The average person has an 8-second attention span when visiting a website. Does your company’s web page have what it takes to reel a customer in and keep them engaged and interested in your site?

This is why your website homepage is so important when making a great first impression. It’s the first thing people see when they visit your site, so it has to be the best you can offer when it comes to delivering what your customers need.

Let’s look at 8 Key Traits that Your Website Homepage needs to turn that 8-second visit into a paying customer.

1. Headline

You need to let visitors know the answer to their immediate question: "What does your company do?” By answering this question, it lets your audience know what your company has to offer.

Keep it clear and simple by using one sentence (two at the most!). And make sure it’s at the top of the page, so visitors know what you’re all about from the get-go.

2. Sub-Headline

After your headline grabs their attention, a sub-headline will help to explain your goods or services in a bit more detail.

In a brief description, explain what you can do for your ideal customer or how you can help them solve a problem.

3. Call-To-Action

Decide what you ultimately want your website homepage visitor to do to take the next step. Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? How about contacting you for a free rate quote?

Whatever that next step may be, create a call-to-action to compel them to go further down the buying cycle.

4. Navigation Bar

When designing your website, at the top of your homepage, you want your visitors to be able to find the information they want or need instantly. A navigation bar is like the road map of your website.

Display the webpages you think most customers will be looking for, such as services or your blog. Keep it simple and uncluttered.

5. Benefits List

While your headline and sub-headline gave your website homepage visitor an idea of what you do, a benefits list will explain to them why it matters to them. As they say, “Features tell, benefits sell.”

Explain to your audience what’s in it for them, what sets you apart from the competition, and why they should buy from you.

6. Testimonials and Recognition

Let your rewards and past clients sing your praises! Display customer testimonials and company recognition to showcase your superior service.

When 84% of people trust online reviews, you’ll be sure to make a great first impression and establish yourself as trustworthy in potential customers’ eyes.

7. Images and Video

Most people are visual creatures. Help them connect to your website by displaying high-quality photos or videos.

Try to avoid stock photos if you can. Instead, use pictures of your company and team to help potential customers relate to you and get an idea of what to expect.

8. Contact Information

You want to make it as easy as possible for your customers to get a hold of you. You can implement this by displaying your contact info on your website homepage.

In the website footer, display your mailing address, phone number, and email address. If applicable, show your business hours so people know when they can (and can’t) get a hold of you.

Make a Great First Impression with Your Website Homepage

You only get one chance to make a great first impression. By using these key traits on your website homepage, you’ll be more likely to turn more of your site visitors into your next loyal customers.

Need help with your website design? Check out our website packages! We have something to offer any budget and any need.

Are you looking to boost your website's ranking?

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical part for businesses. Ninety-three percent of all online experiences begin with a search engine, so you're missing out on a lot of potential business if your website doesn't show up on the first page of search results.

One of the basic principles of SEO is using relevant keywords to help Google (or any other search engine) recognize that your website will be the most helpful to the person who is searching.

Adding keywords might sound intimidating, but it's easy to do if you follow some simple rules. Keep reading to learn more about keywords and how to add keywords to a website.

How To Add Keywords To A Website

Relevant keywords are crucial to getting a high ranking website. You want your website to rank high up on the first page of results, as most people won't bother even going to the second page of search results.

If you're not sure how to get started, here are five easy to implement steps to optimizing your website with the best keywords to help improve your website's ranking:

1. Start With Keyword Research

Make a list of keywords that people would search to find your business. Think critically about your target audience and what their needs are. You should also include synonyms and related words, as different people will all search for slightly different words.

2. Add Keywords In The Right Places

Randomly adding keywords around your site won't get you the results you are looking for. Make sure that keywords are placed strategically throughout your page. It used to be back in the early 2000s that you would put as many keywords as possible on as many pages of your website as possible in an attempt to gain favor with search algorithms. Now, it is not only ugly looking on your website and seems unnatural, but search engines, like Google, may punish such actions.

An example of unnatural placement of keywords would be something like:

"Our handmade knives are handmade by our team who creates handmade knives. Contact our handmade knife makers today to receive your very own handmade knife."

Instead, search engines favor a more natural and subtle approach to keyword placement. More natural and subtle additions of keywords that help instead of hurt your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be found in each of our blog posts. We use blog posts to answer relevant questions that our clients will search for online. Which not only helps them find the answers that they need but helps our SEO as well. Blog posts allow more SEO keywords to be used and can help to reach a broader audience that is genuinely interested in your site's content.

Useful places to include keywords for your site to help boost Search Engine Optimization are:

• Your website domain
• Website title
• Headings
• File names for images
• Body content
• Titles and captions for images
• Blog Posts

3. Keep Tabs On Your Competitors

Make sure you check out your competition's website to see what keywords they're using and the quality of their content. You'll be competing with other businesses in your area to rank higher in results. Keywords for your local area are essential because they give you a higher chance to rank higher in your local area. You want to make sure your website has better SEO than your competitors. If your competitor's SEO is better, you can lose clicks and organic traffic to them, potentially losing business.

4. Track Your Results

Make sure you track your results carefully so you can see which keywords are the most successful for your website. Google Analytics is a free tool provided by Google and can help you track your top referral keywords. This article gives a full explanation of how to get started. The more information that you have on what is making your site successful, the more likely you are to grow off of that information and continue to expand.

5. Don't "Stuff" Your Website

Keyword "stuffing" isn't a good idea, and your website can be punished for including too many keywords on one page. This is a result of Search Engines preferring more genuine and more readable pages. Too many keywords on a single page can indicate either harder to read and unnatural writing, or signal that someone is trying to take advantage of the algorithm to try and rank higher in search results.

One easy way to make sure you're not inadvertently "stuffing" your pages with keywords is to calculate your keyword's density on a given page. For example, if your blog post has 300 words, and the keyword you are trying to incorporate appears 30 times, you have a keyword density of ten percent. You should reduce the amount and frequency of your keyword since the optimal percentage is between two and three percent.

Learn More About SEO

Now that you know how to add keywords to your website, you might be ready to move forward towards some more complex SEO concepts.

Check out the rest of our blog for more helpful tips that will help to boost your ranking and make your website the best possible experience for your visitors. This article on how to tell if you need a website redesign is a great place to get started. If you're ready to redesign your website completely, check out our Website Design page for more information.

You know your business is incredible, and your services are something people will love. However, your target audience is hopping off your site like a trampoline instead of sticking around to explore.

But don't worry! Here are 5 pitfalls to avoid so you can keep their attention and create websites to impress:

1. It Looks Spammy

Your website has excellent content, so make sure it has the opportunity to stand out.

Too many advertisements can overshadow your posts, causing your website to look spammy and annoying, instead of helpful.

Make websites to impress by limiting the number of advertisements to keep your site looking credible and impressive.

Also, if your site displays ads, tailoring your ads to be relevant to your niche will make them fit more naturally into your site's landscape.

2. It Loads Super Slow

If you're in an area with a strong connection, but your website won't load, it may be time for a tune-up. After 3 seconds of loading time, people start leaving the page before it can fully appear.

On the contrary, if your website has a fast load, it can positively affect SEO and keep your customers from leaving too early.

3. Unfiltered Comments Section

Feedback is awesome because it can show you what works well and what needs to be improved on your site.

However, spammy comments do not promote a positive customer experience or benefit your business in any way.

Consider moderating comments at the end of blog posts so you can make sure all conversation stays both professional and relevant.

This can help you provide a better user experience for people who stick around on your site, making them more likely to return in the future.

4. Wrong Color Scheme

Have you ever tried to read light yellow font on a white background or dark gray font on a black background? If so, you'll notice the content is hard to read because the color scheme isn't working.

Make your content easy to see by balancing out colors. Also, pay attention to your target audience's design preferences. Men and women tend to prefer different colors.

If you're marketing to both, make sure to find a common color scheme everyone will enjoy.

(Don't have time to redesign? We can help you create websites to impress!)

5. Information is Hard to Find

If you can't find what you're looking for on a website, how long will you stay? 15 seconds? 2 minutes? The odds are you won't stay very long.

And if your customers can't find the info they're looking for, they won't stay long either.

Great content makes blogs more credible, and websites more appealing to customers. Make helpful info easy to find by creating your website with user-friendly design in mind.

Pretend to be a customer for a second. If you can find what you are looking for on your site. If you discover it quickly, your customers should be able too also.

Final Thoughts on Making Websites to Impress

Keeping your target audience on your site is not an impossible task.

And by avoiding these 5 pitfalls, you can make websites to impress and set your business up for success!

Need any help? Check out our website packages on this page!

Does your website stand out from your crowd of competition?

If not, it is time to re-evaluate your website design and see what you can do to improve and truly make your site "pop." One of the best things to do when planning a redesign is to take a look at web pages that personally interest and engage you. These might be your competitor's websites or just some businesses with pages that you find to be the most interesting.

While you do not want to copy someone else's design, you want to make sure it is attractive to potential customers. Thirty-eight percent of visitors will leave a web page simply if the content or layout is unattractive and even more will leave if it is also hard to use or navigate.

Keep reading to learn more about what you can take from the most exciting websites and apply these aspects, patterns, and techniques to your own website redesign.

Five of The Best Things To Learn From The Most Interesting Websites

The most interesting websites have a great design, and they're also easy to use and are helpful to consumers.

If you're not sure how to get started with your site, here are five ways to make your website more enjoyable and stand out from your competitors:

1. Keep Branding Consistent

Make sure your site's branding is consistent in every way. Your branding consists of your logo, color choices and schemes, font selections, and every other design element that is associated with your business. Make sure the design is consistent on every page.

For example, don't use fonts in your blog posts that aren't used anywhere else on your website. Using the same fonts across your entire site will make your site look well put together and well thought out.

With the use of too many different fonts, your site will look scattered, and it will not look like one clear and coherent message to your visitors. These anomalies will catch the eye of visitors and will make them remember the disjointed look of your website, which will make your site much less appealing.

2. Make It Easy To Navigate

Even if your website looks beautiful, users will get frustrated if they can't find what they are looking for. Make sure your navigation bar doesn't get lost in your design and don't use popups and designs that block essential parts of your site.

This is key to making sure that you are the owner of the most interesting website in your respective industry. Not only do you want the most usable and user-friendly site, but you also want to have the most beautiful web page that your customers have visited.

3. Use Video Content

Video content is a great way to make your website more engaging. Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to only retaining 10% of the information presented when reading it in text format.

Replace large chunks of written content with visually appealing videos. An intro video on your homepage is a good idea to catch a visitor's attention quickly and introduce visitors to your business.

4. Always Use Original Content

Attractive websites use original content. This rule goes for video content, written content, and images as well. No matter what material you choose for your site, make sure it's high quality and matches the message that you want to convey.

5. Give Your Customers What They Want

Create your website design and your content with your customer's needs and wants in mind. Give them a site they would want to see and deliver your services in a way that resonates with them. Most websites make it all about themselves. You can beat this by showcasing customer success stories and reviews. Make your site different by focusing on the customer and think of ways on how they would want your web page to look.

It is important to remember that different customers will want the sites they visit to look and function differently. For example, if you are providing high-end handbag repairs, they will want to visit a website that looks much different than customers of a business that provides raw materials for manufacturing purposes.

Learn More About Designing A Beautiful Website

The most intriguing websites follow a lot of the tips we have listed above but do not overdo it on your own site, making it look unnatural. Keep things simple and focus on a few elements that represent your brand best.

Customers don't want to visit your website and feel overwhelmed by design. It is more important to integrate each aspect of your site naturally than to check off a list of helpful design tips. The best way to incorporate each of these items is to ensure that none of them become too noticeable or stick out to your visitors. The more natural and seamless your website looks, the better your website will look to its visitors.

If you're looking for professional help with redesigning your personal or your business' website, don't hesitate to contact us and get started on your project today. Our expert designers will help you create a website design that will create a lasting impact on your clients.