In a day and age where landing pages are the go-to website pages for educating buyers and driving sales, the homepage shouldn’t be forgotten. It still plays a vibrant role in the efficacy of a website. Whether you’re building a new website or optimizing your current one, the use of certain design and copy principles will help you improve conversion rates across the board.

The Homepage Still Matters: Here’s Why

Fifteen or twenty years ago, the landing page was unquestionably the most important webpage a company had on their site – and it wasn’t even close.

Today, the internet works slightly different, and user behaviors aren’t the same as they once were. Social media, SEO strategies, and sales funnels have made it to where individual product pages, landing pages, and blog URLs matter, too. But don’t let this fool you into thinking the homepage is irrelevant.

The homepage plays a significant role in both your website strategy and your brand’s larger digital marketing strategy. Here are a few specific reasons why:

• First impression. Your homepage is the doorstep to your website. It may be a tired analogy, but it’s true. While fewer people are actually entering websites through homepages these days, it’s still the front door of your site. By setting positive first impressions, you stand a better chance of delighting your users.

• Redirect destination. When a visitor is on a random page of your website and wants to find their way back to a familiar page, what do they do? Typically, people will find your company logo in the header and click it – knowing that it will redirect them back to the homepage (where they can find what they’re looking for).

• SEO. From an SEO perspective, the homepage represents a powerful opportunity to appease and impress Google’s website scrapers and crawlers. A well-designed, high-converting homepage seems to make search engine algorithms happy. By emphasizing this part of your website, you can give your company every possible advantage.

To discount the significance of your website’s homepage would be to ignore the value of setting a strong first impression and establishing a firm foundation for your company’s digital endeavors. Regardless of what anyone tries to tell you, it still matters!

Setting a Homepage Conversion Rate Goal

How do you know if your homepage is living up to its potential, or if it’s holding your company back from experiencing optimal success? While there are a number of ways to measure homepage success, conversion goals are specifically designed with this question in mind.

Think quick: Do you know what your homepage conversion rate is? Do you even know how to calculate your conversion rate? If you answered ‘no’ to either of these questions, you aren’t alone. But that’s not an excuse for ignoring the issue.

A conversion rate is a simple calculation that’s expressed in a percentage form based on a ratio. It tells you what percentage of your website visitors are following through on a desired action – such as opting into an email list, downloading a white paper, or visiting a specific product page.

Your homepage conversion rate is calculated by taking the total number of conversions over a period of time and dividing it by the number of homepage visitors over this same period. Multiply the result by 100, and you get your conversion rate.

It’s hard to make generalizations about conversion rates, what’s good, and what’s bad. However, as this study shows, the average conversion rate is somewhere around 2.35 percent. The top 25 percent of websites have conversion rates of roughly 5.31 percent. A tiny percentage of companies manage to blow past the 10 percent threshold.

Once you identify what your conversion goals are, you can then use Google Analytics (or your favorite website analytics platform) to automatically track your results and monitor trends.

Designing the Homepage With Conversions in Mind

Now that we’re clear on why the homepage matters and how conversions play into the equation, let’s dig a little deeper into some of the design specifics. Here are a few ways you can (re)design your homepage with conversions in mind:

Strip Down and Simplify

In all likelihood, your current website homepage is too complicated and cluttered. And while you may think you’re maximizing space, you’re actually doing your business a disservice.

“Visual complexity has been shown to affect a user’s perception of a website: The more elements a design has, the more complex it will look to the user,” developer Nick Babich explains. “Applied correctly, minimalism can help us focus our designs in order to simplify user tasks.”

Take inventory of your current design – or web design plans – and consider each individual element. What’s pertinent to your conversion goals, and what’s superfluous? Anything that doesn’t directly feed conversion goals and/or elevate your brand’s image has to go.

The Tinker Watches homepage is a great example of how simple website design doesn’t mean watered down. Notice all of the negative space, crisp imagery, and selective copy. By stripping away the unnecessary, they’re able to emphasize what truly matters.

Focus Your Attention Above the Fold

In newspaper design, the fold in the middle of the page is an important element. Anything above the fold can be seen when the paper is displayed in a newsstand or store. Anything below the fold can only be seen when the newspaper is opened up or flipped over. Thus, the real estate above the fold is far more valuable.

In web design, the same principle applies. The space above the fold (dictated by screen/browser size) is visible as soon as a visitor lands on your homepage. So it makes sense that you focus on this area more than any other.

To see what this looks like in practice, check out Jena’s Carpet Cleaning homepage. Above the fold, visitors are presented with an articulate value proposition, a list of benefits, and some before and after photos with a clever slide feature that shows how effective the company’s services are.

Stick to 2-3 Specific CTAs

If you give your visitors too many options, they’ll become confused, overwhelmed, and uncertain of how to proceed. This will typically lead them to hit the back button or close out your web page.

While you may have a handful of conversion goals you’re interested in tackling, do your best to only focus on two or three specific calls-to-action on your homepage. Above the fold, it’s best to focus on just one.

Take a look at the Shopify homepage. While Shopify, as a company, has dozens of conversion goals, they focus on just one above the fold. (Start a free trial.) As a result, visitors know exactly what’s expected of them.

Test With the 8-Second Rule

“The general rule of thumb is that you have a mere eight seconds to get a visitor’s attention because that is the length of the human attention span,” blogger and designer Mary Fernandez writes.

Using this insight, you should conduct homepage tests with an eight-second timeframe in mind. What are your visitors doing within the first eight seconds of their visit? How can you grab their attention quicker? (Hint: simplicity and clarity – two principles we’ve already harped on – are important.)

Homepage Mistakes to Avoid

In pursuit of designing a high converting homepage, you also need to be sure you’re avoiding common mistakes that hold businesses back. Here are a few of the more serious offenders.

• Generic visuals. Visual content is valuable in modern web design, but try to avoid using generic stock photos. They can actually hurt your brand’s image – making your company come across as cold and impersonal. Instead, emphasize original images. Incorporating actual employees and customers is best.

• Ads and pop-ups. Ads and pop-ups – including those exit-intent pop-ups that we all like to use – are frustrating to the user. They take away from the homepage experience and can even inhibit a user’s ability to convert. There’s a time and place for them, but don’t overstep.

• Unclear navigation. Your homepage isn’t the final destination. It’s intended to serve as a through-page – directing visitors to a specific product page or landing page where they can convert. Make sure your navigation is simple and straightforward. Too many dropdown menus and subcategories will hurt your click-through rates.

• No Lead capture. Regardless of the industry you’re in, the purpose of your website, or what your specific conversion goals are, you should never have a website homepage without some sort of lead capture element in it. It can be above the fold or below the fold, but it needs to be there!

Prioritizing the Homepage

The role of the homepage is constantly evolving, but don’t let this fool you into thinking it’s no longer important. The homepage will always be your website’s doorstep. A hefty percentage of your visitors may come in a back door or side door, but this doesn’t negate the fact that the front door is relevant. By focusing on some of the high-converting principles outlined in this article, you can revamp your approach and find success.