Studies show that most users don’t interact with them and important content can easily be missed. There’s a good website answering the question if you should use carousels or not.
Final thoughts
These simple layout building rules that you’ve just read are not set in stone. There’s always room for some creativity, shuffling blocks, and adding elements. It’s just what people are more used to when visiting websites. Familiar user interfaces turn more visitors into customers. People are lazy creatures and they don’t want to learn new patterns. So familiarity and consistency are the key aspects of the homepage layout for a great conversion rate.
Simply put, If the website serves a business then let it reach the business goals and leave the art to artists.
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