Build The PERFECT Homepage with High Conversion Web Design

Have you built a beautiful website and invested a ton into driving traffic, only to find out that most visitors bounce away without taking any action? Hmm. If so, you've got yourself a website conversion challenge. But don't worry, it's Jamal from HubSpot and I'm going to help you fix it. Let's get started. Think of your website as a store. If the store is empty, nobody's coming in at all, you probably have some kind of marketing or even a product problem. But if the store is full of people and only very, very few are actually making their way to checkout and buying stuff, yeah, that's a conversion problem. The good news? A lot of things had to go right to get people to your site in the first place. So you've got a product or service, people are actually interested and that's no small thing. But when they get to your site, they're just not quite seeing what they need to help them make that decision to buy or to get in touch or to fill out that important form. Those actions, purchasing, getting in touch, filling out a form, they're examples of conversions. It just means when your web visitor takes an action that has a high value for your company. So what's more good news? Well, if people are coming to your website, there's a lot you can do to make them more likely to convert, to help them do what they actually came to do. So that's what this is all about, designing your website to get you the most possible conversions. The art and science of conversion optimization can get super detailed and super specific. That's why HubSpot has put together this free ultimate workbook for redesigning your website. If you're planning to optimize your website, I can't think of a better resource for you to use. But for now, I'll break down a few fundamental principles that can dramatically raise your conversion gain. To illustrate our points, we'll use a fictional fashion company, Hubsocks, maker of fine socks and other sock based accessories. Some key principles to make your website convert better. First things first, make sure make your homepage a clear, compelling introduction to your company. You wouldn't show up to a first date not looking your best. Similarly, your homepage is the most important page of your entire website. Your homepage needs to instantly orient the visitor, show them what you're all about, and make them feel they've come to the right place. You've only got a few seconds to grab people's attention and make them want to explore further. So lead with strong, clear benefits. Focus on the top use cases and make it about the buyer, not just about you. For Hubstocks, that means showing the visitor that this is the place for a wide range of quality socks. The homepage needs to be clear, compelling and professional. It has to show the socks. Now people find just the socks that they need. Your own website might sell a single product or service, or might sell a whole range of different products. Make it as easy as possible for people to pick a lane to get on the right journey towards their goal and and your goal for them. For Hubsocks, the homepage makes it easy for people to choose either socks or accessories. Once they choose, you can give them the best experience and the easiest journey for what they're trying to do. You're like the parent that's sending your kid off to school and you give them a nice little lunchbox with their favorite little goodies in it. That's what the homepage experience is supposed to be doing. You're sending your kid off to have a good day at school. That brings us to the next key principle. Prioritize. If you put equal emphasis on all your different products or calls to action, you're likely to confuse your visitors. You need to decide which product and which conversion behavior is the single most important and get your visitors to focus on that. Think of your homepage as a clear, focused landing page for that most important thing. But you can't expect everyone to just hit the homepage and choose to buy your product. Life isn't like that, unfortunately. You need to think about the key steps in the purchase journey and lead visitors by the hand through each step. For Hubstocks, we know people who see our demo video are more likely to buy, so the watch the demo call to action is prominent in key places. Once people have watched the demo, the CTA is all about talking to a sales rep. It's a step by step journey. The key is to understand that journey and make sure your website supports it. And also provides clear, simple navigation so any user can choose their own adventure. The Next Key idea Use the Power of Social Proof before you buy any product, it helps to know other buyers have been happy with that product. This is why social proof is so important. And luckily for us, Hubstocks gets amazing ratings and reviews. So we show them at key points in the buyer journey, like on the homepage, the pricing page, along with strong customer quotes and deep dive case studies to inject a bit of urgency. You might even use a plugin to show how many products are in stock right now. So the next Key principle make your CTAs sing design big, bright, clear CTAs, make sure people know they're clickable, then track and measure which ones work best. Hubstock saw a bump in conversions just by changing from yellow to blue CTA buttons. We also made our primary CTA stay on screen even when the user scrolls with a sticky CTA bar on the side of the page. And for people not ready to buy, there is always a secondary cta, in this case signing up for the hubstocks newsletter. All these are great examples of an even more fundamental principle of web conversions. Reduce friction. Your buyers are in a hurry and your competitors are always one click away. Want that journey to be buttery smooth, right? You want your customers to be saying, I can't believe it's not a frictionful journey. If they sense, even for a glimpse of a moment, an iota of a second, that this is going to take a long time or be difficult for them, they're gone. You've lost them. Hubstocks analyze our bounce rates to find our friction points and decide to cut our form fields in half and remove the form altogether for some key content. We also reduce the average number of clicks for finding the right socks from 8 to 4.5. That's a lot of friction removed. Part of reducing friction for the user is clear, coherent design. Hubstocks uses plenty of white space, clear headings and icons, useful charts and images and and short, punchy text blocks, all held together by a simple color palette and a clear, consistent use of fonts. Okay, let's zip through what we've just seen. The key principles of web conversion we really want to take away are make your homepage clean, clear, and compelling. Prioritize the conversion behavior you most want to see. Create clear lanes and purchase journeys for your different users. Streamline your CTAs and reduce friction by simplifying, clarifying, and emphasizing. And just for you, because I hear about you a lot, here's a bonus tip for people who've come this far with me. Keep improving your conversion rate by test, test and test. Run simple AB tests to see if one landing page, CTA headline or content converts better than another. And it really is that easy. Apply these simple principles to your site. Track the conversion rates and engagement metrics and you're sure to be improving in no time. You've invested in your website and in the marketing to get people to your site. Invest just a little bit more time and energy into making sure your website converts as well as it possibly can, and without a doubt fame and fortune will be yours my friend. Try it out and let us know how it works for you. And to help you out on the way, don't forget to check out our free guide, the ultimate workbook for redesigning your website. Truly one of the best things that we put out there. So I want to know what website design choices have changed the game for your business? Drop some comments below and don't forget to subscribe for the latest and greatest marketing tips and tools. Now if you'll excuse me, I want to go purchase a couple hub socks for myself. My toesies are a little cold and you know it's not getting that much warmer where I'm from. So until then I'll see you next time. I can't find this client info.

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