Improve Your Homepage in 8 Steps
Improve Your Homepage in 8 Steps
BY MEGAN MAHAN
Your web site’s homepage is your virtual welcome mat for new prospects and current clients. And as the online insurance shopping trend continues upward, you’ll want to make sure your web site answers your visitor’s questions quickly, is easy to navigate, and can solve the user’s problems.
Marketing Sherpa, a research firm that’s made a name for itself by tracking what works (and what doesn’t) in marketing, compiled eight ways to improve homepage performance, which we’ve adapted for the insurance community:
1. Refocus about 80 percent of your homepage to fit your primary audience.
Obviously, this step requires you to determine your primary audience. Male? Female? Young? Old?
If you’re in a jam and don’t have time to pinpoint your primary audience, just make sure your homepage passes the ‘mom test.’ Passing the mom test means that your homepage is easy to understand and inoffensive. Then allocate some resources to determining your primary demographic of web users.
2. Move useful links to the ‘small fold’ window.
You may have heard the term ‘above the fold’ before. ‘Above the fold’ references the part of the screen web users can see without having to scroll. ‘Above the fold’ is valuable real estate.
But when we have multiple browser windows open, that valuable plot of land becomes drastically smaller. To overcome this problem, put important links, quote applications and account log-in even higher above the traditional fold line.
3. Rewrite navigation links to fit search terms.
By now, your web site should be synced up with an analytics program. Go through your analytics report to see what search terms your visitors are entering. Then try to mimic those keywords in your navigation links. Take a look at the top navigation bar on the InsureMe homepage for agents to see what this looks like.
4. Nix extra columns.
Multiple columns are a staple on old homes, as well as old homepages. However, they only look good on the former. Marketing Sherpa recommends minimizing columns and sticking with two short columns and one long column. Take a look at the InsureMe agent homepage to see what that looks like.
5. Nix external and banner-style ads.
They’re horrifically out of date and unprofessional—get rid of them. As a general rule, web ads should stay off your homepage. Try putting them on your blog or at the end of a quote application to earn a little extra coin.
6. Watch your fonts.
Marketing Sherpa hits the nail on the head:
Body copy that's under 10 points (preferably 12 points) is hard to read and probably wasted.
Consider Web 2.0-style design that's now sweeping the cooler corners of the Web. These sites, such as Mozilla.com, use bigger type both for readability and for personality. They effectively say: ‘This is a clear, easy-to-understand place. Welcome.’
And remember—keep the frilly, fancy fonts contained to your personal email account. Opt instead for clean, classic fonts like Arial and Helvetica.
7. Check your homepage load time.
If your page takes too long to load, your visitors will be onto another insurance site faster than you can say World Wide Web. Stripping animated gifs, banners and flash from your homepage can help increase the load time.
8. Learn where visitors are going from your homepage.
Dig out that analytics report and see what sections of your site new visitors (“unique visits”) are checking out. If you see frequent clicks to the About Us or Help links on your homepage, chances are your homepage text doesn’t do a good job of explaining who you are, what you do and what services you offer.
As the welcome mat to your business, your homepage needs to communicate to visitors who you are and what you do, as well as to make it easy for them to get what they want. Check out the full Marketing Sherpa article to learn more about these eight points, and check out online marketing section of the InsureMe Agent Blog to learn more about beefing up your web site.
This information was provided by InsureMe, the leader in online insurance leads for the insurance industry. Since 1993, InsureMe has helped thousands of insurance agents succeed in the insurance business by providing top quality leads that are both detailed and affordable. For more information on InsureMe leads, visit agent.insureme.com.
