The Ingredients of a Great Website, Part One: What Your Home Page Needs

We recently wrote about the importance of having a website that reflects your expert status. (You can read that blog entry here.) It’s critical that visitors to your website can immediately tell that you’re very good at what you do.  

Now, we’re going to shift from that strategic discussion to a more practical one and talk about how specifically you can accomplish this goal with your website. Today, we’re going to focus on the home page of your website. In a future post, we’ll talk about additional pages and functions that your website needs.

Everyone knows that their website needs a home page. But many people aren’t sure what that home page should have, look like, and do. Below are several important elements:

A video introduction. Many people prefer watching a video to reading text. Providing a video introduction at the top of your home page gives them this option. It also establishes a more personal connection with your audience, giving them the opportunity to see your face and hear your voice, rather than reading impersonal text. Check out our video introduction here.

Concise, clearly worded content showing your target audience how you can help them. Your home page needs a clear written description of your business and of how you can help. It’s important that this introduction be written in language that makes sense to your target audience, not legalese or techno-speak. Focus this text on the “problem” that your target customers have and demonstrate that YOU are the solution.

An easy way to get in touch. If a website visitor wants to get in touch with you, make it easy! We recommend including a phone number and email address in a prominent location, and we also recommend providing a contact form that a visitor can fill out if they prefer.

A clean, organized menu. It’s important that your menu is clear and easy to navigate. Don’t make it hard for your visitors to find whatever it is that they’re looking for. Because you’ll likely have more pages on your website than can comfortably fit in your main menu area, you’ll need to think hard about which pages are most important and need to be prominently featured, and which can be located in sub-menus or drop-downs.

A Special Report, e-book, or other content available for download. A practical report, white paper, or e-book is important for at least two reasons. First, even if a visitor doesn’t download it, the mere existence of the content “proves” your expertise. (Because how else could you have written the report?) Secondly, if you can create a report that is appealing to website visitors, you can capture their contact information in exchange for the free download. You can then plug them in to your marketing cycle as appropriate.

Links to your social media profiles. A social media presence is an expectation for today’s firms, so make it easy for your visitors to find you. Social media is another great “touch point” which allows you to stay top-of-mind with your audience, so making it easy for website visitors to connect with you is very valuable.

Logo, firm name, and tagline if applicable. This sounds obvious, but many firms today don’t even have their logo and firm identity information on their website. Ten years ago, that may have been okay, but in today’s internet-centric age, a professionally-designed and well-branded website is very important. It doesn’t have to be an artistic masterpiece, but at the very least your home page needs to reflect your brand identity appropriately.

Questions or comments? Contact us today to learn more… and be sure to stay tuned for part two in this series!  

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Spotlight Branding

Spotlight Branding is a content marketing and branding firm for lawyers and other professionals. Our goal is to help you create an online presence that positions you as a credible expert in your field, keeps you connected with your network in order to stay top of mind and increase referrals, and to become more visible online so prospects can find you!