Your homepage is prime real estate on your website. It’s where Google looks first and it’s the page that people are most likely to land on first. It can be a make or break moment. People who visit your site are deciding whether to stick around, or NOT! So, are you making these three common mistakes on your homepage?

Mistake #1 – Social media links

First one is social media links. This drives me absolutely crazy! It’s such hard work to get people to come all the way over to your website. There’s a lot of hustle involved in getting people all the way to your site. The worst thing you can do is send them away immediately.

Very often you’ll see social media links at the centre of a homepage and all the way through the website because people want to build a following on social media. Yes, that’s great, but if you are sending people over to Facebook or Instagram you are sending to a world of distraction and they may not come back. So be careful where you place your social media buttons.

What you can do instead is put them on your contact page or in the footer, way down at the bottom. Remember if they’re on your site, you should be focussed on keeping them there and finding the info’ they need. Which brings us to…

Mistake #2 – Information overload

The second mistake that you might be making on your homepage is information overload. The homepage is the place where people may land when they come from Google or or social media. You’ll want people to get a sense of what you’re offering. It is important to break information down into bite-size chunks and in order of importance.

Resist the urge to tell the people immediately why you’re qualified and entire life story. That comes later in their journey. Instead, try to create a short powerful statement that people can read in a couple of seconds as they arrive at your website. If you want to convince them to stay longer and read more, you have to speak to them about how you can be of service. So… do you know what they’re looking for?

Mistake #3 – No clear path to take

When a website represents multiple services or has a really rich online store with lots of products, the menu ends up being massive and hard to use. If there are too many options on the menu, you’re sending people in all directions. Your main navigation or ‘menu’ is how people find their way around your site. If it has got more than five or six items, that’s too many.

When your menu is sending people in all directions, you lose control of the user experience (UX). When you have a well thought out navigation with an intentional plan behind it, you’re more likely to get people taking the actions you want them to take. The action you want them to take should focus on engagement. How can you get the site visitor to get in touch or join a mailing list? When you get their contact details, you’re getting more leads.

Bonus tip

You need to base your decisions on fact. Yes, that means having Google Analytics in place and tracking how people act on your site. There’s a section in your Google Analytics called the “behavior flow”. You can see where people arrive and then what they do and then what…

A really good lead generating website has a plan for site visitors. Grab their attention early, don’t send them away as soon as they arrive! Make sure they understand quickly why they should stick around and make sure you have a way to connect with them and follow up.