The Home Page Design Essentials.

Now that you have the idea of your business with you, it is really, like really very important for you to have a website. And a website’s Home Page Design is the virtual sales script of your business in the online world.

Therefore it is crucial for website design companies to work with the business owner and get a perfect idea of their business essentials.

The Home Page of a website creates the first impression of your business. And as they say first impressions are mostly the last impressions. So make sure your home page design is such that it instantly connects with your visitors and intrigue them to scroll further.

Furthermore it is imperative that your website design company designs your homepage in such a manner that it is:

• Accessible,
• Professional,
• Builds confidence,
• Answers queries and
• Give clear directions for the user to take actions.

Deploy only after a proper plan

It is seen mostly that some web design companies are in a rush to create website to reach some sort of finish line. Unfortunately in this race to just complete the website and reach the finishing line innocent clients are being harmed.

This is because no plan is appropriately implemented unless it is seen through thoroughly. And Home Page design has to be placed properly such that:

• all the important elements are clearly visible,
• the users or visitors get a clear idea of what the website is about and
• distinct CTA buttons should be placed for the users to take desired action.

Strategy before Design

It is always advised by industry experts to begin with a strategy and follow it with the design. Because if you have your design first then you will try to fix the strategy into it.

Which is wrong.

But, if you have your strategy in place then a good web design and development company will design the homepage of your website to fit your strategy.

Where to start with for Home Page Design?

Identify your goals and objectives first.

Categorize what targets you want to achieve via your website.

This way you will have a better understanding and a clear objective of designing a homepage for your website.

Essentially most of the successful website visits take account of:

• Brand publicity
• Number of subscribers
• Hot Leads
• Warm prospects
• Targeted sales

Moreover to achieve the above goals, targets and objectives you have to have a plan. And to make that plan you will have to have answers to some important questions. These questions will help you by defining your target market, what help you can offer to your site visitors, and how can you convert a visiting user into a sale.

Note down the answers to these below question and…hey…there you are with your first step of formulating a plan for home page designing.

• What’s your target market?
• What are the related problems that your target market is looking help for?
• What do you have to offer them to help them solve their problems?
• Which of your services or product can deliver a solution?
• Why should they prefer you above your competitors?
• Can you give some authentic testimonials?
• Do you have a social identity and can you share it here?
• Any other important information, notice or offer you’d like to share with your users?
• What measures you have to direct an interested user towards a targeted action of becoming a subscriber, lead or sale?

Just as you have the answers to all the above questions you will be through your first step of drafting the plan to design your website’s home page.

Set up easy Navigation

Okay so first let us recollect an experience which most of us have had…walking into a store which has everything you need from grocery to clothes under one roof.

Now you know the things you need are out there but how frustrating it gets when you can’t locate them.

It’s very disappointing.

Therefore the store owners introduced directions in their stores for easy navigation and also hung boards with section names to locate them for distant.

Isn’t this cool?

Well this is exactly what we are talking about.

If a user lands on your website but feels lost in it then what’s the point of having the site in the first place? It is very frustrating for the visitor to dig in deep to locate what’s in there for them. They’d rather hit the back button.

Therefore your services and your solutions should be out there in a clear manner and easy to locate fashion.

The most commonly searched for pages that is About, Services/Products and Contact should be placed distinctively. Also, care should be taken to not use confusing or very complex language on the homepage.

The key is to keep it simple; be it language or the navigation. After all you do not want your hard earned users to get lost or confused and make an exit from your website. Introduce a secondary menu to your primary navigation menu if in case you have huge amount of items.

Place targeted Call to Action Buttons

After a visitor is done scrolling through your home page design and is intrigued by the services you provide, what is the next step you’d like the visitor to take?

Click the designated CTA button right?

Well this is exactly what all the website owners aim for.

The action a user or a visitor takes on your site could consist of any of the following:

• Subscribe to a daily update
• Visiting into the brick and mortar store or company
• Commenting on a blog post
• Liking social pages
• Downloading a PDF
• Viewing a product demo
• Reaching out via a contact form or contact information
• Making a purchase

It can be practically anything which converts a regular visiting user into a sales or prospect for the company.

It is vital for site owners to have these CTA’s planned beforehand to start the home page design process. The designing of homepage should be such that these CTA should occur naturally and should go with the flow of the content and design.

At the same time care should be taken towards the professional approach in the placement of the CTA buttons.

Spare the details for the dedicated pages

The home page designs comes out fine with the right amount of text placed in the most accurate manner. Many SEO companies in Delhi stuff their client’s homepage with keywords and suffocate the page with too many words.

This is bad, really bad.

The main objective of the home page is to give a glimpse of “What you do and Who you are” to your users. And for this you do not, rather should not stuff your homepage with words.

Nobody likes big paragraphs and honestly no one reads them. The users concentrate more on the highlighted text, bullet points and CTA’s. Therefore go for these, rather than the unnecessary and inessential words.

Home Page Wireframe – the initial designing

Now that the planning part is done let us move on to the home page designing.

A wireframe is a simple outline of your page. It can either made on a paper or on a PowerPoint or any other software package developed specially for wireframes.

Image source: Envato tuts+

Getting a wireframe keeps you focused on getting exactly what you want. Now that you have a rough design with you it becomes a lot easier to get the desired home page design with minimum re-do.

Introduce your content

And now it’s time for the content.

Wait did it just answer the most popular query doing rounds – Design first or Content first?

Well it definitely did add one point in favor of design first.

Anyway coming back to our content insertion.

Just as the value of content holds importance so does its placement, simplicity and readability does.

When a user visits your home page the first thing he does is scanning. The user quickly scans the complete page and then gets into details.

Therefore be very careful of highlighting your most important information in the most perfect manner.

When you are done inserting the content into the home page design go back and scroll the page to double check the points below:

• Home page design is directing towards the target market,
• The main solutions, services or products are highlighted and can be seen at a glance,
• The navigation is smooth and
• Focused towards achieving previously defined goals.

If you have checked all the above points then bingo you are good to go with a great design and awesome content.

Summary of Home Page Design

While it may seem a cake walk but trust me it isn’t. It requires a lot of planning and thorough thinking to design a website’s home page.

Have you goals and objectives with you handy to begin with followed by a home page wireframe and appropriate content. Do not forget the placement of the Call to Action buttons to convert the visiting users into hot leads or even sales.

Looking for a website design company to design your home page? Get the estimate!