By this point in our series, I have hopefully drilled in the importance of a strong visual presence. Now we are ready to discuss how that first impression image can seamlessly merge with the important information you need your site visitors to see.
Home Is Where the Customer Is
Think about some of the websites you frequent, for instance an online banking site. Right off the bat, the content you need is instantly accessible right on the homepage. You don’t have to click around or go through menus to log in to your accounts or see new promotions because that site is built with ease of use in mind.
Regardless of your industry and the variations that come with each business, there will be pieces of content you want to feature. This may include small intro sentences (also known as lead-ins) to your primary services, hours of operation, contact information, promotions, etc. It’s extremely important as a business to know your target audience and try to anticipate what they will be looking for as a new visitor. By limiting customer stress and providing them with a smooth user experience, you’re much more likely to keep them on your site.
The fact of the matter is that web users, especially those viewing from mobile devices, are quite impatient these days. It’s vital to communicate quickly and understand that most people want exactly what they need exactly when they ask for it. The short attention span of modern web visitors has made heavy text content on the homepage a thing of the past, as they don’t want to read through paragraph after paragraph. A good thought is to stay on the image heavy side, allowing your graphics, videos and call to action opportunities speak volumes. This is not to say you shouldn’t have text, it should just be only vital information scaled down to easy to read sizes.
Stay tuned for my next and final part of the series where we will go over the rest of the website content and I’ll give my opinions and thoughts on what pages all sites will need.