Introduction

So, whether you sell surfboards or are a top lawyer in your area, the homepage will be your website’s most important page.

The design must be correct, as it often influences whether a shopper stays or jumps to one of your competitor’s websites.

Because our WordPress designers have been designing quality websites for a very long time—over 10 years—we are well placed to offer you some design tips.

Here we go, so before you start slapping together a homepage design, pause, take a break and brew. Have a good read of this article; it will offer you some of our best advice:

Layout is crucial

If you provide too much information and pictures, you will overwhelm the shopper, slow down the load time, and lose shoppers.
So, it’s better to balance offering advice and helping the shopper but don’t go overboard with writing a ton of text.

Hire a WordPress web designer.

So, first thing, check if WordPress is the right content management system for your business; for our web design company, we would say that for the vast majority of people who contact us, most of the time 99.9% of the time, WordPress meets and exceeds what they need from a website.

However, sometimes, it might not be enough, so get a packet of biscuits, brew, and sit down with your web designers to chat about which content management system is right for your business. And there’s a lot to choose from. Popular CMSs that many British businesses have chosen include Drupal, Squarespace, and Joomla.

Act like a signpost

So, you know, when you visit a famous landmark or walk along a famous street, say in Hollywood- well, often there are clear signposts.
That’s because tourists often don’t know the area and need guidance to get to the attractions.

So, signposts are helpful.

So think of this when designing a homepage for your business: Your business’s organic SEO could potentially attract thousands of visitors every month.

Therefore, you must consider how to direct all those visitors to the right product or service as simply as possible.
So, the homepage has to act like a signpost, be clear, and have simple-to-use main navigation. It also needs to use a call to action and have internal links.

Now, if your main selling item is, let’s say, a fridge freezer, the homepage needs super clear pictures of that item and a call to action, such as “sale now on fridge freezers,” which gets the shopper as quickly as possible to that page.

On-page SEO

So, it’s essential to offer helpful information to your shoppers. It is also important to have a perfect design so shoppers on your company website are impressed by the website and company branding.

But when you look at the companies on page one of Google.co.uk, you will see they also have good on-page SEO. They use the H1 through to

H6 tags, with well-written meta titles and descriptions, alt text, anchor text, and well-written content marketing.

So, the on-page SEO must also be good; otherwise, shoppers won’t be able to find your company on Google.

So, a well-designed homepage must have the following

– Have a good design to impress shoppers
– Have good on-page SEO
– Must offer helpful advice

Why not use drop-down menus?

One way of helping shoppers is to have an FAQ section on every page. For example, a salesperson in a shop often gets asked the same questions daily by customers. Well, this is precisely the same for online businesses.

Customers will want to know the delivery time, the returns policy, and whether the product is environmentally friendly.

Answering these questions can require a lot of text, which could overwhelm the reader if it is added to the page too soon.
So, just a design tip, why not use the drop-down boxes and offer helpful advice to your customers via drop-down boxes?

Stock photos

Most web design companies use stock photos because a business might be just getting started and might not want to spend 3k on a photo shoot and hire a videographer for the day.

So, many businesses, including those we have worked for in Cardiff, often ask our web designers to use stock photos to get a website live at a lower price.

However, some stock photos don’t suit the business. For example, if you’re, let’s say, a loft conversion company and the outsides of the houses are American-style homes rather than the properties you would usually see here in Britain, this can be off-putting for a shopper, as it’s clear that the loft conversions and construction work weren’t completed here in Britain.

Using stock photos is acceptable; however, the web design business and the client must pick the right ones. Because we have been building websites for a very long time, we can say that selecting the right photos often takes a long time. So, if you want the homepage and your company website to look good, we recommend that you work with the web designers to ensure the right stock photos are chosen.

Calls to action

So, when you walk into a car dealership in the U.K., there are many calls to action.
Such as “low-cost finance, talk to us today”, prompting the customer to discuss car finance options.

Now, you should prompt the shopper on your company website, such as “Sign up for our newsletter, or would you like us to call you back?”
Or, perhaps, just a bold, buy it now button. CTAs encourage the shopper to purchase something from you or to sign up for a company newsletter, for example. This can help the business generate more sales, so CTAs should be part of the web design.

YouTube video

So, it doesn’t matter what type of business you run. Often, your business website would benefit from having a member of staff explain the benefits of buying that item or service from you.

If you’re a small business, why not have the company director simply offer a quick introduction to introduce your business? For example, when a shopper hears that the company has been trading for over 25 years in Wales, it instantly makes shoppers trust it more.

So, YouTube videos added to the homepage and main pages help you sell and explain why shoppers should choose your business. Often, shoppers don’t want to read large amounts of text. Yet watching the company director, for example, showing you a quick walk around the showroom where you sell, let’s say, sofas instantly tell the customer more about the products that you’re selling.

Social media

Add social media buttons to your website’s header. Your web design company can do this for you. If a customer decides not to buy from you right then, they may add your business to their Facebook account.

Then, when your business is running a promotion, your advertisement may appear in their feed, and they may decide to purchase from you later. This is always why we say to businesses to add social media icons in the header, but you may also want to add them to the footer.

You may also want to add clear CTAs to tell the customer why not follow us on Facebook, X or, let’s say, LinkedIn.

Clear pricing

Offer transparent pricing; for example, if you offer a fixed-price service, make this clear on the homepage. Our web design company provides to design a 7-page website for £950.00. We make this clear on the homepage because shoppers are often more likely to read other pages and more about your services when they can quickly obtain a price.

Call us today

Here at W&P, we can offer the following services:

– Web Design for business in Cardiff
– SEO

Why not call us today: