When someone visits your homepage, you have just a few seconds to capture their attention.
So what makes a great homepage?
Branding needs to be clean, professional and obvious. Reassure the user that they are in the right place.
Logo
Colours
Fonts
Primary Message needs to capture attention quickly, then emotionally engage the user.
Aesthetically it needs to stand out through size, position, font, weight etc
Answer the user’s thought, “What can this do for ME?”
Eg of Bad: “We are the best health retreat in Denmark. Visit us today!”
Eg of Better: “Denmark’s most beautiful health retreat.”
Eg of Excellent: “Retreat, relax, and unwind in the heart of Denmark.”
Its common to have a primary message + a secondary longer message
Emotional engagement can be achieved with imagery… if you’re really clever. But don’t be lazy and just bung in a banner thinking it will do the job. Really THINK about it.
Example: http://hotelesencia.com/
So clever… everything about this image (especially that little bit of movement) makes me want to be there. = immediate emotional engagement.
Call to Action. What do you want the user to DO?
Rest of the page just has to be aesthetically pleasing > that means clean, attractive and easy to navigate:
Make it easy to scan, with ‘bite size’ content entrants points. The whole point is to entice the user. The more time they spend browsing through content on the rest of your site, the more committed they become.
Navigation > clear, intuitive and conventional - “don’t make me think”.
Contact Details and/or Calls to Action > depends on your AIM