How to Create The Homepage of The Website: Tips, Tools, and Examples
The homepage is a hub for your website. It is the very first place where the visitor appears. If the visitor likes you, he moves forward and explores your site and visits links. After that, he returns to the homepage to continue the exploration.
The homepage has to introduce you to the visitor. It will tell them everything about your advantages, encourage them to do what you need, and form the path for further website exploration. For this reason, you need to take care of the proper content of the homepage and think about the structure of every block.
This article will show you how to make a homepage for a website successful and effective.
What are the main points to highlight on your homepage?
Show advantages. Choose the main benefit which will show that your website is valuable. Tell about your main advantage calmly, using every homepage screen. Show your customers that your business is precious to clients.
One block – one point. Each separate block (or screen) has to give only one call or information about only one thing. For example, the block with advantages shouldn’t contain reviews, while the block with goods should not contain extra services, such as trade-ins, installment plans, etc.
Give the call to action. The homepage of the website has to contain the CTA. You should place links and buttons that lead to different theme topics. All transitions must be genuine (for example, you can set the link to the catalog next to the showcase.)
Give more space. Your page doesn’t have to contain only text blocks. There are blogs for writing. Think with aphorisms: make your sentences short but packed. And don’t give too many images. An excellent order of text, images, and blocks with shortcuts achieves the proper rhythm of the homepage.
The main components for the homepage
All the blocks of the homepage have standards. Depending on your website’s tasks, you can place them in the correct order. Your page’s storytelling must be consistent, while one block genuinely flows into the other. When you make a website homepage, you should include several blocks.
The blocks that should be on a homepage are The main screen, About us, The process of work, Showcase, Call to action, Reviews, Banners and cards, FAQs, and contacts.
Also, you should give your website proper navigation tools, such as the head of the website and the footer. These blocks are present on all pages. You can learn more about the creation of navigation in our article.
The main screen. Blocks of the homepage
The main screen of the website is your face. There should be little text. It will take seconds for the customer to decide whether you are interesting to him. It is an integral part when you design a homepage.
The main screen of the website is your face. There should be little text. It will take seconds for the customer to decide whether you are interesting to him. It is an integral part when you design a homepage.
The head of the main screen has to contain the following:
- The name of your business;
- The main advantage of using your products;
- The emotion.
The subhead has to be an addition to your main headline. The easiest way is to bond your heading with a subhead to combine rational and emotional factors. In the headline, you tell visitors about the emotional aspect of cooperation with your company, while the subhead will contain reasonable ways to achieve such a positive emotional state.
About us. Blocks of the homepage
The homepage is also an excellent opportunity to introduce yourself to your customers. It is crucial for businesses that depend on the personalities of employees — for example, construction bureaus, law companies, and language schools.
On the homepage of the website, you can make up an “About us” block using the following components:
Personalities. Depending on your tasks, you can tell about your employee’s duties and add a quote or exciting life facts. Mention the critical workers of your company. Show their photos, and add names, surnames, and functions.
Facts, achievements, numbers. Use shortcuts with support text or big numbers to quickly show your achievements. You can also mention the number of successful projects, years of successful work, rewards, and technologies you use to achieve them.
The history. Use chronological timelines. Each point is a year or a remarkable event. Add a short photo, a description of the event, and the date. Your history is completed.
The process of work. Blocks of the homepage
If you provide customers with goods or make them individually by order, you should show the detailed process of your work. Show the stages of your work by consistently displaying them, and briefly describe what will happen while the order is being completed. This is crucial to include this part when making a homepage.
Show the actions both you and your client must complete in this process. For example, during the first stage of the website development, your client gives you a brief while you complete the test copy. You send the test copy during the second stage, while your client provides all the editing remarks. You can make a double description if you want to.
The showcase. Blocks of the homepage
On the homepage, you can also add the most remarkable goods or services you have. With the showcase, you are offering to buy something and showing the catalog of offers you have. With the block of goods, you can place transitions to the categories of your shop or to the shop itself.
The unique thing about showcases on Weblium is that it is combined with the attributes from your shop. It means the changes will be automatically applied to the showcase after you place goods in your shop or edit information about them.
Call to action. Blocks of the homepage
Imagine that you have only one phrase to reach someone. This phrase is the main call to action. With its help, you ask your visitor to do what you need. Call-to-action blocks might be any block on your website in which you ask a customer to perform the necessary action.
The most used structure for call-to-action block is the following:
- The headline. The thing you ask a user to do. The benefits your visitor gets by performing actions. The product or the service, which can be reached via the link. The best way to implement it is to use 1–2 lines. The headline cannot be huge. Only one glance should be enough to understand the sense of the call.
- The subhead. It supports the headline and forms a good pair with it. For example, you call your service in the headline, while in the subhead, you describe its main advantages. The headline has no strict limits, but you should contain everything using only three lines. If you want the subhead to be read, use only 1 bar.
- The button. You verb-buttons in your text. “Download”, “Contact,” and “Install”. The first word in the button shows the main action, and the second one shows the context (e.g., contact support) or points to the advantage (e.g., use discount). You can use two buttons, but only one will be the main one. For example, in the call-to-action block of a quick buy, the “Purchase” will be the main button, while “Learn about guarantees” will be an extra one.
Reviews. Blocks of the homepage
No one will describe your business better, but you should consider adding some customer reviews. You should pay attention to adding some space for positive reviews.
There are two basic ways:
- Ask your clients to provide reviews. Add text cards on the homepage and your client’s review and name. If your clients allow you to add photos, feel free to do it.
- Make screenshots of reviews from other platforms, such as social media, Google, or other feedback management platform. Make a gallery of these screenshots and add them to the homepage.
Banners and cards. Blocks of the homepage
Do you have any special offers that change rapidly? Or maybe you know that some goods from your store can turn just visitors into loyal customers? Show the best and the most valuable offers using banners and hover cards!
Users will have the option to interact with them. Banners can be turned, while the content of hover cards appears only when the visitor clicks or points a cursor toward them. White creating a homepage, you should keep in mind these factors, because they are bringing it to the next level.
Ad banners
While you form the gallery of banners, think about their content. You can use the slides to present:
- The uniform content, such as new goods or services in your store;
- Offers that affect all the points of cooperation with your customer, such as special offers, exciting pages in the blog, update information, and other essential things.
Advertising banners are usually located either at the top of the page to give a proper call to action or in the middle of the page right after your customer learns more about your services.
Hover cards
The card, which works only when you point the cursor toward it, has to be visible. This is why you should use stylish and qualitative images for your cards. The description of goods, which will appear, has to be contained in only 3–4 lines. It will be better to add buttons or links below your texts. Not all users will understand that the transition happens when they click the card.
Hover cards are usually placed at the end of the first half of the homepage. There is relatively much text in the cards. The user is still motivated to read more but has yet to be exhausted from reading your statements.
FAQ. Blocks of the homepage
The addition of frequently asked questions solves multiple tasks. The client can learn more about you without leaving the homepage. Secondly, you will improve your website’s search optimization because search engines will appreciate valuable text content with suitable keywords. Thirdly, you show that you care for your visitors by offering them help from the beginning of cooperation.
Make the FAQ block compact. Placing 5–6 questions will be great, while the answer will not contain more than 70–100 words. This way, the customer will still have the complete list of questions while reading the one solution.
Contacts. Blocks of the homepage
Remember your contacts on the homepage: your address, phone number, and e-mail address. By using the widget from Google Maps, you will be able to point your location. In our editor, you can find a particular block for using maps. The phone number can be added to the head of the homepage or in the footer of it.
Add the online-chat widget to your website to make the connection with you much more manageable. From the small menu in the bottom right of the page, your customer can reach you via messenger, call you, or fix all the nuances without leaving the website.
An example of the homepage of the online shop
The homepage of the online shop has to show the catalog of your goods, encourage the user to explore the shop, and prove that you are a reliable vendor. Here is an example of how you can build a homepage successfully.
- Banners with the most interesting goods. Right after the client clicks on your website, he can do the first click.
- The main screen with the description of the shop. Tell people about your primary work area and explain why you should become their vendor.
- Categories. Display direct transitions to separate topics of the shop.
- Call-to-action block with the special offer. If your visitor just scrolled through the page but didn’t perform any action, it is time to show the unique and individual request.
- The showcase. Give an excellent compilation of the cards with your goods.
- About us. Tell people about your reliability and the advantages of buying goods from you.
- All the categories of your shop. If the homepage was thoroughly examined, give the customer freedom to decide.
The example of the homepage with services
Services are the leading way to build a proper connection between the client and the vendor. But services should contain a detailed step-by-step image for all customers.
- The main screen. Starting with the emotional benefits of working with you will be better.
- Advantages. List at least three benefits that will estimate the cooperation with your company.
- Services. Give a showcase of several primary services. Briefly describe the sense of them and show the price. Don’t forget to add the link to buying services.
- The process of completing your order. Provide enough information, so people will know how you work precisely.
- Special offers. Create a block with a special offer. In this part, you have to keep the attention of your customer.
- Tell clients about the company. If the client is that deep into scrolling, he wants to learn more about you. So don’t hesitate to give more information about your company.
- Add reviews. Clients need to see the approval of your services by other customers.
- The feedback section. The customer may have questions about your products. Ask the client to provide his contact details so you can consult him.
- All services. As in the example with an online shop, the best way to give your customer freedom is to place all the services in the end. This way, the client has enough information to make a decision.
The SEO optimization of the homepage
Your homepage will be double as efficient if you optimize your content for different search engines. SEO optimization is a free promotion.
The main parts of the search optimization on the website:
- Headlines. All our headlines have a hierarchy attribute. Starting with H1 (the highest in the hierarchy) to H6 (the lowest). The H1 attribute applies to the headline on the first screen. All the headlines are bonded with a root-like structure (the higher ones in the hierarchy create so-called sections, while sections contain headlines of the lower level);
- Keywords. Searching systems evaluate how helpful the page is for a person by using the page’s text content. With the help of special services, you can easily create a list of words frequently used on pages with the same topics. If you implement these keys into the text, you will significantly increase your chances of appearing on the first page of the demanded search engine.
- Meta tags. In the settings of pages, you can add unique tags – Title and Description. The title and description are shown in the search engine. You can read them when you start examining the search results.
- Images. Firstly, images have to be optimized. They must have an optimal size-to-quality ratio. The faster your page loads, the better it is evaluated by search engines. Secondly, all your images must be provided with the alt-text, the image description tag. These descriptions are used for reverse image searches. Images will provide you with a good homepage that will be easily recognizable.
Examples of good homepages of websites
You should use examples to see what to put on your homepage. To provide you with samples, we used the templates of websites that Weblium designers created. After registration at Weblium, all the templates are available for free. Follow the links below to look at the template closer.
Fitness club
The combination of straightforward and strong design solutions with well-made storytelling on the page. In every block, the client has a new option for exploration or a unique offer.
English courses
Visitors can find much information on this site, but it is smoothly spread using short but informative theses. All the facts can be combined in one extensive brochure, which will be entertaining to scroll and read.
Crowdfunding
The website is dedicated to one single product. Here, you can easily understand how to use the minimum text but still be informative and illustrative.
Polygraphy
If you want to look at the page with a lot of well-organized content, it is right here. You will find here almost all the components of the homepage that we described in our article.
Let’s Repeat! The main things to include while creating the homepage of your website
To have a perfect homepage, you need to follow simple steps:
- Be short but informative;
- Remind clients about your advantages;
- Always give your visitor a choice;
- Form the storytelling using the blocks on the page;
- Think about search optimization.
And to create the website without designers and programmers, you can use Weblium. Now, you know how to make homepages. All the described components are available in the library of ready-to-use blocks.