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Your website may be the first way someone learns about your business or brand. But you don’t need a complete website design to launch. Get started by building your homepage first.
A website homepage should have a clear goal and naturally lead visitors to the most important things about your business. It should be easy to navigate and direct people to take some kind of action. Here’s how to start building your homepage in four steps.
1. Set your homepage goals
Start by defining what you want your homepage to do for your brand or business. At this stage you should figure out:
Who you want to view your website
What you want visitors to do after landing on your homepage
How you want your brand to make visitors feel
First, identify who you want your homepage to speak to. Are you trying to reach a general audience or a specific expert niche? One helpful practice is to imagine your ideal follower or customer. Imagine their age, what other brands they like, and what they’re looking for when they find your website.
Next, decide what you want that ideal visitor to do on your homepage. Is their goal to view your work, schedule an appointment with you, or buy something? The place you want to lead visitors is your call-to-action (CTA).
A graphic designer, for example, may want to both share a portfolio of their work and get clients to request a project quote. A personal trainer might want to get visitors to join their membership website or sign up for one-on-one training.
Finally, decide how you want visitors to feel when browsing your homepage. That feeling should reflect how you want your brand or business to make people feel. Is your brand’s mission to make people feel calmer? Do you want to show your bold artistic style to clients? Identifying this will help you make design choices when it’s time to build your homepage.
2. Put together your content
It’s good to have a few things in place when building your homepage:
Business or brand name
Page title
Images (licensed stock photos are OK)
Copy
These are the basic things that will help you get an early version of your website online quickly. Remember, these don’t need to be final or perfect to launch. For example, it might make sense to license stock images or feature shots from your social media feed while you work on getting images together.
You don’t need to write a ton of copy to get started either. Check out the homepages of peers or other brands and use those as a guide. You can likely launch a homepage with just a page title, a few sentences about you or your business, and a CTA that pushes visitors to learn more or browse your store.
After you’re set up, you can make changes anytime. It’s not uncommon to add search keywords or update images after a website is launched.
3. Design your homepage
Keep in mind these best practices when making your homepage design:
Choose a simple layout
Decide where you want to lead visitors
Pick a palette and fonts that are easy to read
Create a design that reflects your brand personality
Your web page should be easy to navigate and give visitors everything they need to follow through with your homepage goal. For a consultant, that might mean including client testimonials, pricing, and a link to book an appointment. For an online store, that could include featuring top products.
To choose a design that fits your brand, refer to the personality you defined in step one. Choose colors, images, and fonts that reflect the feeling you want visitors to get from your website.
Use a website template to get started quickly. Choose a template that fits your industry and customize it. Squarespace’s website builder can even help you make a custom template based on your needs. To finish, simply add the content you pulled together in step two.
Finally, before you launch, test the page and any links in different web browsers. Test everything on both your computer and a mobile device to cover your bases.
4. Launch your website homepage
Once your homepage is live, share it broadly. Post about the launch on your social media accounts and share with any existing customers you already have.
Make sure to update your website regularly, especially your homepage. As you get more visitors, you can use metrics from their website visits to inform your updates. A few details can help you choose a set of pages or details to update.
Conversions: Are visitors following through on the goal of your homepage or other landing pages? If not, consider updating your CTA copy or changing its placement. For important updates or CTAs, add an announcement banner or pop-up.
Keyword data: Look at what search engine terms are driving new visitors to your website. See if you can optimize your website copy to work in those SEO terms.
Popular pages: Does one of your pages or products get more traffic than the rest? Try to figure out what’s working well on that page and if there are lessons to apply to others.
Your homepage is just the starting point for your full web design. To build a strong online presence that grows your business, remember to add other pages like a Contact page or online store.