Deciding what you should have on your homepage is massively important to the success of your online presence. Getting these details right makes sure that visitors to your site find what they need to help them make a purchasing decision. Not including them means they may be turned off, confused, or just annoyed. That might mean losing not just a single sale, but a repeat customer. Your website is where you get to put your best foot forward in impressing the customer, so your focus should be on making sure you do just that.

Item 1 - Logo and Headline
Think about what the first thing you see on a webpage is. The logo or the header, right? The top of the page, basically. The way our minds work means that we start at the top left of the webpage and work our way down, so making sure your website is immediately recognizable is important. Placing your logo in the header of your page is the first step to achieving that. It creates instant familiarity and puts your brand front and top left. Below that you should add a headline. Not a news headline, this is not the place for your latest blog post, but the headline of your business. A sentence or two that tells the user who you are and what you do. The home page is often the only page people visit, so it is important to have a clear logo and a great headline to exemplify your business.

Item 2 - Site Map
Getting lost on a website is a miserable experience, just like getting lost in the physical world. Helpfully, both situations can be resolved with a map. A site map helps customers find where they want to go quickly and efficiently. Headings or links to the most important pages are the first thing you should add below your header. Think ‘Products,’ ‘Checkout’ and ‘Content’, those pages that you want your customers to visit the most. A menu or dropdown helps too, making sure that your users can easily jump to specific pages as soon as they arrive. Sticking with the navigational analogy, your headings, dropdowns, menus – these are all signposts for the customer, directing them to where they need to go and giving them a gentle nudge in the right direction if they are not sure where they’re headed. A search bar is also important for customer navigation, that way, if they know exactly what they want, they can find it quickly and easily with a search. Anything you can do to ensure your customers don’t get lost is crucial, because a lost customer is, well, a lost customer.

Item 3 - Call to Action Button
Engaging visitors to your site is important, and while saying that you should put a big bright button there for them to push may seem a little silly, it is effective.
A call to action, whether that’s to subscribe to a mailing list, contact you with questions or go to specific pages for sales or new products can help drive traffic to the right places on your site. The easier that button is to see (big, bright) the more traffic you will see. Your goal is to get people excited and interested in your business, so do your best to encourage their interest with compelling calls-to-action that are very clear and obvious on your homepage.

Item 4 - Photos
Images can help make your home page more attractive to visitors, particularly visually-minded people. You should be showing them what you’re all about, and what you offer. While it may seem easy to just add some stock photos or existing product images, images that capture an emotion or have a call to action are far more effective. You want your customers to feel something when they visit your homepage, whether that be FOMO (fear of missing out), excitement, or happiness. As an example, people relate to people – you will have more success showing people enjoying a
product than with a basic product shot. Just be sure it’s good quality photography and not too busy in the context of your webpage. When people can relate to what they see, they are far more likely to engage with your website and click on your links and call to action.

Item 5 - Social Proof
Social proof is very important because it shows you can back up your claims. It’s one thing for a business to say, ‘speedy delivery’ or ‘friendly service’ or even ‘best coffee in the state’, of course, you would claim those things. Having customers say it is what makes people actually believe it. Adding testimonials or customer reviews to your homepage gives your customers a reason to trust you. If you have any awards, mention those too. Anything that can show your customers that not only do you think your business is great, but your customers also agree. Doing that will quickly gain the trust of new users visiting your website.

What you should have on your homepage is compelling, easy-to-navigate content. It all boils down to giving your customer what they want quickly and easily and showing them they should get it from you. If you can achieve that you will gain new business with relative ease.