Tips to Make Your Homepage Sales and Marketing Focused

Written by: Brydie Meek, Published May 2008

This article provides a few tips for sites that are aiming to be a sales tool. Your homepage plays a crucial role in your company's online success and is the main entry point for most sites. Your homepage is essentially your business' sales and marketing pitch directed to your customers, so it has to make an excellent impression – and do so quickly.

A major challenge for companies trying to gain business on the Web is that those surfing sites can jump so quickly between sites. A click of the mouse and the user has moved on. So how can make your homepage stand out? Your goal is tocreate a homepage that is informative, captivating, motivating and easy to read.

Homepage Purposes

Your homepage should include more than just information on your business. Ensure your homepage content is sales and marketing focused so that your audience feels compelled to select your business over others. Your homepage should tell your audience, which may include search engines, vital information about your company including who you are and what you have to offer. Your Web site has several important objectives:

• Allow users to easily find what they're looking for

• To tease your audience to read on
• To make your audience to act in a desired way by giving them clear paths of action
• To make people want to buy your products or services over your competitors
• To build brand image and credibility

Homepage Writing

Most Web users scan the text for areas that interest them, rather than reading text word for word. To make it easy for skim readers you must ensure your writing is clear, concise and easy to follow. Here are several techniques you can adopt to capture the attention of those glancing at your homepage:

• Snappy headings and sub headings
• Bold or highlighted key words and phrases
• Numbered and bulleted lists
• Short sentences and paragraphs
• Links to other important pages on your site

Marketing Techniques

There are several marketing techniques that you can use on your homepage that will attract customers and prompt them to take action:

• Provide benefits rather than features
• Provide Unique Selling Propositions (USP) that differentiate you from your competitors
• Provide specific calls to action (eg. call us now for a quote) which include special incentives and offers (eg. buy one get the second half price)
• Target your calls to actions for specific audiences (eg. wholesalers and public buyers) and possibly colour categorise these on the homepage
• Utilise a small space and create a high visual impact with Flash Animation – it really is true – pictures speak a thousand words!
• A well designed site adds professionalism to your company's brand
• Listing leading brands that you work with and providing customer testimonials will be an endorsement for your company

Of course, our old friends the search engines love juicy keyword filled text and links to gobble up, so many of these techniques will assist. Implement the tips above and you'll have a homepage that will market your business more effectively. As a bonus it's likely that you'll notice an improvement in your online sales figures.

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