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How shifting your focus from website traffic to conversions on home page can make you grow big time?
The prime focus of businesses is to derive sales out of every branding and marketing activity. With surging online traffic, websites are an essential marketing tool for any brand which creates an online presence and leverage business growth. Although, the website is mostly a package containing many pages, conversions on home page mark the beginning of the user journey.
One of the most important things while designing a home page is to define its purpose. It is not necessary that the home page should have all the information about a brand. Having too much information may result in information overload and make it difficult for the visitors to absorb. But the home page must definitely have all the relevant information that creates enough interest in the users to discover more about the brand

The phenomena of ‘Halo Effect’ in branding

‘Halo effect’ is a phenomenon based on physical attractiveness stereotype. It applies to brands very much the same way it applies to the physical appearances of human beings.
Halo effect is a type of cognitive bias in which our overall impression of a person influences how we feel and think about his or her character. The overall impression of a person impacts the evaluations of that person’s specific traits,
Just like for an individual, the halo effect for a brand can be created when,
1. The target audience is properly defined
2. And a right impression of the brand is created.
Let’s take the example of Gusto, a modern HR management app to see how it is creating the desired impression of its brand through its website. It has great engaging and marketing-led content that encourages conversions on home page.
Taking reference of Gusto let’s study some of the most important components of designing a home page that converts well.
The components are broadly classified into three categories i.e., strategic communication, user interface design and user experience design

Strategic Communication

Strategic brand communication is done with the objective of delivering consistent and meaningful messages to the audience. It creates a purposeful conversation between the brand and its audience. It all starts with:

Mapping out the buyers’ persona

The first step in strategic communication to create a home page that converts is mapping out the buyers’ persona. This allows the buyers to resonate well with your brand before making a purchase. Learning about the psychographic and demographics characteristics of the buyers is necessary to come up with effective brand communication. It provides a better understanding of the buyers’ pain points, their behaviour and needs. This helps in building a communication that tends to understand them by addressing their problems resulting in increased conversions on home page itself.

Crafting your brand’s value proposition

The next step after understanding your buyer is coming up with a value proposition for your brand. Value proposition is the value for money that the customer would get after purchasing your product or service. The value is not only about the benefit or the physical attributes of the product or service, but it can also be an emotional satisfaction that is gained through its use. Defining the value proposition provides a clear direction while designing the brand communication.

Positioning your brand to appeal the right target group

After defining the value proposition, the next important step is brand positioning which plays a vital role in selling your product or service to the targeted consumers. It can take just 200 milliseconds to win or lose a potential customer. Your website might be great in terms of design, but if the communication is not targeted at the right audience, then the effort seems to be a waste. Brand positioning aims to occupy a distinct position, relative to competing brands in the mind of the target audience. It is a strategic move that involves fetching out the most appropriate value or benefit to establish your product in the market in a way that it creates interest amongst the audience.

Creative Communication

The creative communication for a brand is done with the aim of evoking the audiences’ interest and creating better engagement with the brand. It is reflected through the visual and verbal elements of the brand. It starts with deciding what you want to communicate about the brand.

Defining the core messaging of your brand for the specific target group

The core messaging in marketing reflects the vision and mission of your brand and how the brand aims to resolve the customers’ pain points. It defines the purpose and what is the brand aiming to fulfil through the usage of its products or services. The core message is given a creative treatment in the form of a tagline and copy to make it engaging for the visitors. A lot of times, the creative copy is written with the objective of forming an emotional connect with the audience by trying to relate through the events experienced by the audience in their lives.

Making a good first impression by setting up your brand’s personality and identity

The first impression of your brand in front of your target group decides whether they would be keen to explore more, make a purchase and visit your website again. This is achieved only when the brand reflects a personality that aligns with the behaviour and attitude of its target group. The audience can only connect well with the brand if it is able to reflect their aspirations and taste. The brand personality is created through the brand identity which includes not just the visual language but the verbal tone as well. The visual language includes the logo, fonts, colours, iconography, photographic approach etc. On the other hand, the verbal tone is all about setting the tone of voice that reflects the attitude of the brand. These elements bring out the human-like persona for a brand that resonates well with the audience and increases conversions on home page.

User Experience

Apart from communication, the functional components involved in the website also play an important role in the visitors’ journey through your website. Obstacles and misleading events while using a website often degrade the experience of the users. To gain control over the actions and experience of the visitors, it is necessary to keep the following components in mind to make the users’ journey smooth and hassle-free.

Creating a flow to direct the reader’s eye movement

Studying the pattern of how the visitors behave on the website can provide critical insights while designing a stellar home page. This helps in