Increase The Usability Of Your Homepage
In 8 Easy Steps
Your Homepage is the face of your website. No matter where your visitors
land from, the homepage continues to be the most popular page of your website because
that is where the browsing journey begins.Therefore, you need to devote a good amount of
time and effort to design your homepage and make it fair high on the usability quotient.
Here are 8 ways you can do it:
Include a Tagline
Draft out a one-sentence tagline that explains to the visitors the purpose
of your website and company. If you are fairly new in the market and wish to create
awareness about your products and services, a tagline is a must for you. This is because
the tagline can be squeezed under your brand name and it can be uttered with the company
name in the same breath. A good tagline instantly informs the reader what the company is
about and how useful can it be.
Mark Title Tags
Make sure the title tag of your homepage begins with the company name and
gets followed by a brief description of the website. Avoid starting the phrase with 'The'
or 'Welcome' etc.
Provide Corporate Information
Visitors seldom visit your website to gather information about your company
and business. But that doesn't negate the necessity of putting clear information details
about your organization on your website. Corporate information is absolutely essential if
the website aims to support investor relations, PR or other recruitment process. It is
all the more necessary for smaller companies to establish credibility in the market.
Clear Information
People come to your website with an aim. Either it is to get information or
it is to share. Whatever may be the reason for their visit, make sure they find the route
readily available on your homepage.
Include a Search Box
Search box is an indispensable tool for websites, especially so for large
websites. You cannot expect your visitors to scan through all the pages of your website
in search of some particular they have in mind. Therefore, the homepage of your website
should have a small search box that scans through the entire site and brings back the
desired piece of information.
Reveal Good Content
The homepage of your website should carry the most important pieces of
information. Put the most fresh and latest content that you have on your homepage so that
users find it well updates every time they come in.
Start Links with Keywords
Make it a point to begin the link names with the important keywords of your
website. This is because internet users do not stop to read the contents of a website
very carefully. Their attention span is limited to just scanning through the text and
catching glimpses of anything that they find important. If you start your link names with
important keywords that they are potentially looking for, they instantly stop there and
ponder further.
Use Meaningful Graphics
All the graphics and mages that you use on your website should be relevant
and complement the content therein. Otherwise you would just be adding weight to the load
time of your website and irritating visitors at the same time.
By Maneet Puri