When someone visits your website for the first time, they will often begin their browsing experience on your homepage.

It should come as no surprise that a well-planned homepage on any website is the key to improving sales, generating leads and turning them into conversions.

The Goal Of Your Homepage

The homepage of any website is the equivalent of the reception area of a building. It’s a welcoming place to go, and it’s from that point that all visitors can get directed to where they need to go.

While that’s true for some websites, others have homepages that leave much room for improvement. For example, confusing menu options, content that doesn’t load properly, and a generally poor design can deter visitors from exploring the rest of a website.

Some website owners wrongly assume that homepages are simply to convert visitors – get them to buy or do something.

The truth is, a website’s homepage should aim to provide visitors with a brief overview of what to expect from the website and clear navigation paths to other areas. The primary goal of the homepage isn’t to get them to ‘buy’, it’s to get them engaged and going deeper into your site.

Take a look at the following points to discover the key areas for attention when improving any homepage to make it more engaging to all visitors:

Mobile-Friendly Design

Did you know that more than 90% of the world’s Internet users go online using a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet? Even if you’re not a fan of Internet statistics, a cursory look at your website’s access logs will reveal that the majority of visitors use mobile devices.

Do you know if your website has a responsive website design? If not, go and open the homepage on your iPhone or Android smartphone. Alternatively, you can run your site through Google’s “Mobile-Friendly Test”.

You can tell if you’ve got a responsive design because everything gets resized correctly, and you can read all text content with ease.

Never assume that the website’s template design you’re using has a responsive website design out of the box. Always conduct thorough testing to check that your homepage – and the rest of your website – is mobile-friendly.

Smooth User Experience

What happens when someone visits your homepage? Does your content show up almost immediately for them, or do they have to wait a long time for images and other assets to load?

Website loading speed is crucial in today’s high-speed Internet world. Your site visitors should not have to wait any longer than five seconds for your homepage to load in its entirety.

It’s a metric that applies whether a website visitor has a fixed-line broadband or fibre-optic connection or even a 3G mobile data connection. There are two things you need to check if you need to improve your homepage’s loading speed.

Firstly, you should ensure you have your website hosted on a reliable and fast server. Secondly, you should use caching technology on your website and ensure all images get optimised for speed without diminishing quality.

This test from Google will help you evaluate your website’s load speed: https://pagespeed.web.dev/

Search Engine Optimisation

SEO (search engine optimisation) is when several techniques are employed to increase a website’s search engine visibility and improve the quality and quantity of visitors.

You might have put a lot of thought into your homepage’s website design and content, but have you applied some SEO techniques to increase relevant traffic from search engines like Google?

There are a couple of basic SEO checks you must carry out on your homepage to be sure:

• Page Title – avoid going over 60 characters in length and ensure it’s relevant to your website and audience;
• Meta Description Tag – stick with a 160-character limit and write a brief synopsis of your site, ensuring you include a relevant keyword.

The page title and meta description get displayed in all search engine results pages, and Google uses the above information. Ensure your homepage gets SEO-optimised and doesn’t detract from the user experience.

If you need help with your search engine rankings (or even how you appear in search), Paul Barrs and his team can put you on the right track, Click Here.

Attractive And Intuitive Design

The phrase “first impressions count” might seem overused, but it’s relevant in today’s modern age. For example, if you were going for a job interview or on a date, you’d dress to impress.

Likewise, when someone visits your homepage for the first time, you want them to feel impressed by it.

Imagine two websites that sold identical products and services. The first site had a sleek, fresh website design, and users found it easy to navigate to other areas of the site.

Meanwhile, the second site looked like it had a cutting-edge website design from 2005 and had complex or strange navigation. Which site would you feel more inclined to buy from or contact the organisation behind it?

It makes sense to give your website design an overhaul if it’s no longer fit for purpose and is a significant reason why you are experiencing low leads and conversions.

Driving Traffic From Social Media

You already know about social media and the steps you must take to create a large following on networks like Facebook and Twitter. The people who follow you are interested in what you’ve got to say or the products and services you sell.

However, you don’t want those people to just stay on social media and get distracted by notifications, messages, and news feeds.

You want those followers to visit your homepage and do something on your website. In your social media posts, give people teasers and invite them to your homepage for further details.

Conversions And ROI

One final point on improving your homepage relates to conversions and ROI (Return On Investment).

The process of drawing people deeper into your website is conversion optimisation. While that’s beyond the scope of this article, it’s a topic you need to consider when improving your homepage for generating leads or making sales.

For example, think about the 80-20 rule and apply it to your homepage. Imagine that 20% of your visitors will look at your e-commerce website’s categories. You could make 80% of your online sales via people navigating through those categories from your homepage.

If you optimise your category titles, making them more relevant to your audience, they’re more likely to buy from you. That’s an example of conversion optimisation.

By investing your time and efforts into improving the relevancy of your homepage to your visitors, you’ll enjoy an excellent ROI.

Conclusion

While it’s important to have great content on your website, it’s absolutely essential to check that you have an optimised homepage.

Making a few strategic changes will optimise the user experience for your visitors and increase the chances of lead generation and conversions.

This article was written by Paul Barrs; who recently moved from the Sunshine Coast to Kingaroy. Paul has over 20 years of website design experience and 18 years working with Google Search, helping hundreds of customers get better results online. He can be contacted via his website PaulBarrs.com

Photo Credit: Campaign_Creators (Source: Pixabay).

Welcome to our June monthly newsletter!

Monthly tax tip:

The Federal Budget revealed a change in the way self-education expenses can be claimed. Previously, the first $250 of the expense was non-deductible, e.g. $1000 paid on course fees would result in a $750 tax deduction. This has now been scrapped, making all self-education expenses tax deductible. But of course we all know that tax law is not black and white and there are still hoops to jump through to make a legitimate claim. The study that you are undertaking must relate to your current employment to the extent that a nurse cannot claim self-education expenses to become a doctor – it really has to relate to only the current taxable income that you have made in the year of claiming.

The expenses that can be claimed include course and tuition fees, internet and computer costs, stationery and office expenses, textbooks and resources, student union fees and travel costs if travel is required for classes, exams, etc. You would also need to be able to show that the study that is being undertaken maintains or improves the specific skills or knowledge you require in your current employment activities or that it results in or is likely to result in, an increase in your income from your current employment activities.

If you are an employer and choose to pay for your employees to undertake study then that can be claimed as a business expense, however fringe benefits tax would apply if the employee wouldn’t usually be able to claim the costs as a deduction if they were to pay for it themselves. If you are unsure about this and what can be provided for your employees or what can be claimed as self-education expenses then please contact our office.

Important Dates!

5 June:

• Lodge 2020 tax return by this date to avoid failure to lodge on time penalties when lodgement due date is 15 May

21 June:

• Lodge and pay May 2021 monthly business/instalment activity statement

30 June:

• Superannuation contributions must be paid by this date to claim a tax deduction for the 2021 financial year
• 2020 tax return must be lodged by this date to continue receiving child care subsidy and family tax benefit payments

Welcome to our May monthly newsletter!

Welcome to our February monthly newsletter!

JobKeeper has been a hot topic for small business employers and sole traders over the last year with many businesses receiving this assistance to enable them to continue to employ and trade as usual. The ATO are currently processing the last round of this payment scheme with March being the last month of the wage subsidy. Although JobKeeper has been extremely helpful and very much needed to many small business owners, the Government will have to cut this financial help eventually with the countries budget being exceeded. Businesses will have to adjust to the end of JobKeeper as well as other previous payments and subsidies being received after the affects of COVID-19 (cash-flow boosts, apprentice subsidies, etc.) and this may become a sore spot for businesses that have limited cash-flow and poor forecasting. Now is the time for small business owners to sit down and look at their financial position, adjust their budget and prepare for a decrease in cash-flow once all final subsidies and payments have been received. If you are unsure where to start with your budget or cash-flow forecast and require advice or assistance to keep your business on track and trading then please contact our office for an appointment (phone appointments are available).

Monthly tax tip:

We mentioned in our January newsletter that the shortcut method for home office expenses (80 cents per hour working from home between 1 March and 31 December 2020) had ended. Since then, the ATO have announced that this method of claiming home office expenses has been extended until 30 June 2021 since COVID-19 cases rose. This means that if you work from home during these dates at any point during your employment (or when carrying on a business) then you can claim this easy method. However, please ensure that you are keeping good records of the hours spent in your home office (e.g. timesheets, work diary entries). The ATO will most likely see a jump in home office expense claims this financial year with many taxpayers working from home. It is highly likely that these claims will become an ATO audit target over the next few years so we do recommend that you speak with your tax adviser to calculate the best claim for you and to ensure that you are claiming this expense correctly.

If you would like to schedule a consultation with us then please jump onto our website where you can see our availabilities and book a time that suits you.

Important Dates!

14 February:

• Make the January monthly business declaration for the JobKeeper Scheme

21 February:

• Lodge and pay January 2021 monthly business/instalment activity statement

28 February:

• Lodge and pay SMSF (self-managed superannuation fund) annual return for new registrants for the 2020 financial year
• Lodge and pay quarter ending 31 December 2020 activity statement
• Lodge and pay annual GST return for the 2020 financial year
• Lodge and pay quarter ending 30 September 2020 superannuation guarantee charge statement if contributions were not paid on time

*Superannuation guarantee charge is not tax-deductible