Hey Y'all
Welcome to another WordPress Wednesday.
My name is Kori Ashton, and
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Today though - I'm going to walk you through
8 incredible things that you need
to be sure to have on your home page.
So your home page is your prime real estate.
That's typically where a good, large majority
of your traffic get their initial impression
of your business or your products
or your services.
So - What sort of content must we have
on every single one of our home pages?
It's going to vary. That is the truth of it.
It will vary, and this question was actually
sent in from one of our subscribers - Mike
on our channel. Thanks so much for sending
in this question and just kinda of asking and
getting the conversation started with -
What sort of content do we need?
So I'm going to just talk about 8 different
things that I think across the board
are pretty standard for what's needed on
a home page.
So - the very first thing I want to talk about is
Easy Navigation.
It's really important as somebody lands on your
website - they're able to see right away a
very simple navigation or an easy way of
getting around on your website, and getting
to other content.
So, you want to be sure to have a nice, large
font, and very typically a menu bar or
navigation bar is set to the top or
perhaps the left-hand side of your page.
So be sure to have that sitting out where
people can easily and quickly see things.
And this particular menu here on Eagle
Ford Mobile App website - they don't
have any dropdowns. You'll notice
that as we hover over - these are just
simple menu options.
You can have dropdown options like
Hill Country Pain here has.
That as you scroll over certain things
you're able to get to other options underneath
it very quickly and easily.
But again navigation is going to be really key
and important and understanding who your
target market is is important as well.
Hill Country Pain has an older target market.
They deal with a lot of elderly so they
wanted to be sure that their font size
was nice and big. So a simple, easy
to find and easy to use navigation that
makes sense. Don't get crazy, creative
with trying to say certain words and
long sentences in there. You don't need
to do that. Just needs to be simple
"About Us" you know
"Contact Us" "Our Locations"
These things are very typical.
And you could also potentially have
one that maybe says "Services" or
something. You see the "Who Are We" here
"Features" and these are all things that
will take you to other pages that'll have
that information on it.
So super important to have great navigation.
Another really important thing to have is
a clear message with very short, simple
descriptions, and again we see that here on
Eagle Ford.
It's a very clear message talking about the
Eagle Ford App turning your phone
into a powerful tool, and
then a very quick little description
here with great imagery. So -
you'll want to have things like that
on your home page as well.
One of the other things that they
have here is "Watch the Demo Video"
So we can click right here and watch
this video without leaving our website.
Large images - nice large images and
video - highly highly important to have
on your home page for an easy way of
describing your services and describing
your product.
Another very important element to have
the 3rd thing I want to bring up
is going to be your CTA or your
Call to Action.
Really, really important that people
understand once they land on your web page
exactly what it is that you want them to do.
Do you wan them to call you?
Do you want them to fill out a Free Request Quote?
Do you want them to buy a product?
Or like Eagle Ford here - we obviously want
you to download the app. So you can
go get it on Apple or Android.
Or if you want to learn more and you're
not completely hooked yet - you can click here
"Learn More" about the app and all of its
features.
A Call to Action here on Hill Country Pain
is - they have this standing out here in
nice bright orange which is a contrasting color
Make an Appointment - that's one of their big
CTA's or GIve us your Feedback and you can
leave a review or testimonial.
Which is another really important factor.
And that's our 4th item that I want to make
mention that - It's important to have on
your website home page Social Proof,
or reviews of actual customers.
Here on Carol Ann's Homes - she's a
senior assisted living here in San Antonio,
Texas. This is one of the websites that we built
for her. This is a WordPress website,
and looking here at Testimonials - we have
this rotating through with a couple of testimonials
from actual either children of folks who live
in these homes or actual people who live in these
homes. Again these are great reviews and
testimonials that just add a little bit of social proof
to your websites, and giving people
excitement and encouragement saying
that others are finding this resourceful and
finding this useful - I will too.
Okay?
Another thing I want to make mention of
is Social Media.
You absolutely want to have your icons
nice and visible in your first fold -
before people begin to scroll down.
We see that as well here on Hill Country Pain.
They have their social media as well.
Eagle Ford has them as well
right up here at the top.
So Social Media is going to be really important
for a lot of websites out there.
You certainly want to have them easy
to click on and get over to your
social media accounts. Perhaps like
Hill Country Pain here even inside -
Let's go over here to their Contact Page
As you go into some inner pages
they even have their social media
Facebook feed happening here on
the left side. So that's a dynamic feed
that displays there.
It's really cool to have social media.
You also want to have a contact option.
Like on WebTegrity's website here -
we have our contact option here on our
main menu that's easily visible, and
then again at the bottom in our footer
area we have a big area here
on how to connect with us.
Our phone number -
Send us an email
or our location as well.
So be sure - that's another big
thing that you need to have on
your home page - is some means
of somebody being able to contact you
or get to your locations.
Another thing that I can show you here
on WebTegrity's website is that
you're going to want to also have
fresh content.
We know about this already from
SEO standpoint.
Google wants to see fresh content
because your viewers want to see
fresh content.
So you don't always want to have the
exact same thing on your website
all the way around the home page.
Some things can be pretty static
and just always be there -
Like for instance here on WebTegrity's
we have our three main services
which is our WordPress Web Design
our Classes where we're teaching you
how to do it yourself, and we also
offer our SEO classes and services.
But if you scroll down a little bit further
we have our consistent blog here
which is actually our video blog.
So we always have fresh content happening
here, at least a couple of times a week,
we're going to have fresh content displaying
in these three columns here on our
home page.
So really important that
as viewers come back to our website
they're seeing fresh content,
they're seeing that we're still in business
and they're seeing something new and
exciting and of course as Google
comes back to our website
they're seeing that same thing as well -
something exciting and fresh and new.
Alright - the last thing I want to mention is
your footer area.
We've kind of already talked about that.
Don't forget the footer.
I actually have another video that I created
that's entitled "Don't Forget the Footer."
It's a really great area
that you can add in some pretty important
content, and I'll put the link to that video
right here so you can check that out
if you're not really sure what sort of content
to put in your footer area.
I'm going to give you two more quick examples
of trending looks of websites that we've seen
to give you some inspiration of
what can be on you home page.
I'm going to jump over here to
4 Rivers Smokehouse.
This particular website is pretty spectacular.
We're seeing more and more - instead of
having slideshows here in our first fold
we're seeing more of these quick video
snippets and we love it.
I mean - doesn't that make you hungry
right there?
I just want to go visit this place.
Man, that looks good!
Alright - but again I want you to notice
a couple of things that happen right
away in the first fold before I ever
begin to scroll down.
We've got this nice video and the
movement that we've already mentioned.
We've got a very clear, simple, easy
navigation happening up here.
And we've got their Call To Action
which is "See Our Menu" because they
want you to have even more of that
tantalizing, hungry, "get to our location" experience.
And let's scroll through their website for a minute.
You're going to see all of this beautiful space,
large, beautiful imagery.
Look at this.
Beautiful parallax happening.
Again a Call to Action of "Shop Now"
"find out more"
These great little break outs here
with simple little quotes to
get you inspired.
And then they use a great means again
of their footer area to have some links
a little bit more about their environment,
and their organization, and then again a
contact and their social media.
It's a really great-looking website, and
really makes me very hungry.
Another one I want to show you is
CharityWater.org
This one's got a really dynamic area here too
before we begin to scroll down
We again do not see a slideshow happening
we see video. Very short snippets of video
however - this gives us some inspiration
right here - as you see this line changing
you can read the different ways that you
can raise money for clean water.
You can - hold a garage sale for clean water.
You can - jump in cold water for clean water.
You can - start a book club for clean water.
It's just giving you some inspiration, but
what do you think their CTA is right away
in the first fold of this particular website?
Very clearly they want you to
"Start a Campaign" or donate instead.
So you've got two different
You've got a Primary CTA and a
secondary CTA.
That is pretty much what we do on
WebTegrity's website as well.
We have a primary CTA which is
hire our nerds or a
secondary CTA which is
choose a class.
So as you can see - it really depends
on your industry and what sort of content
you think you might want to place in these
areas and of course in importance
going down your home page.
We're seeing a lot of trends right now
with shorter home pages
very simple - where people are very
quickly clicking into your website
and going deeper and deeper into
your website. That's pretty fantastic
too because as we all know Google
pays attention as to how many pages
they visit on your website.
So just a really quick recap
the things I want you to pay attention to -
We want to have easy navigation.
We want to have very clear messages.
We want to be able to understand right
away what it is that you do
with simple descriptions. So really
great headlines with very simple
descriptions.
We want to have a clear Call to Action
on your website.
Ask them to do something.
Ask them to click and do something.
Ask them to buy now.
Ask them to engage with you.
You want to have great reviews and
testimonials on there.
Even if it's something where you don't
have a review yet -
put a quote on there by you,
and say why you think your services
are the best and what you can do
for others.
Of course you want to have your
social media listed on there so that
people can engage with you on social
media and you want to have a contact
option so that people are able to either
click and fill out a form, or
call you right away - however you
want to get them to engage.
Be sure to have that as something
obvious for them.
You want to have a means of fresh content
on your website and of course don't
forget about your footer.
I hope this has helped you kinda plan out
your home page.
If you have questions be sure to put them
in the description box below, and I'll
try to tend to them.
Be sure to check us out on Tuesdays for our
Live Q&A for WordPress - as well as
Theme Review Thursday.
Subscribe, you guys. We'll see you
next week.
Bye-Bye