Is your home page doing its job?
When is the last time you really looked through your website pages?
I mean REALLY looked them over, with a critical eye?
It’s all too easy to “set and forget” them, thinking all is well. But is it?
Starting with your home page – you know, your online storefront and the one most indexed by the search engines… do you see it positioning well in the SERPs?
And more importantly, is it capturing web traffic and funneling visitors to your sites’ sales pages?
In short, is your home page doing its job?
Your home page will perform its work much better if isn’t laboring under content that’s all about you. Mission statement? No. Please.
You need to check your corporate ego at the door.
Do you find your home page languishing from too much verbage? Say, laden with wasted words to achieve some mythical ideal wordcount “for Google”? Stop it. Strive for an economy of words, always. If it can be said in 50 words rather than 500, do it. Be ruthless in your editing.
And please tell me this isn’t so – are you trying for an equally mythical keyword density in your content? Knock it off. Matt Cutts even said so – some time ago! It’s time to move past that. Let it go.
A killer home page resonates with your readers with content informed by a well-researched, sculpted customer persona. It will grab your readers’ attention and inspire them to dig deeper into your site.
Next week, we’ll talk a bit about how to optimize that content. But for now..
This week’s SEO content challenge: Make your home page the absolute best that it can be! Then try doing an A/B test to fine tune your revisions.
You may find yourself surprised at what a truly difficult assignment this is. But what a difference it will make for your site’s conversions!
Good luck, and please let me know how it goes – or how I can help!
photo thanks to nikcname
Does your website suffer from sluggish conversions? Let’s whip your SEO content into shape! Contact me today to see how I can help.
Ha! I was just discussing this with @Kimota. I’m a copywriter, and until recently, my own web copy was terrible. I have a vague memory of banging it out in a hurry about 5 years ago. More for SEO than anything else. It wasn’t until I updated my website recently (it’s now AWESOME!!!) that I read my copy and realized how bad it was!
Hey, you’re a great copywriter! I bet what you banged out in a hurry was better than most other sites out there. :)
Still, I totally understand. It’s easy for me to prioritize client work. My own site…well, not so much sometimes.
Great to see you here! Thanks for your note – I’ll have to check out your new and improved site!
Thanks for your comment, Glenn! I can relate to “banging it out in a hurry” as I did the same. It’s an occupational hazard to focus on our clients’ stuff and forget our own. :)
I empathise with Glenn. Sometimes copywriters get so wrapped up in writing copy for other people’s website that they don’t get the time to properly consider their own. I wonder if web designers experience the same irony?