Hey everyone, I’m Indradip Ghosh. I am the founder of Conversion Valley. Today, I will tell you how to design a conversion-friendly home page that converts. How you can create your home page, and also I’ll give you some great homepage examples.

According to Marketing Research,  40% of your website visitors will want to check out your home page, no matter what initial page they landed on. Your home page is the most important page on your website. It’s where all of your traffic starts their visit with you, and it’s where they will decide what to do next.

If you want more sales, you need to design a high converting home page that sells! This blog post will talk about how powerful simplicity can be in creating an effective home page.

Now you may feel why you need a great high-converting home page when you have a great landing page.

A good example is Dropbox. Their sign up flow is ridiculously simple, and it works! It’s so easy that you can even explain how it works in one sentence: “You just put all your files into this folder, right here on the web.” There are no distractions or anything else for users other than what they need to do next—sign up. The result?

They have over 300 million registered users as of June 2014. And their revenue has increased from $240M in 2011 to almost $600M in 2012, with about 60% coming through their website (source). Simplicity sells! If you want more sales, you need to design a high conversion.

Yet so many people have poorly designed home pages that scare off your potential customers before they even take a look at your product. 

 Hey everyone, I’m Indradip Ghosh. I am the founder of Conversion Valley. Today, I will tell you how to design a conversion-friendly home page that converts. How you can create your home page, and also I’ll give you some great homepage examples.

1.   Develop Your Buyer Personas:

Look, I know you know your stuff. But no matter how much of an expert you are, it never hurts to go back to the beginning. But this is the most crucial part of your web design process. Because in the end, you need conversions, not just traffic. If you send me 100,000 people from a dating website and 250 from a prominent marketing site, which one will be better for my business? Unless you’re in the pageview business, you should first and foremost care about conversions. Conversions take place when targeted traffic meets relevant offers. It all starts with understanding what your customers need or want.

Why use your buyer Persona into your website

Essentially it’s about knowing whom you are selling to, why they are, what type of problem they are facing, what kind of solution they are looking for. How much money are they ready to spend to solve this issue? To develop your first buyer persona, you have to know all of these answers. I know some developers visited their audience house to understand their situation. It is a crazy idea but worked well. But you don’t have to.

How to build them?

The truth is that most companies have some assumptions about who their target audience is. A buyer persona is a tool that can help you see deeper into the buyer’s thinking.

Use interviews with existing customers to map out different personas. Read The Buyer Persona Manifesto (free pdf) to get more information on this. Here’s a free webinar recording on buyer personas I recommend checking out.

2.  Unique selling proposition:

USP stands for Unique Selling Proposition. A unique selling proposition (USP) can be defined as the element (or series of pieces) that communicates what makes you different from your competition.

For many marketing leaders, answering this question usually means finding a specific feature, component, or methodology that their competitors don’t offer. This leads to brands and startups playing a game of catching up on each other’s qualities

But there are other ways to stand out. Take Bombay Shirt Company, for example. On the surface, they have similar features to the likes of Peter England, Raymonds. It’s important to note that despite face-value similarities, they are feature-poor compared to the traditional men apparel space. Despite not competing on classic features, they’re loved by “Design your own shirt” all over the world:

You should very clearly display your USP on the home page at the top. You can add a banner or write down your unique selling proposition in the hero section.

This is another example from Convertkit. Convertkit is an email marketing platform. But they are not like others. Most email marketing companies target agencies and other enterprises. But Convertkit targets individual creators like song makers, book writers, bloggers.

So, right now, ask yourself, is your business model unique? If not, then it’s time to find your USP. Finding your unique selling proposition will help you attract your ideal customer. It will force you to identify what your customers struggle with and what they most desire, filling those gaps in a way nobody else can or chooses to.

 I have seen so many eCommerce websites and home pages where you have no clue what they sell whatsoever until you go onto the product page, and then you’re like, okay, they are selling bags. So, don’t do that. Describe your brand’s purpose or vision within 1-2 sentences.

3.  Clearly design your above the found part :

You need to structure your above-the-fold content very carefully, especially on the home page. It needs to be like the first page in a very interesting book because not many people deep scroll on the home page or any page that matters unless they are reading an article.

The best practice states that your call to action must be above the fold because visitors do not typically scroll beyond the fold.

Let’s look at some examples of sites designing for the fold…

VWO is doing an excellent job here. A proper call to action, “Try VWO for Free”. 

Optimizely has the call to action above the fold as well. They have a proper call to action button on their header area.

A few years ago, Google released a study, The Importance of Being Seen: Viewability Insights for Digital Marketers and Publishers, demonstrating the fold’s impact.

The study found that, with viewability defined as 50% of the ad’s pixels being on-screen for one second, ads just above the fold had 73% viewability. In contrast, ads just below the fold only had 44% viewability.

Nielsen Norman Group concluded that “what appears at the top of the page vs what’s hidden will always influence the user experience—regardless of screen size.” They found that the average difference in how users treat info above vs below the fold is 84%.

To summarize Nielsen Norman Group’s findings: “Users do scroll, but only if what’s above the fold is promising enough. What is visible on the page without requiring any action is what encourages us to scroll.”

So, above the fold matters. You’re above the fold content must be very eye-catching and interesting. Add your USP and write about your business without writing too many words. Just summarize what you are doing on this website.

4.  Don’t push the sell too hard: :

The home page should represent your Unique Value Proposition – don’t push the sell too hard! Your home page is a space to tell a story to your potential customers. That story you need to resonate trust with them, it needs to establish some unique selling point, but predominantly it needs to show confidence… There is an exception for advertising products, but you need a unique and valuable message for visitors.

Your website needs a strong presence that will draw people into buying from and supporting what they see; this includes having all products prominently displayed so customers can make informed decisions about which ones best fit their needs while also establishing who is behind each product line with relevant information such as testimonials or customer reviews (when available). The goal should always remain to preserve authenticity by never compromising its integrity for anything else!

5.   Copywriting

Copywriting is the art of writing sales copy or content that persuades visitors to purchase a product or service.

 Description: Home page copy is the most important part of your landing page. This is where you will convince your visitor to take action & buy your product or service. A good home page contains:

1. Benefits – focus on what will be gained by the customer if they buy your product or service, not what you are selling.
2. Emotional appeal – make them feel something (like fear, anticipation, happiness etc.)
3. Social proof – show that you have many happy customers 4. Testimonials – use testimonials from people who have been benefited
4. Video – video can communicate in a way that text cannot
5. Pictures – pictures are worth 1000 words
6. Features – list the features of your product using bullet points
7. A call to action (CTA) – tell them exactly what to do next.

Use the AIDA formula to use copywriting. AIDA stands for Attention, Interest, Desire and Action. It’s a paradigm that has been used since the 1800s to develop effective advertising copywriting.

The AIDA model applies to any marketing, but it’s especially useful for web copywriting. Web copy is all about getting your customers’ attention and holding onto it until they’re ready to buy.

Treat the AIDA model as a tool rather than a rule book. You may find that your customers don’t always move in an orderly fashion down the funnel; they may get stuck on one stage or jump forward to another.

 AIDA works like this:

 Getting Attention: Your website is competing with everything else out there (other websites, other ads), so you need to grab your customers’ attention right away and keep it throughout their visit.

 Holding Attention: Once you’ve got someone’s attention, you need to keep them reading through your copy using techniques like curiosity building and the “hook” (a provocative statement that captures interest and encourages further reading).

 Getting Interested: To build interest, use various techniques to explain how your product will solve a problem or present interesting information about your business or industry engagingly. Get people thinking more deeply about your business or industry in an engaging way. Get people thinking, HOW WILL THIS BENEFIT ME?

7. Using Videos:

Video is one of the most powerful tools you can use to convert more leads into customers. Moving images can connect with your audience that static pages can’t match.

 The benefits of video don’t just apply to eCommerce sites. A study from Animoto found that video generates more than 2,600% ROI for B2B marketers and increases organic traffic by 55%! Video also increases customer satisfaction, as it helps them connect with your brand.

 Treat your video as an opportunity to build trust with your audience and explain exactly what you’re offering. Be straightforward and let your personality shine through. Put yourself in your audience’s shoes and think about what they want to know about your business.

 Keep in mind that videos are changing—and so are the ways people watch them! That’s why it’s important to create videos that look good on all devices, including mobile phones. You want to make sure people can watch your video no matter where they are or what they’re doing.

 If you are not great with videos, that’s fine; you can outsource it, don’t forget the power of outsourcing…