Did you know your homepage is the most important page on your site? It is often your first interaction with potential new clients- which can make or break your business. In today’s culture of “I want it now” and the shortening of attention spans you really only have about five seconds to sell someone on yourself.
That makes not just your homepage important but the hero section the MOST important. That is the section a visitor sees before clicking or scrolling anywhere else on the website.
The Hero Section
The hero section is made up of two sections both with a singular focus: the message. If your website is lacking a clear message then you will most likely lose those potential clients in the first five seconds of their visit.
The two components of the hero section are:
- The Main Headline.
This is where you communicate value or why your product matters. You aren’t selling a product in reality you are selling a feeling. This is where we show them that feeling- the result of using your product.
- The Sub-headline.
This section comprises multiple pieces; but, primarily it is to give support to the main headline. This is where you back up the claim of the “feeling” or result of your services. This can be done many ways from: explaining how they get the value, calling out the ideal client, and use case examples.
The second part of the sub-headline is our call to action. We want to keep this brief and bold to clearly show our clients where to go if they want this value or “feeling”.
Finally, we want to create a mental shortcut for our visitors by using some form of media either image or video. The goal is to show them the final emotional state of your service visually. For example: if you’re a dentist you want to show happy, smiling, people with good teeth- not someone in pain or being worked on in the chair. Remember we are selling a feeling- not the service.
The Problem Section
Now after moving past the hero section and fold of the website we scroll down to the problem section. This is where we want to spend a paragraph or two laying out the Pain Point our client is facing right now. Here we will use the PAS framework.
P- Pain Point
We want to make this section bigger than the rest (larger font, set aside, bold). We are bringing them in with the larger text and funneling them to the solution. With the pain point, we highlight and explain the issues our client is experiencing.
A- Agitate
Now that the larger text has shown them or highlighted their pain point we want to agitate it. We are driving home the need for a solution here. This is a time to call back to our “feeling” from the hero section and contrast how they are feeling by showing an example of not having our service.
S- Solution
Finally, we come to our solution for the pain point. This is our service. We highlight here how they can get that “feeling” by using our service. So in essence the Problem Section feeds the Hero Section loop in even more detail.
TIP: If you are able to embed a video here you can increase conversions by nearly 80%
The Benefits
After the Problem Section and immediately after the solution portion of PAS, we want to double down on the solution by showcasing three main benefits our clients can expect.
Note: this is not showcasing our features. Don’t conflate benefits with features. For example: bluetooth would be a feature while “Staying connected” is a benefit.
Having some kind of visual here is helpful as we make more mental shortcuts from using our product to having that “feeling” the client is searching for.
Testimonials
Most people don’t buy a product or service without social proof. We want to get the best deal with the best report. In this section, we will showcase customer reviews that highlight one of three things: Overcoming an objection, One of our benefits, and The end result.
With the testimonials, if you have them, add pictures of the people giving the reviews. This will humanize the content and allow your customers to connect with the person giving a review. This builds credibility. Now it’s not just a faceless blob of text but a person with a face and a name is recommending your service.
If your potential client is still scrolling at this point there are two small things we can do to 1. Continue building authority on the product and 2. To push them to that choice point.
The first one is adding a small FAQ section. This is to make the argument for your product AIRTIGHT. If they are still on the fence about your product this is the place to proactively handle objections to the service.
Then in conclusion lets add another Call To Action section. They’ve been given the “feeling”, the pain point, the solution, benefits, and have read reviews by happy customers. Now is the time to push them into action. This needs to be incredibly simple and clear. Move them from searching to executing on your solution. This will be mainly done with either a distinctly colored button or a form to fill out.