When your website is optimized for conversions, you can expect returns and results for your online marketing efforts such as PPC, email marketing, social media and other online marketing.
To be clear, the term conversions refers to whether website visitors take specific desired actions such as clicking particular links to learn more, or ultimately, turn into a paying customer.
Your homepage is premium real estate and the right banner can make or break your conversion rates. So what are the characteristics of a great homepage banner? Let’s explore the do’s and don’ts of homepage banners.
What Makes a Great Homepage Banner?
The purpose of a homepage banner is to grab your attention quickly and entice you to stay and check out the rest of the website. Your website designer needs to be familiar with user experience and behavior because many visitors enter a website only to leave within a few seconds. This is known as the bounce rate. To reduce your bounce rate, your homepage banner needs to:
- Use captivating images or illustrations. Visual marketing’s power is evident in the explosion of image-based websites such as Pinterest and Instagram. Photos with a human element are particularly effective. Did you know that when searching for a business online, 60% of consumers are more willing to consider a business when an image appears in search results?
- Tell a story. Effective marketing invokes an emotional response. Through the right combination of captivating images and text, your homepage banner needs to make visitors feel something. Weak marketing attempts to ‘brag’, to tell us about all the bells and whistles of your product or service.
- Use compelling copy. Less is sometimes more. Using short, clear and memorable copy will do wonders for your homepage banner.
Tactics that Hinder a Homepage Banner’s Effectiveness
- Too much text. Visitors won’t read it. Images are much more effective in capturing attention and conveying information in a short period of time.
- Rotating ‘slider’ banners. You know the homepage banners where you can click to see more than one marketing message? While they look slick, these banners generally have poor conversion rates. A study conducted by Notre Dame University shows that only 1% of visitors engaged with the sliding banner. Few people look beyond the first slide. This is partly due to too much information offered in one space.
- Overused stock photos. Generic and overused stock photos such as businessmen shaking hands were once acceptable forms of images. Those days are largely over. Most visitors are turned off when cheesy stock photos are used as it feels phony, like the stereotype of a greasy car salesman. If your budget calls for the use of stock images, look around for ones that are not widely used.
With the right tactics, your homepage banner will engage and entice your visitors to stick around awhile.
If you need some help creating an attention-grabbing website that will get the results you need, contact us at Lead to Conversion™ today.
