A website’s homepage is like a front cover of a book. We often judge a book by its cover (despite the saying, yes) and a website’s homepage is not an exception to that. Fortunately, there are many ideas to make your homepage look enticing and inviting. In this article, let’s find out some of the best homepage ideas you could use for your business in South Africa.
Why is a Homepage important?
As mentioned in our opening paragraph, your website’s homepage is like a book’s cover. The neater it looks, the more chances it has to retain your visitors and encourage them to convert.
Of course, when people visit your homepage, you would want them to stay and get something from you, right? Whether it is information, a service, or sets of products? Your homepage plays a very important role in that. It is what will encourage people to interact with your website more and for the better.
Without a properly designed homepage, your website (and your business) represents no soul, no sincerity. People will actually avoid your website if it has no representation and it is a well-research fact at this point. So yes, you must get your homepage right and this is how.
The Five Elements of a Homepage in South Africa
1. Clear and Precise Headline
Writing a headline may seem like a simple task, but a content creator understands how challenging it can be. It’s just five or six words, but you have to choose them very carefully… and it can be a very frustrating task.
A clear and precise headline will outright establish what your business is all about. The moment a visitor lands on your homepage, they will have a clear understanding of it. Be creative or not is your call, but a catchy headline with a spicy creative mixture does help. A note here though: this does not mean you have to force creativity in headlines. This might not be for every website.
For some websites, just a simple, straight to point headline will do good. For some websites, you have to be creative, especially if you are in a creative zone. It’s all about finding your mojo out there when you are trying to come up with a headline but never forget. At its core, it has to be simple and precise.
2. A Stand-Out CTA Button
When someone visits your website, you want them to convert. A homepage is like a funnel that should lead a consumer towards a desired action or result. Now, in order to guide someone towards a desired direction, one has to provide directions first. On a homepage, you can do this with a stand-out Call to Action button. What does that mean?
Make sure the CTA is boldly visible on the homepage. Use colour contrasts and clear fonts to make a CTA button enticing for visitors to click on. Think of it as providing a direction to your visitors (because it is).
3. Do not confuse your Visitors
Your homepage should have clear and precise headings as well as CTAs. When the user lands on your homepage, they must understand precisely where to go. If they are unclear, high chance you won’t have as much conversion rate as you would expect. Your visitors may end up going in the wrong direction or worse, just drop your website altogether.
However, this is an easy mistake to avoid. You just have to go for a precise CTA to not confuse your visitors. And how do you achieve that? By having a clear goal in your mind!
4. Powerful Navigation
Your homepage does not only exist for CTA, it also exists as a navigational hub for your entire website. And yes, you can implement both aspects perfectly on the homepage. Like, take a look at the webpage below:
Bigdrop Homepage Powerful Navigation Example
It has an instantaneous CTA which invites visitors to visit the website’s portfolio and there is a navigation tab as well. See how minimalistic, yet well-done homepage this is? So make sure you do not focus entirely on CTA and focus on developing your website’s navigation via the homepage as well.
5. Information and Reviews
And of course, your homepage is home to information and reviews about your business too. At Digital Lime Green, we decided to add a brief paragraph for every major service we provide for our clients. It saves time and it gives our visitors a brief insight into what we do without loading another page. Besides that, we also have added a few partner logos after the information.
Take a look at our homepage: The best web design in Cape Town | South Africa
This kind of information also represents that your business is sincere in what you do and can be trusted. We would also encourage you to add reviews and testimonials given by your clients.
The Five Homepage Ideas in South Africa that Work!
Let’s dive into the five homepage ideas that work in South Africa. Please note that these are our personal preferences based on our experiences in the past. The possibilities with website designs are endless. We suggest you to use this article as a reference for your own knowledge and note that you do not necessarily have to follow what’s written here.
1. Xneelo
We all know that Xneelo is the best website hosting solution available in South Africa at this moment. Not only their services are excellent, but also their website. Look how minimalistic their design is. When you land on their homepage, their CTA immediately captures your attention as that’s the only bold (and attractive) thing you lay your eyes on. This minimalistic design with a bi-colour theme prompts users to click on their CTA, and hence it does help their conversion rate.
Also, do notice how minimalistic yet ‘straight to the point’ their navigational menu is.
2. Afrihost
Afrihost is not a minimalistic design and they certainly do contain a lot of CTA options through their shuffling banner. But it is done in a very sophisticated manner that it does not feel invasive to your eyes. Rather, it feels pleasant, professional, and enticing.
As we have mentioned before, you can most certainly have multiple CTAs on your homepage. No harm in it. And Afrihost is a great example that represents how it is done. Afrihost is an old, trustworthy internet provider and website host solution in South Africa. Their titles and text are brief, and straight to the point, and their CTA has clear instructions on where it would lead you.
3. Digital Lime Green
A Digital Lime Green article not talking about Digital Lime Green? That’s impossible! Our homepage is a simple one, really. We want our visitors to be mainly interested and avail of our services. So, our CTA always leads to services. Our headline makes it clear that we are a web design and digital marketing agency in Cape Town, South Africa. Straight to the point, honest, and as simple as that.
Besides that, we also have added a brief highlight of each service we offer to our clients so all you have to do is scroll down to read rather than navigate and load new web pages. This makes it easy for our customers to get an idea about our services directly at our homepage.
We did not go for a flashy homepage or enticing taglines. Rather, we are straight with our visitors with our cards open on the table and it works for us well!
4. ECCRF
ECCRF or Easter Cape Community Radio Forum is a community radio channel. Community radios still go strong especially within the black community of South Africa, making them a valuable advertising platform for companies. ECCRF is well aware of this and hence, as you can observe, their CTA directly prompts visitors to book an advertisement with them.
A great selection of cheerful colours, minimal text, straight to the point CTA makes it a great homepage in our eyes. As you scroll down, you can see what kind of activities they are into as well.
5. Minato Sushi
Minato Sushi is a Japanese restaurant that’s popular for selling affordable, high-quality sushi in Cape Town. As sushi is considered exotic in South Africa, the restaurant also has to give off that vibe. And the homepage definitely gives an exotic vibe. The bilingual CTA highlighted with a contrasting colour is also a great addition to it. But what we like is the animated banner here that shows a variety of sushi on the camera, adding to the vibe of the exotic ambience of the website.
Conclusion
Digitisation is improving in South Africa in 2022 and many businesses have been going online. It’s a competition out there and if you do want to stand out, your homepage is going to play an important role in it. So, make sure you get your homepage (and your entire website) right. Make use of these five homepage ideas that actually work in South Africa. They will definitely help you boost your traffic and get a better conversion rate as well.
If you require professional assistance, Digital Lime Green is here for you. We are a website design and digital marketing agency catering our services mainly to SMEs in South Africa. We provide high-quality, well functional and secure websites for your business. Contact us today for more information.