Top 10 Guidelines for Homepage Usability

A website is a brand’s most valuable asset, and your website’s homepage is your most valuable real estate. People spend millions of dollars competing for that prime piece of real estate that’s less than a square foot in size. That section will serve as the public face of your business. 

Your homepage will get more views than any other page so make every word count. We’ve gone ahead and created the top 10 web design standards and best practices you can use to increase your homepage’s usability. But what are design standards and why should you follow them? Well, keep reading to find out.

A catchy tagline:

Start by using a comprehensive tagline that holistically summarizes what your brand is all about. This is especially important if you’re new to the market or are relatively less known compared to your competitors. It will help give users a better understanding of what your business can offer them.

Title Tag:

For those of you who don’t know what a Title Tag is, it’s an HTML code tag you can use to give a webpage a title. Whenever creating a Title Tag, make sure it is optimized; short and snappy, SEO friendly, and includes your company’s name.

Accessibility of information:

Rarely do people read about a company on their first visit but that doesn’t negate the fact that you still need a detailed description of your company and its products and services. Adding an “About Us” page to your website will help significantly improve the credibility of your brand.

Search Bar:

Sometimes people are looking for very specific pieces of information. So rather than having them skim through your entire website, add a search bar to your website that can help them save time and improve user experience. If you follow the latest design standards, the optimal size for a search box should be 27 characters wide. This way, you can accommodate the users’ search queries easily without having them go back and forth to see what they’ve written.

Showcase your work:

Rather than making pompous claims about your work, let your users decide for themselves. If you have a good portfolio, don’t be shy, showcase your work. It will help you build great user trust. This is one of the most crucial elements of web design because people need to see what they are getting themselves into.

Showcase your work:

Users skim the page in an effort to locate the section that will help them with their present objective. On your homepage, links are the action items, and by beginning each link with a term that is pertinent to it, you make it simpler for scanning eyes to distinguish it from other links. However, starting all links with the company name is a big no-no as it offers little value to the user and makes it harder for them to find what they’re looking for.

Add links with relevant keywords:

Users skim the page in an effort to locate the section that will help them with their present objective. On your homepage, links are the action items, and by beginning each link with a term that is pertinent to it, you make it simpler for scanning eyes to distinguish it from other links. However, starting all links with the company name is a big no-no as it offers little value to the user and makes it harder for them to find what they’re looking for.

Easy Access:

Users tend to remember articles, goods, or promotions that were once shown prominently on the homepage. But what about when they are no longer visible on the homepage? What you can do to tackle this and improve your user experience at the same time is by following modern web design standards; keep a short list of current features on the homepage and add a link to a permanent archive of all other homepage features to help people find the important stuff. 

Avoid cluttering:

Even though design elements and illustrations look very good on a website, excessive use of the components of website design is bad. It’s important to maintain a harmonious balance between content and format. If you confuse your user with nothing but design, they might dismiss it as an advertisement. At the same time, utilize images that are relevant to you, don’t just decorate your website with random stock images. Take your time, because if done properly, it will be fruitful.

Add widgets:

Whenever you’re using widgets, make sure they are clickable. For example, whenever you make graphical bullets that are close to the text, make them clickable as well. Recent findings have shown that even when the text is clickable, people usually attempt to click the widget and thus conclude that the entire line isn’t clickable if they aren’t successful on their first try. We at Dymentions, the best Houston digital marketing agency, consider all these important factors whenever we design a website.

Say no to Pop-ups:

Whenever we see a pop-up, our mind automatically assumes that it’s an ad. So if you’re using pop-ups to convey critical information to the users, don’t. There is a very high chance that they might ignore it together. If that’s not the case, it certainly affects your user experience. It would be much better and more useful if the information on your homepage was put in a clear and specific place.

Conclusion:

These are the 10 web design guidelines you should follow to greatly improve your homepage usability. We keep in mind all these guidelines and more whenever designing a website. Apart from our leading web design services in Houston, we also offer PPC and SEO consultant services to businesses from all industries.