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Homepage 101 : Make your homepage successful

On 28/12/2015

In Help to make a website

Making a website can be challenging but as my grandpa always says, The best starting point is the beginning. After hearing this nugget of wisdom I was convinced dear old grandpa was past his prime. But alas, he is correct (as most  grandpas are).

So where is the beginning when making a website? The homepage is the first glance of your site and what it has to offer.

The homepage sets the tone for the rest of your site.

In the post How to make a website (that doesn't suck) 101: the bare essentials we talked about the thinking stuff and the doing stuff, your Homepage ties all of it together. Our motion design genius, Mr. B, put together the video for Homepage 101 : Make your homepage successful to clearly illustrate and define the objectives of Homepage 101.

Watch some tips in the video below to make your homepage, not only pertinent and interesting but that also encourages people to explore your site !

In short

Show the users where they are :

  • display a logo
  • have a site name
  • a clear message
  • easy navigation

Keep your users interest with :

  • consistent design
  • quality text and images
  • useful information

Create confidence

  • have a clear message
  • stay loyal to your message
  • assure your users

So make your websites homepage successful from the visitors first glance.

You can edit your homepage at any moment from the manager Pages > Edit homepage. We recommend:

A clear site title : As the entryway, your homepage should show your site's purpose clearly the users should not be asking what the point of the site is. For example: the site Sleep and Chocolate, has the helpful title "A blog about happiness."

Homepage content : You can clearly state your message with a minimum of text, no need to write an entire essay, but maybe just a thesis statement. Tell users about the site nature or activity. Don't be afraid to rewrite! Kurt Vonnegut gives a great rule "Your rule might be this: If a sentence, no matter how excellent, does not illuminate your subject in some new and useful way, scratch it out,” well push the backspace key.

Highlight your text : I don't mean literally using the highlighter, but formatting your page so that your information stands out. Readers like clear titles, headers, and bold text.

Structure your page : It will make your life easier if you make a block for each element, be it an image, text, or a widget of your choice. In doing so, the alignment is automatically done for you and will be the same each line! To know more about blocks and columns, read here.

Perfect your homepage SEO : Add a Meta title or Meta description and help search engines display your website, in the way you want.

Put your best forward, and make your homepage successful. As always feel free to comment below. In the next videos we will be helping you with SEO so that you can get your site seen on the web.

sleepandchocolate optimization homepage videos site perception navigation pages