5 tips for a smart homepage header

Within 5 seconds, visitors know whether or not they see a future in your website. Therefore, a good landing page will increase the length of visitors and persuade them to click through to other pages. In addition, 70% of visitors do not scroll down when the first image does not appeal to them. Want to score well in both areas? Then make sure you have a clever homepage header. What that is, you’ll discover in this blog post.

Smart homepage header: 5 tips

Internet users are impatient; they quickly click away if they do not immediately know whether a Web site answers their question or satisfies their need. Without scrolling, they want to know who they are dealing with and what information they can find on the rest of your site. And because the header is the first thing people see on your homepage, you need to pay extra attention to it.

Tip 1: Show what you do

The visitor should see above the fold at least the logo, an appealing image and an explanation of up to 70 words about your services, products, mission or vision. Exactly what you fill the homepage header with depends on the target audience and your company values. For example, if you have an eatery known for its delicious sandwiches, let this be highlighted. If you work in a real family business, choose a personalized photo introducing the staff. This says much more than the outside of your building.

Tip 2: Use the right dimensions

Provide appropriate graphics for retina screens. This does not compromise the speed of the Web site, but instead displays a larger upload on retina screens. Keep in mind the maximum width of the website and make sure you upload the header image with a minimum width of 1920 pixels. Over 95 percent of Internet users use a screen this size or smaller.

Finally, add a mobile header as well. Many responsive websites simply scale the header image of the desktop version to a smaller size to fit the mobile screen. Then you just don’t see what’s in the picture anymore. Therefore, a good responsive website offers the ability to upload a separate header for mobile users. That way you keep control of what visitors see.

Tip 3: Create a clear navigation

The days when we incorporated all our services and products into the main navigation are really long gone. Don’t fatigue visitors with 1,000 choices; send them to pages where you would like them to end up. For example, promote case studies, your contact page and your services. From these pages you then link to deeper layers in the website. This is how you direct visitors through the website. Furthermore, this has a big advantage for your online guests: namely, they won’t get any choice stress.

Don’t fatigue visitors with 1,000 choices; send them to pages where you would like them to return.

Tip 4: Put a call-to-action at the top

Is there an action that visitors often come to your website for? Or do you want to increase the conversion rate? The homepage header gives you an outside chance to incorporate a call-to-action.

Therefore, incorporate a call-to-action in the header, such as in the form of a button. This way the visitor does not have to scroll and you can direct them to an important page. With an e-commerce site, that is often the shopping cart, but what is relevant to your organization?

Release the button design from the header. Because images are not indexed as well as text and images scale at different screen sizes. It also gives you less work when you want a new image with the same call-to-action or vice versa.

Tip 5: Video in the header – yes or no?

A video in the homepage header is not a good idea in many cases. Your pages quickly become “too busy” that way. This deters visitors rather than encouraging them to read further.

If you are in a very dynamic industry and your target audience is young, you might still choose to put a video in the header. But be sure to keep it short; it should really be a mood shot of a few seconds.

For a complete company video, explaining what you do, the header is not a good place. Rather put such a video among the content. Good places for this are the about us page, contact page or any other landing page where the company video is relevant.

By the way, also post it on YouTube and update the SEO there. Since YouTube is the second largest search engine worldwide after Google, the video is found well this way.

If you choose a video in the header, make sure it is not too long.

The perfect website: more than a good homepage header

As specialists in websites that convert, we see that sometimes big gains can be made with small details. In this series, we previously gave five tips for perfect images on your website and downloading free fonts. That way, you’re already pretty completely up to speed on all the important design issues for your site.