Your homepage is usually the most visited page of your website. (Your About page is #2). I like to think of your homepage as a mini preview of the rest of your site. A way for people to get a glimpse of you and want to read more and dive into your site. So there should be just enough content to entice visitors to click.

The goal of your homepage is usually for people to get to another page. So if you’re a service provider, the goal may be for a visitor to get to your services or about page. If you have a shop, you want people perusing items.

There are 6 elements that you need to include:

Logo

Make sure it’s on every page, and links to your homepage. Check that the resolution is clear and it looks good on desktop and mobile.

Clean and simple menu

Your navigation isn’t the place to get creative. Keep everything about it simple. Easy to read font with good spacing. Keep the page names very basic. Use clear page names like: About, Services, Work with Me, Blog, Contact.

Headline

State who you are/what the end goal your clients achieve/who you work with in a succinct way. I suggest keeping your headline 1-2 sentences max. I like to frame it as a fill-in-the-blank with my clients. A great jumping off point is: I do ____ for ____ and _____ happens. So for a business coach, it might be something like this: I deliver business plans for social media managers so they know exactly what to do next.

Intro paragraph

This should be an expansion of your main headline. So further explaining who you are, what you do, and who you do it for. Focus on the benefits. You need to keep answering the question “why are people on my website and what will the yget out of it?” Add a link or button to your Services, About or Shop page at the end.

Photo of you

Including photos of you increases the connection people feel when reading your site. You want your visitors to start to “know, like and trust” you, and seeing you helps big time with that. I’ve written a whole blog post on the best way to do add your photos to your site (and why).

Opt-in

An email list is useful for just about any business. I suggest keeping a place to sign up on every page of your site, including your homepage. But remember that it’s a big deal for someone to give you their email address, so you’re going to have to work hard to get it. Give visitors a good incentive for signing up: maybe a PDF you’ve made to help address their pain points, a video training or access to your Facebook group. Make sure it’s well thought out and not a throwaway thing.