Let’s be honest – how many times have you landed on a website, only to end up clicking the ‘back’ button in mere seconds because you couldn’t see what you were looking for?

We live in a world of fast answers and instant gratification, which has resulted in an impatient audience that’s increasingly demanding. Most of us are conditioned to expect to find what we’re looking for in a matter of seconds, so the job of an effective homepage is even more important – but also more challenging too.

So, how do you give users what they want quickly, whilst capturing their attention at the same time? Here are 8 tried and tested features you need to include that will help your effective homepage take shape.

In one sentence (two at the most), you must answer the question that all your visitors will be asking – ‘What does your company do?’

A good headline doesn’t have words to waste – it needs to be short and clear, and most importantly, it needs to describe what you do perfectly.

Take a look at this simple but effective headline, which does a great job of answering that all-important question.

In the space of eight words, Basecamp presents a solution to a problem many businesses will find themselves facing. Straightforward, concise, and relevant, it gets right to the heart of what this company can offer its visitors.

If you don’t know what to write, try asking your customers or audience why they visit your website or use your products or services. You can take the words right out of their mouths, and use them as your headline!

Where the headline is all about a quick, clear injection of information, your subheadline gives you the opportunity to define your service or product in a bit more detail.

At this point, you need to be trying to answer the question: ‘How are you going to solve this problem for me?’

Zapier does a great job of this, describing in more detail what it does and why that’s so good for you. It even goes a step further by using an emotive tone and including wider benefits, leaving users with the impression that Zapier won’t just help them with their automation, but their productivity too.

Now you’ve caught their attention, your next task is to visually show your visitors what to do next. This is where your call-to-action (CTA) plays an important role. It provides directions, and tells your users how to move forward.

Calls-to-action mostly appear in the form of buttons or links, so it’s important that they’re short and snappy – no more than a few words long. They need to provide direction, and the more interesting you can make them, the more likely your users are to click them.

Here, Shopify uses its call-to-action to clearly show visitors where to go next. The language is active, direct, and clear. Plus, Shopify has included that magical word – ‘free’. This is one of a few powerful words you can use to persuade your users to take the next step.

The key is to actively engage with your users – tell them what to do, and guide them to take action so you can start building a relationship with them.

Your logo and your brand are like your signature scent. They hint at the DNA of your business, and should surround your product or service in a way that can subtly inform your customers’ opinions of you.

Whether they see you as professional or unreliable all lies in the choices you make when it comes to your branding. After all, who thinks of an iPhone without conjuring images of white, clean space and cutting-edge tech, all carefully tied up in that small but iconic silver apple?

This is the gilding on your website that’s going to give your business its personality, so you need to make sure it all works together in harmony. If your brand doesn’t work cohesively, chances are your visitors will be left feeling confused about who you are and what your business stands for.

If coming up with your own logo sounds daunting, don’t panic. There are plenty of ways for you to find the perfect design, including getting someone else to do the heavy lifting for you! Take a look at the best logo makers out there to get started.

Tailor Brands Review – learn more Tailor Brands and whether it’s the right online logo generator tool for you!

They say a picture is worth a thousand words – and when it comes to your homepage design, they might be onto something. People are naturally drawn to visuals like images or videos, making them a great way to convey information and prevent your homepage from becoming too text-heavy.

Slack does a great job of harnessing this tool. Not only does its image fit with its branding, but it also provides a visual representation of what the business has to offer.

Images are an awesome way of creating a mood or showing your audience what you’re all about, but be careful to use graphics that are relevant to your website. If they don’t serve any purpose, or don’t help to enhance your overall brand, don’t use them.

It’s better to keep your website clean, rather than including things that aren’t useful and only serve to distract from the important bits.

Your navigation bar does exactly what it says on the tin: it helps your visitors to find their way around your website. It needs to be easy to find and clearly labeled, so that they can get to the information they’re looking for.

Keep your navigation bar functional by following these tips:

Every time a visitor lands on your website, they’re taking a chance on you and your business. Keeping them engaged will be much easier if you give them a reason to trust your legitimacy. You can achieve this by including trust indicators at the bottom of your page.

If you’ve never heard of a trust indicator before, they can be any of the following:

The key here is to positively associate your business with external parties, and show that it’s operated by real people, not robots. Almost a third of online shoppers hesitate to commit to a purchase because of security concerns, but trust signals are very powerful tools to help bring them one step closer to becoming customers.

Ultimately, people like to be part of a group. When they see others (just like them) supporting you and purchasing your products, they’re more likely to follow suit. It adds a layer of trustworthiness and credibility that not even your most persuasive copywriting could achieve.

Ever heard the saying, ‘Features tell, benefits sell?’

A common mistake that many websites make is focusing on features, rather than benefits. It’s helpful to let your visitors know what your product includes, but what’s more useful is explaining why that’s so good for the customer.

Benefits tap into the emotional side of people. This means they help you connect with your customers on more than just a surface level.

Basecamp, a project management software that helps teams to manage communications, is great at using benefits to its advantage. First, it lists out the many pain points the potential customer might have (and which they’ll likely relate to on an emotional level). It then makes the promise that its software can make all those problems go away!

There are many ways to feature benefits on your home page, but the key is to show your audience how their lives will change for the better once they invest in your product or service.