As WordPress web designers, we have to regularly consider how we will design a homepage for one of our many clients. A homepage design needs a lot of consideration, as you want the initial impression of the company website to be impressive—to blow the socks off the visitors and impress them!
For instance, take a look at the homepage of South Wales Demolition Ltd, which effectively uses a clean layout, compelling visuals, and clear navigation to make a strong first impression.
So, how should you go about designing the homepage for a website?
Well, because we have super-talented WordPress designers who have been busy designing quality WordPress websites for over ten years, we are well-placed to answer this question.
The homepage must look impressive to retain the customer and the design should help to keep the bounce rate as low as possible.
Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who leave a website after viewing only one page. A high bounce rate can indicate that the homepage is not engaging enough, leading to potential customers leaving the site without exploring more products that you sell.
Don’t overwhelm the visitor.
It’s a common mistake that businesses throughout the United Kingdom do make, especially when selling products online. That’s to add as many products as possible as possible the homepage, then they add too much text, and this can make the homepage look too busy. This can overwhelm the shopper; instead of the shopper being able to go to the main menu and find what product they want, you might find that there this is just too much information and they leave your company website.
Always put yourself in the customer’s shoes.
It’s crucial to empathise with your customers and understand their needs- when designing a brand new website. Before finalising any homepage design, seek the opinions of your family and friends- it’s important to take on board some constructive criticism.
For instance, ask them to imagine they need a new electric oven. Then do they find the website your web designers have built easy for them to use, and to navigate the website looking at the different products? Their feedback is invaluable in creating a user-friendly experience.
You might find that they can’t sort the electric ovens by brand, yet all the other competitors are allowing this option, to sort items by brand. This type of functionality can mean that another business clinches the sale and potentially the shopper leaves your website because they find it difficult to use.
How does your business have the edge over the competition?
Perhaps your business has been trading for over 25 years. Perhaps you have a superior-quality product or offer a longer guarantee period than most other competitors. Whatever the case, this needs to be communicated instantly on the homepage.
Therefore, web designers need to instantly communicate your businesses unique selling points, which must be made clear through say a scrolling banner or somewhere on the homepage. A unique selling point (USP) is a factor that differentiates a product or service from its competitors, such as superior quality, longer guarantee period, or extensive experience. A good web designer can advertise your business’s unique selling points, helping to attract and retain more customers.
Make sure your website is fast
You might have some web designers who recommend that you add auto load videos because they can look good and grab the shopper’s attention.
For example, let’s say you run a barbershop. You contact a web designer who may recommend getting an autoloading video added to the homepage. It could show say a 30 second video of your barbers improving somebody’s lovely Barnett.
This will instantly give the shopper an impression of your shop, the staff you have, and the type of haircuts you offer.
That’s without the shopper even having to read any text.
However, there is a downside: the homepage can be slowed down, which could negatively impact the business’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
SEO refers to the practice of increasing the organic visibility and ranking of a website in search engine results on Google.
A slow-loading homepage can lead to a much lower ranking in search results, potentially reducing the number of organic visitors to your site.
Navigation is so important.
Some web designers make the main menu cluttered and challenging to use, making it a nightmare to find the product or service you want.
If they had thought out the layout a lot better, they might be able to design a better main menu, which could potentially decrease the bounce rate.
We believe shoppers like a simple layout
Look at a brilliant websites and fantastic online businesses such as Amazon. They sell hundreds of thousands of different products, yet the main menu is a piece of cake to use.
Whether you’re looking for brand-new razor blades or bags for your hoover, you can normally find what you want in just a few clicks.
The reason for that is they have had brilliant web developers and expert web designers who have carefully considered business UX.
Therefore, your business should aim to create a user-friendly website, that allows shoppers to get anywhere they want simply.
Use titles and break up that page.
Whether you’re writing a rather wordy blog post or perhaps you’re writing the text for the main pages, you must break up the text with titles.
This can also benefit your businesses SEO and help the shopper; for example, they might want to know about a particular product rather than have to read through 2000 words of text.
Using good font and well-written page titles often keeps the shopper on your website longer. This is the game’s name when it comes to improving your SEO: you want to keep the shopper on your website for as long as possible.
We would recommend avoiding pop-ups. They can be a nuisance
Some web designers, and some web developers they might have coded an e-commerce website, so that a pop-up appears regularly asking the for customer’s email address, let’s say, every five minutes. This could be a nuisance to the shopper.
It might discourage the shopper from purchasing from you, so our web design agency would highly recommend against using pop-ups; they can annoy the shopper if they keep asking them for their e-mail address or phone number.
Calls to action
In our previous point, we mentioned that we wouldn’t recommend having pop-up boxes. But you might want to embed contact forms into the page. Therefore, these might be embedded three times throughout the homepage. It just gives that extra opportunity for a shopper to send you a message or enquire about the service that you sell.
Choose excellent web designers.
If you hire the wrong web designer, they might provide a website that is too basic and a bit rubbish.
The difference between a good web design company and one that simply churns out websites is clear.
A good web design company invests time in understanding your business and your main selling points of your products or services, and knows how to communicate these selling points on your homepage. This strategic approach can significantly impact your business’s online presence.
Do you require a WordPress website to be designed?
Many businesses in Cardiff don’t want to pay for managed website hosting; some companies charge over £100 per month for this service.
This can be rather expensive for some Welsh businesses, and they may, therefore, wish to manage the website themselves, both in terms of updating it and managing the hosting.
Therefore, for this to happen, they need a content management system that you can log in into and update the website with just a few simple clicks, you don’t want to use an overly complicated admin panel that causes confusion when your trying to update your website.
To keep things simple, many businesses come to us and ask our Cardiff web designers, what type of content management system that they recommend. We often answer that with a resounding answer and shout loudly “use WordPress”.
We often recommend WordPress and shout its benefits from the rooftops simply because it’s an absolute piece of cake to use.
We know that when you’re running your business, you’re likely to have a million and one things on your mind, so you don’t want to have to worry about whether your WordPress website is kept updated or not.
Therefore, you can update your WordPress website in a few clicks; it’s simple. Plug-ins made by various companies also allow you to back up your website in a matter of minutes; this is free, and you can do it as often as you like.
This again helps the business owner because they have the total reassurance that their website is backed up entirely, and that they have updated the website, helping to make it more secure.
Would you like a brand-new website designed and built here in Wales? We design brilliant websites starting from just £950.