Attracting traffic to your website is the most important element to making any kind of success with your website business. But, how do you attract the highest quality traffic to your website?
That’s the real trick, and it’s something that most website owners get overwhelmed thinking about.
In this article, I’m going to reveal the seven simple secrets that will help you achieve that goal. So, let’s get started!
Background Colours
Choosing a background color to separate sections makes it easier for the visitor to move from one section of your website to another. There are a number of ways you can use a background color to direct traffic to different areas of your website.
The most common way is to have a background color for each major section of your website. For example, you could have a blue background color for the “about” section of your site, a green background color for the “services” section, and so on.
Typography (fonts, size, style)
The fonts you use is an important part of any website. Make sure it is easy-to-read.
- Use sans serif fonts whenever possible.
- Don’t use ALL CAPS either.
- Use black or the darkest version of a colour for type on a white background where possible, as opposed to yellow or some other bright color.
- Use different sizes of type (larger for the main points, smaller for the details) and different colors for each section.
Graphics that Resonate with Your Ideal Customer
The inclusion of graphics (photos, icons, charts, maps, etc.) helps your visitors “visualize” the information they are reading.
Use graphics that are relevant to the subject of the page.
- If you are selling real estate, don’t include photos of your friends and family. Instead, use photos of houses that are for sale or recently sold in your targeted marketing area.
- If you are writing about accounting, use an accountant’s perspective when you include graphics.
- If you are selling a management or consulting service, include photos of your clients and maybe even some of the projects they have worked on.
The Order of Each Section
To make your entire homepage readable, think of your website like a story. So when you are putting your website together, arrange the copy in an order that makes sense to your visitors. This is especially important for the home page. Usually, people start at the top of the page and read down. Make sure all your key points are easily accessible from the first paragraph all the way to the bottom, but each section should be able to stand out on it’s own.
The Layout of Your Website Homepage
The overall layout of the page should be easy-to-scan.
- Use white space between sections and paragraphs.
- Don’t stuff your website full of graphics, photos and charts. Instead, use them to enhance the writing on the page. If you do that, your website will come alive for your visitor and he will “picture” the information as you are writing it.
- Alternate the location of graphics for each section so the left and right sides are balanced.
- This section alone can be it’s own article, so to help shed some insight on this, you can refer to the post “How to Sketch a Website Layout” and all you need is a pen and some paper.
Accessibility for People Who are Vision and Hearing Impaired
Color contrast and readability ensures that all people can access your website. If your website colours don’t have enough contrast people may have trouble reading your content.
When choosing your website colours, keep in mind that there are many levels of colour blindness so colours look different. For example, the colour red for a person with
- Protanopia appears green
- Achromatopsia appears grey
- Deuteranomaly appears brown
So in your website copy, never refer to the colour of a button or link (click the red submit button, click the red link), because it doesn’t appear red to them.
Coolors.co is a colour palette generator and can show you what your colours look like to people with 8 different types of colour blindness.
If you have video and audio files on your website, provide transcripts and captions so people who are deaf can still consume your content. There are many services out there that can do this for you, such as Otter.ai and HappyScribe
Don’t Forget Alt Text & Descriptions on all your images for people who use screen readers (readers that simulate the vision of someone who is blind). Screen readers need to know what the images on your site are so they can understand what the graphics are all about.
The Words on the Homepage
Everything covered so far is important, but the words that are written are the final key to making your website home page successful.
- Make your headlines short, sweet and to the point.
- Use short paragraphs and subheads instead of long ones. Long sentences and long paragraphs tend to drain of the reader.
- Break up your paragraphs with short sentences and short sentences. Short sentences and short paragraphs make it easy for the reader to take a breath and continue reading. Long sentences and paragraphs cause the reader to get lost and often results in a feeling of being overwhelmed.
- Use active and positive language. Instead of saying “get” or “do,” use “visit” or “read.”
- If you want people to buy from you, you have to first capture their attention. Write in an inviting manner and the attention of your visitors will be very welcome.
The Bottom Line
There are many other things you should pay attention to when planning our your website home page, but these seven points cover the basics of writing copy for the web. These are all little things, but they add up to big differences in how easily your website is read by your visitors.
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