Let's Talk Homepage Headers

So when I'm doing a website audit, one of the most important pages on which I encourage my clients to focus is the home page. I would say--actually, I'd argue--that your homepage is probably the most important piece of marketing collateral you have on your website.

Potentially, even your entire sales funnel.

Whether your prospective visitors or customers reach you through social media, or perhaps they heard you speak on a podcast (or wherever it is they find you), they will land on your homepage...eventually. So the messaging and copy on that home page has to be constructed in such a way to connect with your audience and create the conversions you need.

So how do we do that? One of the most important places I highlight with my own clients is top of their home page.

That section is often called the hero section or the header section. Now that hero section of the home page will be the first thing (and perhaps the only thing) people actually read. Visitors don't read websites, they actually scan them. Because prospective visitors are actually scanning, they're not really digesting all of the information that you have on your site.

They are however, reading your hero section, particularly your headline. This means that the headline  has to be captivating, connecting, converting, and it ultimately has to hook them in.

So how do we do all that?

There are quite a few, actually. One of the things I encourage my clients to do is to focus on transformation.

Your ideal customer, the person that is going to your website, is looking for a better version of themselves. Your brand, or essentially what you do behind the brand, is only the guide that will help that client move towards the better version of themselves they are seeking.

If you create a headline that hooks them in by displaying the transformation that your brand helps them achieve, it makes for pretty compelling copy.

A lot of marketers will focus on the pain points of their ideal customers. I absolutely think that we can and should talk about those pain points and in other future posts, we can definitely explore those.

However, I believe that transformation, the desire they have to be a better version of themselves--is just as important as pain as the pain they feel. It can also be just as motivating as pain.

So go look at your website. Look at your home page in particular, and to narrow the focus even more, concentrate on that hero or header section.

What is it communicating to your website visitor?

Research shows that you have about five to eight seconds to keep that website visitor on your homepage.

You have to hook them in with that transformation. You have to hook them in with a headline that will create, what we call in the copywriting world, micro conversions. That means that essentially you're getting them to scroll past the hero section and onto different sections of your website, This is ultimately what you want them to do anyway.

You want them to get to know you as a brand so that eventually they enter into a relationship with you and will convert,

Only then, with that conversion, can you help them achieve that transformation.

Take a good look at the header section of your website. Look at the headline, the transformation. Does that headline align with the transformation that your ideal customer avatar is looking to achieve?

Remember, you're there to guide them and to help them achieve a better version of themselves. Reflect that in the copy!