How to Write Amazing Homepage Content
If you’re a small business owner that just recently decided to launch a business website, you might be at a loss for how to get started, especially if this is outside of your realm of expertise. Don’t make the mistake of going into the creation of your business website blindly. In an effort to help guide you through the process of making your website, we’re launching a blog series chock full of website tips for beginners. These tips will help you get loosely started, but if you want to improve your website, we advise you hire a developer, marketing expert, and writer or a marketing company with a team of all of the above to make sure you’re getting the most out of your business website. The first installment in our series of website guides is coming up with amazing homepage content; the following guide will help you create a phenomenal homepage that will impress your potential customers or clients.
1) Determine your “unique selling point”
Marketing experts everywhere will tell you that your first step should be determining a “unique selling point,” “unique selling proposition,” or something along those lines. While they each have their own special name for it, it all boils down to the same thing: determine what makes your business unique.
There are many guides available online that are far more extensive to help you truly nail down the perfect unique selling point for your business website, but we unfortunately only have space for a brief overview. There are a few things you should keep in mind when determining your unique selling point:
- What do you offer that can’t be duplicated?
- What do you do better than the competition?
- What makes you a better option than the competition?
- Is your unique selling point too similar to that of your competition?
Once you’ve determined what makes your business unique, you have to come up with how you will phrase your unique selling point. It should focus on what you want your customers to take away from your company. In the article we linked above, you can find examples and helpful, detailed suggestions for constructing your unique selling point effectively.
2) Sell Yourself
Your homepage, much like an advertisement you’d place in a newspaper or on the radio, is an important reflection of your company. Your business website’s homepage has to not only include all the crucial information like location and business hours, but also your story. Your homepage introduces your potential customers to your business; it’s important to put your best foot forward and make a good first impression.
In the homepage content on your business website, you should be sure to include your qualifications, experience, and what makes you a better option for them than your competition. The content should leave them feeling like they’re overwhelmingly certain you are the best option for them.
3) Link to Other Pages on Your Business Website
Linking to other pages within your website will help to improve the SEO of your website while also increasing your chances of having traffic that actually sticks. Making it easier and more convenient for your customers to navigate through your business website is never a bad thing.
Good opportunities to insert links would be placing a hyperlink to your “contact us” page when talking about scheduling services, links to your “services” pages placed on the appropriate services when they’re mentioned, and links to your “about us” page when referencing your qualifications and experience.
4) Integrate Useful Keywords
If you utilize the services of a trained marketing agency, they’ll be able to do this part more effectively for you; however, there are ways that you can do this on your own to a lesser degree. You can use Google Trends searches to identify popular search terms to help you come up with keywords that may be successful for your business website.
Now, integrating keywords is a bit of a delicate procedure. If your keyword density is too heavy, not only will the clunky writing put off potential customers, it will also hurt your search standings with Google because of over optimizing your content. You want to try to work each usage of the keyword into the content smoothly and organically.
5) Include a Call to Action
You’ve likely heard the term “call to action” in your research, but you might not understand to what it is referring. A call to action is a statement that asks your readers, customers, and clients to physically do something you. This can be as simple as “call us or email us today” or as complicated as going through multiple steps to enter a sweepstakes.
In order for your call to action to be truly affective, you need to attach a hyperlink to it. For example, if your call to action is created to get people to contact you to book your services, you want to include a link to either your “contact us” page or a button to open a new email addressed to your business. This can be a great way to get users not only reading your content, but also being active on your website.
Examples of Strong Homepages
The best way to learn how to write great and effective homepage content is by closely reading the content of popular sites’ homepages. We’ve scoured the web for homepage content that meets our particular criteria to provide you with some examples for inspiration.
3Keen Marketing
This is a good example of a homepage with a lot of content; it starts off simple and direct and then launches into a few more specifics. It’s important to note that they never dive in too deep with the specifics on the homepage; we find that bogs down the content and is better served in a separate, designated page. The first paragraph does an excellent job of getting straight to the point:
We, at 3 Keen Marketing, offer traditional and online marketing services to help grow your business. We’re a Columbus-based marketing agency with years of experience and a long history of successful projects. Our team is made up of amazing and skilled marketing experts ready to take on anything you could throw at them. We’ll customize the perfect, result-driven digital marketing strategy for your business.
Mustard Seed Moving Company
This moving company in Little Rock, Arkansas offers homepage content that does a good job of selling the business. As we said earlier, it’s important to sell yourself on your website, as it is the first impression a lot of customers will have of your business. In the very first paragraph, they get right to the point of their extensive services and highly qualified staff:
Located in Little Rock, Mustard Seed Moving offers unparalleled moving services for a variety of needs: local moves, moves across city or state lines, office moving, or home moving. We offer the most reliable and most affordable moving services in the area with the widest variety of services. Our staff is made up of highly qualified experts and professionals that have years of experience in the moving business. Each and every member of our team truly cares about our clients and providing them with the most excellent Little Rock moving services available.
Launching your first business website can be challenging, but it’s not impossible; plus, the benefits to having a business website far outweigh the hassle involved in creating it. Throughout the rest of our Website Guides series, we hope to show you ways you can improve your traffic, get more of said traffic to stick, and tips for staying active on your website with relevant content. We hope this helped you in writing your homepage content; stay tuned for our next installment in the series.