How to create a great website homepage
Before you even think about writing homepage content or having someone else do it, it’s crucial you 
have absolute clarity about what you’ll say and to whom. How do you create on the mark content?
Start by trying these exercises prior to creating your homepage. If you’re hiring someone to write the content for you, have them work through these exercises before producing content. It’s a great discussion starter and will help both of you refine the copy points.
· Write a 500-word article about your product or service.
· Write five to 10 target audience scenarios describing how each person would benefit from your product or service.
· Write a succinct tagline.
None of this may end up on your homepage, at least not in it’s initial form. The point of the exercises is to focus content on the most important aspects of your offering and to make it easy to read.
By creating different scenarios, you’re exploring your target audience as individuals rather than a huge mass of people. You’re thinking through the questions, needs and desires of different audience members.
The tagline is the final crystallizing step where you take the most important information and deliver it in 10 words or less.
When visitors arrive at your site, they are looking for answers to questions they have. Is your homepage answering those questions? Do you even know what the questions are?
If your homepage is not visitor-centric, you’ve missed the mark
Too many homepages are filled with general, corporate information trying to address all company stakeholders at once. The reality is it’s not possible. Instead, use this valuable website real estate to focus on specific questions addressing the fears or desires of your audience. Your homepage must be visitor-centric to be great.
A strong homepage headline sells benefits your visitors are looking for and will separate you from your competitors who ineffectively focus on just product or service features, rather than benefits.
Your content is where you start making friends with the visitor by relating to their frustrations or problems. Despite the assumptions of many site owners, visitors will rarely be familiar with your product or company. They’ve taken a chance based on how you appeared in the organic or paid search results. Once they get to your site, you must let them know right away they came to the right place.
Write your homepage for first-time visitors. They are, of course, essential to the growth of your business. Repeat visitors are already familiar with your site and will start navigating deeper to get the information they want. So, the homepage is really for first timers.
Get visitors to do something
Most pages on your site should have a call to action—something for the visitor to do. No where is this more important than the homepage. At the very least, each visitor should have the opportunity to do something, even if it’s clicking a link to more in-depth information.
At the very least, each visitor should get the chance to hand over their email address to sign up for a newsletter, a report or a free gift. This action puts the relationship-building process in motion.
Start with strategy
Homepage creation or revision should begin with the three exercises above or, if you prefer, a more traditional strategy blueprint. Either way it’s key to understanding what you’re really selling (benefits), to whom (audience—real individual people) and what visitors should do when they get to your homepage.
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