Have you ever landed on a fun-looking website with a fancy design, only to realise that it is so poorly organised that you can’t find anything whatsoever? What about clicking on a link in a search engine only to immediately hit the “back” button because you don’t have the time or energy to waste on finding a result you can locate almost instantly somewhere else?
You can admit it: we’ve all done it. You’re not alone. In an age of increasing reliance on Internet search engines and an ever-more tech-savvy base of users who could practically design a website in their sleep, there’s a shrinking patience for inefficient websites.
It’s no surprise, then, that the function and ease of use of a website’s homepage can make all the difference in determining whether an inpatient shopper chooses to stick around for a while to browse your online store or whether they hightail it to the back button to do their online equivalent of window-shopping elsewhere.
So how can you ensure that your website will spark the interest of the impatient hordes?
The answer is simple: it all comes down to your homepage design. To boost your website’s traffic, you need an effective homepage. What better way to enhance your homepage design than to take a peek at some of the most visited websites on the Internet? Let’s unlock some of their secret strategies for success!
1) Continuity and Convenience
We’ll start with two of the big “c’s”: you want your website to be easy to find and easy to navigate. That’s where continuity comes in: you don’t want your users to have to complete a virtual scavenger hunt just to figure out your company’s phone number! How can you expect anyone to order something from your shop if they have to scale hurdles just to find the shopping cart?
With the variety of different homepage design techniques out there, users will expect your homepage to look nice, but you also can’t count on them to want to take the time to unravel the riddle of a complicated navigation bar. Some of the most visited websites in the world include Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, and Youtube. What do all of their homepages have in common? A simple, straightforward, consistent design that emphasises ease of use for even the most impatient Internet addicts.
2) Optimised Keywords
You can find out a lot more about this fundamental web design success strategy elsewhere on the Vivere blog, but the buzzword here is SEO – aka search engine optimisation. Search engine optimisation is a complicated way of expressing a pretty simple idea: improving how your website appears in search rankings.
If you want your business to get attention in a realm where competition lurks around every virtual corner of hyperspace, your website has to have a good position in search rankings. You could have the greatest web design in the universe, but it won’t do you any good if no one ever actually makes it to your website to see it!
One of the fundamental strategies for SEO success is using targeted keywords. As the landing point for your website, your homepage needs to make particularly effective use of optimised keywords. That way, when someone searches a relevant keyword, your website will be one of the first to pop up on their screen.
3) Avoiding Duplicated Domains.
All too often, homepages can have duplicates that exist without the site owners even knowing! For instance, you might think that typing “MyDomain.com” will work just as well as “MyDomain.com/index.php” – but think again! These two URLs have the exact same content but they are on two different pages. Users cannot see this, but someone else can: all the major search engines. You don’t want to end up with duplicate homepages that require redirects, if for no other reason than because it will harm your site’s rankings!
4) Use GOOD visuals.
It’s a common refrain, from the classroom to the board meeting: “use visuals.” A homepage design that only uses huge blocks of text is not aesthetically appealing (no matter how much you like the font!) However, incorporating images or other visual media is not enough on its own and can actually backfire if you don’t do it effectively. Good visuals are high-quality images in a large size (but exercise some judgment here, of course: you don’t want to actually take over the entire screen). The most visited websites know that they need to use visuals and know that they need to use visuals thoughtfully—especially on the homepage.
5) Make your site Mobile-Friendly.
According to Search Engine Watch, as of 2014, use of mobile phones to access the Internet has overtaken Internet access from desktop computers. Clearly, the demand for mobile-friendly websites has only continued to grow and does not look likely to subside anytime soon! This means that the ideal homepage design will also include a mobile or tablet-friendly version.
Particularly for mobile-friendly versions, local business websites should prioritize the placement of their company’s name, address, and phone number at the top of the page. That way, someone who views your homepage from their mobile will be able to call you with one quick, easy tap of their screen.
These five success strategies of some of the most visited websites may seem a bit obvious, but you might be surprised how few sites actually follow these basic guidelines! There are additional, more complex strategies involved in improving your homepage design and boosting traffic to your website, but these five strategies give you some of the most fundamental steps to better online business. If nothing else, hopefully you have learned to never underestimate the power of an effective homepage design—or the massive potential impact of a negative one!
