Do you experience the homepage headache with your clients when you’re designing and building their website?
Do they want to include absolutely everything about them and their business?
Or do they have a blank piece of paper with nothing written on it to give you?
Can your clients truly define how they truly help their clients and know the words to use to sum it up?
If you’re dealing with one (or more) of these situations and you’re banging your head against a brick wall, unclear of how to move forward, whilst trying to appease, please or curse your clients, then help is at hand.
Why Can a Website Homepage be Such a Challenge?
The homepage can be the hardest part of bringing a website together. There’s a lot to do before you even get to the point where you are ready to start.
The biggest piece of advice I can give you to help your clients is to say that less really is more. Keeping it simple is the best approach to have.
This can be a bit tricky to get over to clients initially, as sometimes there’s a huge fear that if they don’t have everything they do on their homepage and that no-one will buy from them.
The truth is that having too much information and no clear signposting will put off visitors because they simply will not spend the time wading through information.
‘Information overwhelm’ leads to indecision and inaction and opens the door to go searching elsewhere.
Too much information = no action
As Web Agency Owners, How Can We Help Our Clients?
It’s our job as web agency owners, to try and educate our clients that the right homepage will get their visitors to take an action of some kind.
Actions such as:
- A click-through to another page for more information about something
- Downloading a lead magnet which is something of help for a quick win
- Getting in touch through the contact form
- Reading a blog article
- Any action which takes the web visitor a step closer to getting to know the business better
- The biggest mistake of all is having too much information, too much choice to be able to make a decision
Think of it this way.
A real treat I love is eating out, don’t you? (COVID permitting of course).
Imagine the scene, sitting in your favourite restaurant and seeing what other people are eating and ready to pick something for yourself.
The waiter comes over with a menu and it has a choice of everything going. At first, you might feel excited with the anticipation of choosing something delicious to eat for yourself.
But then, there’s so much to choose from.
You don’t know what to have.
It makes you feel indecisive.
You keep looking around to see what other people are having, in the hope it might help you choose something.
You’re still undecided but the waiter comes over and you feel under pressure to make a decision so you choose something, just so you don’t hold everyone else up.
The meal comes and still nice but it’s not really what you wanted.
You feel disappointed.
If only, you’d had less choice and made a better decision.
Have you felt like that too?
How I Can Help
Don’t let your client’s homepage be the cause of overwhelm and indecision. You are there to be their guide and help them to help their prospects make good buying decisions.
If you would like more help with what makes a great homepage, then you can download my guide, The 8 Homepage Fundamentals below and get some straightforward and practical advice to make your projects a breeze.
