A website’s homepage is one of the most crucial aspects to any site. It can, a lot of times, make or break whether someone stays or goes. Every homepage should be made up of certain elements to draw in the user to want to dig deeper in to what that site has to offer. You should know what content to use and how to use it.
Homepage content usually consists of a variety of things that your site has to offer. The whole idea of the homepage is to tell/show the user what you have to offer without telling them everything; a teaser if you will. At the same time you want to highlight/feature what your services/information/products are that the user is truly looking for and what you what them to find. So with this in mind we have come to what a homepage may consist of:
Featured content
What you want them to notice most (products, services, blog posts, etc.) is usually shown in a large banner area at the top of the page.
Welcome text/images
This text/images welcomes the user to the site to what you have to offer.
Services
This is what the user most likely came to the site for in the first place. I recommend highlighting these to be a main focal point.
Blog/news posts
List of recent posts or a snippet of most recent blog/news post is a good source of content to be displayed on the homepage.
“Call to Action” Buttons
A highlighted button/text that can easily direct people to important places on the site. This could be places that users will be going to on a normal basis if they are using your site for a service. Sometimes used for quick direction to a contact page.
About us
Sometimes companies will like to place a small teaser about who they are if they don’t have much other content to work with.
Here are some examples of sites that have content and how it was used for the homepage.
These are just a few examples of standard content and placement most likely found on a homepage and are good practices to be aware of. What do you have on your homepage?
