Websites are not retail stores. When writing the very first headline that your visitors will read, don’t be tempted to welcome visitors to your website. Don’t say hi!, welcome to my world, or Enter Here. If you are tempted to, walk away from your computer and think about how many opportunities you could miss.
Someone landed on your website for a reason. So give them a reason to stay. When writing your homepage headline, you should try to include these 3 vital elements:
- What does your business do?
- What are the benefits to your customers?
- What keywords are people using when typing in search phrases?
At IDDP, we always urge our clients to spend time on truly effective, well-written headlines including the above 3 points. If you don’t do this you run the risk of people typing a search query, clicking on a result, then clicking the back button and clicking on a different site. This is called ‘pogo sticking’. The best way to prevent pogo-sticking is by getting in the searcher’s head. Not the buyer, the searcher. These are not necessarily the same thing and that is where many websites can run into problems. To maintain good rankings you will want to satisfy the query of everyone who lands on your page even if they are never going to buy your product or service.
You and your web designer (hopefully me!) probably worked hard to get people as far as your homepage. If visitors are still confused about what you do after looking at your homepage, you’ve not only thrown all that hard work away but your headline is throwing them off.
So sit down and start thinking. If you can create a great headline on the homepage of your clean, well-designed website, you’re not only well on the way to people clicking on your homepage, but also stopping to look around.