There have been times when I come across a website or two and get lost (not in their beauty but in their mess). Their website has beautiful UI/UX designs with animations, graphics and with the right aesthetic, but what’s the point of it all if I’m confused about what the purpose of the website is? I believe that more than anything, the homepage says it all. It doesn’t have to be fancy and sophisticated, it needs to be accessible and representable
In a time and age where people’s attention span lasts only a couple of milliseconds, one small detail or feature can make a whole lot of difference. It has the potential to convert a visitor to a lead or a potential lead to dropoff. This might be one of the reasons why people drop off from your page without taking action which results in a high bounce rate.
So where is the checklist? Where is the guidebook to make sure you never miss out on any potential conversion?
6 Best Practices To Optimize Your Homepage
To be honest, there is none. There is no set of rules to tell you with certainty what will work for your rand and what will not. Every brand has its own goals and uniqueness, You just have to have to recognize your USP, identify your goals and then experiment!
That being said, the purpose of this blog would be pretty useless if I don’t actually bless you with some pointers. So here are some details that you can optimize to reduce your bounce rates :
Page speed
The most important feature of any webpage is its page speed. Nobody has the patience to wait even 10 seconds for a page to load! I know it sounds like 10 seconds is such a short period, but not when you just want a quick glance at a website. Every other optimization you’re doing is a moot point if it takes ages for your page to load.
My best advice is to optimize your page in a top-down manner. What does that mean? It means that the top half of your page will load before your bottom half as opposed to loading the full page at once. So, when a visitor lands on your page they look at the contents at the top first. By the time they scroll down, the contents at the bottom get loaded and the visitor doesn’t get bothered by the slow page loading time.
Here is an article on ‘9 Quick Ways to Improve Page Loading Speed’
Transparency
One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from my mentors is to curate every product or service from the user’s perspective. It’s always good practice to design the homepage from the perspective of a new visitor who has never heard about your brand and wants to know more about it. Types of content that you can include to create more brand awareness are:
- Brand’s mission and vision
- Types of services you provide
- Testimony from your customers
Try to be as transparent with your visitors as possible. In order to reduce your bounce rate and get leads, you need to earn their trust. For people to trust your brand, you need to show them proof or make them feel a connection. So don’t be scared of displaying your vision, mission and work. In fact, be proud of it.
Visibility
A very obvious but sometimes overlooked aspect that people sometimes tend to miss is the visibility of the website. When you think about it, it might seem like a trivial detail to point out, but I believe it’s still a fundamental detail. Here are some basics tips that I think can enhance a website’s visibility:
- It’s kind of a given but it’s wise to use contrasting colours for your headings against your background. That way, it helps all your headings, menus, and texts to stand out without anyone having to squint their eyes.
- Select a suitable size for all your headings. For the titles, choose a font size that’s big enough to stand out from the rest of the body. However while doing that, it is wise to keep in mind the mobile adaptability of your website. Using a font size that’s too big might distort your webpage format in a mobile phone.
- Don’t use a lot of different fonts for your page. Select one specific font for your heading and another one for your body and stick to it. Using too many fonts or different variations makes it look kind of messy. Typography or fonts often become associated with brands, so choosing a font for your webpage can definitely add to your branding.
CTA
If your website’s objective is to generate leads or conversions, a good call to action (CTA) is very crucial. Experiment with different button styles, colour and opacity of the buttons, placement, and even the text. Even details as minute as replacing the text from “Book Now” to “Learn More” can show a change in our bounce rates. ‘Learn More’ might get you more leads because people feel like they have an opportunity or a choice to learn more about what you’re offering or your brand before actually committing. Even changes like replacing sentence case with title case might (” Book Now” vs “Book now”) can show positive effects on your bounce rates.
It is important to remind you that there are no definite rules for this. What works for others, necessarily might not work for you. The key is to keep experimenting and monitoring your changes. Is a red colour button better than a black coloured one? Does hover animations on the button show positive changes? It’s small details like these that seem insignificant but in fact, has the potential to influence the reduction in the bounce rates.
Introduce other pages of your website
I really like it when a website has little snippets briefing about the type of content from their other pages on the menu. Sometimes I tend to get impatient to actually visit all the pages and find out what it offers. So I tend to surf the homepage and drop off. This can be the leaking bucket for your website which results in an increased bounce rate.
The little snippets about the different pages on the website tend to be really helpful when you want to give an overview of your website. Visitors get a definite idea of what to expect from your website and so find it convenient to take their next step.
Images
Make sure to include a minimum of 3 visual elements on your homepage. If your homepage is crowded with texts, it can make it look boring or repetitive and may fail to withhold the attention of a visitor. Visual elements like images, GIFs or graphics can help break your content into undefined sections. This helps to hold a visitor’s attention and also helps to bring an aesthetic element to your homepage.
I think one of the things I have been repeating over and over again throughout this blog is don’t be afraid to experiment. So I’ll repeat it once more. There is no rule book for it. Most of this is a matter of A/B testing. Try out different formats or designs and monitor their performance. Does it bring any changes to your funnel? Does it reduce the bounce rate or does it have no effect? Eventually, you’ll find details that work for you and some that don’t.
I hope you’re taking notes to use these points to improve your homepage design. Make sure not to lose any leads because of a sleazy homepage. Monitor your audience behaviour with every change you make to see what works or doesn’t work. Keep improving and experimenting and you should see your bounce rate reducing in some time.
I hope you found this blog useful. I’d love to get some feedback from you! If there’s a topic you want me to explore, let me know! I hope you have a great weekend! x
She Says 
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