8 Must-Haves for an Effective Homepage

You don’t get a second chance at making a first impression. Often your homepage is the place where potential clients will meet you for the first time. You want to be sure that it is love at first sight. Your homepage should immediately pull visitors in with an eye-catching photo, a clear and concise tagline, and a clean top navigation. Initial impressions are important and are often formed within a few seconds, so make sure you’re using colors and fonts that will appeal to your ideal clients. 

Here are eight pieces of content you should have on your homepage to make sure you’re connecting emotionally with your ideal clients and creating a first impression that will entice clients to reach out and work with you.

1. Tagline

Think of this as your slogan. It should be memorable and clearly state what you do and who you help. You can talk about who you are, what services you offer, location (if your business is location dependent), and who you serve. If you want to go for clarity over creativity, that always works, but you may also want to consider shortening it and making it snappy so it’s concise and easy to remember.

For example, if you’re a photographer in Brooklyn who works with creative entrepreneurs in food services, your clear and straightforward tagline might be, “Brooklyn Photography: Capturing Creative Entrepreneurs in the Kitchen.”

Above all, a tagline should be memorable. I bet you can pretty quickly identify which companies have the following taglines. “Just Do It.”  “I’m lovin’ it.” “Because you’re worth it.” They’re quick, simple, and forever burned into our memories. That’s what makes them so effective. 

2. Opening Introduction

This is where you elaborate. Your introduction shouldn’t be more than five to six sentences, but definitely feel free to elaborate beyond your tagline. Think of your tagline as the initial handshake and the introduction as the place where you actually start the conversation. It is very important that this is the space where you establish an emotional connection. People make purchases based on emotions, not logic or reason. Your potential clients need to feel a bond with you. What do you do? How can you help them? Why should they work with you? Let them get to know you a bit more and paint a picture of what you can do for them. They should be able to breathe easier knowing they have found the person who is going to help them improve their life for the better. 

3. Bio and Picture

Your about page is where you can go into greater detail, but your homepage should give your customers a taste of who you are and why you do what you do. Again, this is the first interaction they may be having with your business so help them get to know you. Here’s a little something about me I have included on my homepage. “After nearly a decade in the corporate world working with brands like The Book of Mormon, OxiClean, and KitchenAid, I discovered so many brands have beautiful websites that look amazing but aren’t strategic. That’s because strategy actually starts behind the scenes first with clear systems and processes that enable you to streamline your client onboarding, stay organized, and run efficiently. The best part? These systems will save you so much time!” With a few simple sentences, I’ve given potential clients a little insight into my experience, why I do what I do, and the problems I help solve.

Don’t forget to include a picture of yourself. For solopreneurs or small entrepreneurs, people are working with you. That means they want to see what you look like and get to know you a bit. A picture puts a face to a name and adds a personal element to your site. This also helps build up the know, like, and trust factors, which will make people want to work with you.

4. Services

Simply state what your company offers. The homepage needs to stay short and sweet, so I would suggest limiting your services to a simple sentence, or just a headline to link to another page where you go into greater detail. The homepage is the appetizer. The pages you link to are the main dish.

In the examples below, It Clicks Photo offers several different brands of photography. Their homepage lists the services and then links to a page for each one, which offers further information. Lizzie’s Bakery includes a simple sentence about each kind of dessert she offers and then links to a page with greater details. Both home pages are clean, simple, and to the point. 

5. Newsletter Opt-In

You’ve caught your client’s attention, now you just have to keep it. Your newsletter allows you to easily be in touch with your clients and potential clients to remind them of what you have been working on, any specials you may be offering and serves as a reminder to book you. Including a newsletter sign-up link will allow you to grow your email list and keep in touch with your clients whether it’s daily, weekly, or monthly. Think of it as a friendly tap on the shoulder to let them know you’re still there with reminders of what you have coming up. 

6. Testimonials 

Testimonials are the best way to illustrate to your potential clients that you’re amazing and that they should work with you. Think about it, when you’re picking where to go for dinner, where do you start? You probably go straight to Yelp or Google reviews. It’s not going to matter to you how amazing the menu looks if the restaurant has one star. Your business is no different. This is where you get to show off! Word of mouth and a positive reputation are so important for a small business. Your testimonials help keep you reputable and credible. This is not the time to be humble. Accept the praise and be sure to share it with the world.

7. CTAs (Calls To Action)

What do you want your potential clients to do? Do you want them to fill out a contact form, give you a call, or book a free consultation? People need very clear and simple directions. Confused clients don’t buy. Make sure you are letting visitors on your site know exactly what you want them to do. And let them know multiple times. This can be as simple as, “for a free consultation, please fill out the following form.” Whatever you do, don’t leave people guessing as to what the first step is in working with you. My rule of thumb is to include a CTA in at least every other section on every page. Learn more about CTAs in my blog post about what CTAs are and why you need them.

8. Pictures and Overall Aesthetic

A picture is worth a thousand words. You can have the most gorgeous website on earth, but if your pictures are low quality, unprofessional, or off-brand that can ruin your website. Part of putting out a professional vibe is having high-resolution, beautiful photographs that represent your business. This may seem obvious, but if you’re a baker, people want to see pictures of mouth-watering cakes. If you’re an architect, then people want to see photos of dream houses that are going to have them imagining tearing their own kitchen apart to have one like yours. If you’re a lawyer, then potential clients want to see a professional headshot of you that shouts, “I mean business.” 

Like everything else on your homepage, the photos have to make sense. Make sure anything you pick directly corresponds to your business and is on-brand. That means, if your aesthetic is elegant and refined, don’t choose a photo that gives off a messy or cheap vibe and vice versa. Some great free stock sites to check out are Unsplash, Pexels, and Pixabay. If you’re willing to spend some money, paid sites include Adobe Stock or Shutterstock. 

If you can afford it, the absolute best way to go is with brand photography. A professional brand photographer can capture your business’ essence and create custom imagery that will help tell your story to potential clients. You can learn more about why brand photography is so important and how to prep for your brand shoot in my podcast episode with Jessie Wyman, a professional brand photographer.

Don’t forget, your homepage is an extension of you and your business. Clients should feel like they are walking in your front door to meet you for the first time. Think about how you want clients to feel when they first walk in. Your homepage should be welcoming, inviting, and informative, and have clients excited to immediately reach out and work with you.