Real Estate Marketing & Beyond
Is your website's homepage doing enough to interest buyers and sellers to contact you? Too many websites fail to maximize the power of their homepage, even though it's often the most visited page to their website, according to a recent article at Forbes.com by contributor Neil Patel, cofounder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar, and KISSmetrics.
"The homepage is often a battleground of competing interests, a hodge-podge of unfocused strategies, a showcase of poorly executed redesigns, and a circus of sheer confusion," Patel says. Yet your homepage is the "entrance to your entire site. Your branding front."
Patel says that too often, web creators fail to consider the main purpose of their website -- whether that's just to serve up listings, educate clients, sign up for a mailing list, or fill out a lead form. Patel recommends that a site’s homepage purpose be action oriented rather than information oriented.
"The unstated intent of many web pages is to 'increase brand awareness or information.' That’s good, but it’s neither actionable nor measurable. The best way to increase brand awareness is for your site visitors to do something," Patel notes.
He also recommends emphasizing that central purpose of your site with calls to action throughout the site, particularly by using large buttons. Patel advises optimizing the site around that purpose as well as placing a form on the sidebar or header so visitors don't miss it. A prominent phone number on the site's header also allows for easy contact.
To get visitors to click on your call to action, you need to make them curious and excited to learn more, research shows.
Patel offers the following example: "Let's say you're a property manager selling your property management services to real estate investors. You understand their needs, their motivations, and their pain points. 'Hey investors, your rental problems are solved! Call for the best rates in property management!'"
Patel says the load time is an important factor on your homepage, too. Half of web users recently surveyed expect a load time of 2 seconds -- otherwise, they’ll go elsewhere.
Track your site's load time as well as get more ideas of homepage fixes by inserting your URL into Google's Page Speed Insights tool for a free report.
Image credit: Firmbee via Pixabay.com
