Within the first few seconds after landing on your website homepage, visitors will get their first impression and decide to learn more about you or bounce off to a competitor. Therefore, your website homepage content is the most important area of copywriting on your site. Your homepage should be welcoming and give visitors a clear idea of what your brand is all about.
Here is the content brands need on their website homepage:
Present the Value You Provide
One of the first things people need to know is your value proposition. This should be visible above the first scroll. Why? Because it addresses the #1 question on your visitors’ minds: “What’s in it for me?”
Your value proposition needs to have your target audience in mind. It should quickly explain what you do, how you meet your prospect’s needs and how you do it better than anyone else.
Here are some examples of strong value propositions:
-Airlines: Save time and money with our low fares and great service.
-Banks: Save money with our competitive interest rates.
-Automotive: Get a great deal on your next car.
Who Do You Serve?
Before you even start to put together content for your website homepage, you need a clear understanding of your target audience (and no, it can’t be “everybody”). Your business is unique and should have a specific audience in mind. That could be determined by:
- The age group they’re in (such as young adults in apartments or established, middle-aged adults furnishing a home).
- The interests they have (such as a particular design style).
- The industry they’re in (for example, my copywriting services target furniture/home décor brands and interior designer firms, which are crossover industries).
- Their income bracket, which signals the amount they are willing to spend (such as budget-friendly or high-end luxury).
Knowing your target audience determines how you speak to them through copywriting— in attracting their attention and solving their problems—so that they know you’re the right fit for them. It also should be clear on your website that this is the type of person you want to connect with.
Show Your Benefits
In the writing biz, we like to use the term “show, don’t tell,” which means giving the reader a rich description so they can visualize a scene rather than just telling them about it. You need to do the same on your website in giving your audience the benefits of what you do rather than just listing the features of your products or services.
For furniture and home décor brands, let visitors to your homepage imagine the benefit of having your products in their home—how beautiful they will look, how they can impress their guests, and give them comfort and functionality in their lives.
For interior designers, let potential clients see the benefits of having your design style expertise put their space together so it’s stylish and balanced and accommodates their every desire.
Every bit of copywriting on your website—especially your homepage—should focus on the benefits for your audience, not just the features. “Remember, your website is a 24/7 online sales team working around the clock to offer information, answer questions and hopefully sell your products and services,” says marketing experts at The Content Marketing Institute.
Provide Social Proof/Testimonials
Buyers are always a little skeptical before they put their hard-earned money on the table. They want to be sure a product or service will actually do what it says it will do. There is something about the old line, “don’t just take our word for it, see what others are saying…” that can cement the deal. How often do you read product or business reviews before making a purchase? That’s called social proof—the proof of happiness from others in society who bought from you.
Social proof should be on your homepage in the form of testimonial quotes or reviews. You can acquire these by asking satisfied customers to send them to you. You may need to edit them for grammar, clarity and brevity, so they are also a strong piece of copywriting on your site, as long as you don’t change the truth of what they are saying or the context. (Don’t worry, I can help you with that!)
Testimonials back up your claims on how you will benefit your website visitors.
Call to Action
Once your audience has come to know, like and trust you through strong copywriting on your homepage, you give them a call to action (CTA). This tells the reader what to do next. According to inbound marketing experts Hubspot, “The goal of your homepage is to compel visitors to dig deeper into your website and move them down the funnel.”
You want your website users to take the next step that gets them closer to a purchase. Prominently display your call to action in a boldface link or a button so it’s easy to find,
For a furniture brand, your primary call to action might be to shop your products and link to an online catalog or to an inspiration section of your site to get prospects dreaming of what their new living room set could look like.
For interior designers, your primary call to action might be to schedule a discovery call to start a conversation with a prospect about their design needs and how you can fulfill them.
Also include secondary calls to action on your homepage. Your prospect is still getting to know, like and trust you based on this first impression. They may want to learn a little more before they commit to shopping or meeting you. Provide a link to further information about your brand. It could be to your blog, to a newsletter subscription, or to your website About page for an in-depth description of what you do and why.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression, so make sure your website homepage nails it!
