How to Build the Perfect Homepage With Spectra [7 Steps]

The homepage is, for most sites, the most crucial page.

It is often the one that receives the majority of your traffic. But, unfortunately, most homepages are not optimized because of a lack of content or poor copywriting.

But don’t worry, today, Vlad, a web marketing consultant (visit the website), details how to build the perfect homepage with Spectra.

So if you want to increase your traffic and conversions, this article is for you.

Let’s get started.

Step 1: Start With a Powerful Promise

Make sure your headline is crystal clear

The headline is the first thing your visitor sees. In one sentence, you must clearly explain what you are offering.

Here are a few tips for writing a great headline :

• Name your customers – For example: “Teachers: here the best tools to organize your day“
• Talk about your customer’s problem – For example: “Need a super-fast website? You will love our plugin”
• If necessary, use power words: powerful, best, new, amazing, unique, fast, ultimate…
• Use your main keyword in the headline
• Place this headline in an H1 tag
• Be concise: 10 to 15 words

In the following example, Vlad’s tagline is the following:

“Hello, I’m Vlad, a web marketing consultant who wants good things for your business.”

PRO TIP:

Humanize your website with a nice picture of you or your team. This picture will help improve trust.

Spectra blocks to use: Section + Advanced Heading

Use Video if You Can

According to Unbounce, including a video on your landing page can boost your conversion rate by up to 80%.

Video is very effective in showing the benefits of your offer directly. Remember the saying, “Show, don’t tell.”

Here’s an example : Yellow Leaf Hammocks is a brand that sells hammocks made by local artisans in Thailand who earn a stable income.

The homepage makes perfect use of the video to show that the hammock is ideal for relaxing. It’s appealing.

Here are the different types of videos you can display:

• How your product is made
• How your products is used in everyday life
• Video focusing on your brand values

Need inspiration?

You can find many examples of videos for your homepage here.

Step 2: Show Your Social Proof Immediately

The average website conversion rate is 2.35% (Source: Wordstream).

This low rate could be explained by the fact that most visitors on your homepage discover your website for the first time.

It is therefore essential to reassure them from the beginning of their visit.

Remember: trust is the key element to increase your conversions.

Social proof can take different forms:

• Key figures

• Logos of prestigious customers

• Customer reviews

• Recommendations from influencers in your industry

Remember, the best-sellers are your customers.

We all know the example of the restaurant.

A crowded establishment naturally attracts customers while an empty one does not.

On Amazon, customer reviews are a very important buying factor. In fact 79% of consumers are influenced by products with the best ratings and reviews (Source). We are naturally attracted to products with 5 stars.

So make sure you get maximum customer reviews and plan a dedicated page on your site as with the example below:

PRO TIP:

If you choose customer reviews, include photos to make your testimonials even more authentic.

Spectra block to use : Testimony

How can I get social proof if I have no or few customers?

In this situation, we advise you to have people try your product or service even for free to get some reviews.

Step 3: Briefly Describe Your Offer

Remember to break down your offer into distinct blocks.

Make sure your title is clear too. Vlad, for example, has the following title to describe his offer: “Skills: Specialist rather than generalist“

From an SEO point of view, this is the right way to link to your most important pages.

PRO TIP:

Add SVG pictograms to illustrate your offer.

Spectra block to use : Advanced columns and call to action

For an e-commerce site, you can insert a link to the main categories. Make sure you use appealing visuals such as casper.com :

Step 4: Use the Problem/Solution Combo

Here is a copywriting tip: describe your target customer’s problem and follow up with your solution. This advice is very effective at converting a prospect.

Asphalte.com, a french online clothing brand, uses this technique for all the products they offer.

Here is an example with jeans.

The brand briefly describes the general problems with jeans:

And then presents their perfect jean with the different features :

On Vlad’s website, he describes the 3 main problems when choosing a freelancer:

• Trusting someone you don’t know
• Lack of communication
• Deadlines not respected

And details his solution in the form of clear benefits:

• You only pay if you are satisfied
• An accurate availability just for you
• Partner rather than freelancer

Feel free to illustrate with pictograms, it’s more pleasant to read.

Spectra block to use: Advanced columns

Step 5: Describe How Your Offer Works

It is time to explain step by step how your offer works. Be as straightforward as possible.

ManyPixels, an on-demand graphic design service, does an excellent job of explaining how the service works.

When you click on a step, the details display below. Pretty nice!

On Vlad’s website, the service is described in 3 steps :

• Step 1: You fill out a quick form
• Step 2: 30-minute telephone consultation – No commitment
• Step 3: Action plan

PRO TIP:

Insert a powerful CTA such as “Let’s boost your business“

Spectra block to use: Timeline content

Step 6: Introduce Yourself or Your Team

Quickly describe the reason for what you do. It’s essential to show your passion and enthusiasm to make people work with you or use your product/service.

Consider including a link to your “About” page at this point.

If you’re a part of your organization’s narrative, tell people a little about it as a teaser, encouraging them to find out more.

Again, video is great for humanizing your brand and building trust.

Founders Brewing Co. has a great “about us” video.

Step 7: Insert an FAQ

The FAQ is a great way to add content to your homepage and therefore improve your SEO. It’s also an excellent opportunity to answer common user questions before, during and after conversion.

How to Find Your Questions?

You can ask your current customers by sending a Google form by email.

You can use the “People also ask” section of Google to find the most asked questions.

Or Quora:

Or the Amazon question section. Here’s an example for a hammock:

Build a Perfect Navigational Structure

If you have a lot of questions to answer, it is very interesting for your SEO to make a page for each question.

Start by creating a pillar page where you will group all your questions by category. Each question links to a dedicated page where you will answer in detail.

Mint, an app to manage your money uses this strategy :

Check Analytics Regularly

It’s critical to check your analytics solution to ensure that your FAQ is responsive to your consumers’ inquiries.

Also, look at other indicators such as the time spent on the page, the path they are taking after looking at the FAQ page.

With these insights, you can rework your FAQ.

Spectra FAQ Schema

Do you know what’s great about our FAQ schema block? It allows you to easily add questions, and it automatically uses the right structured data. 

PRO TIP:

To improve your SEO, choose the H2 or H3 tag for your questions.

To learn more, please read our article on the FAQ-Schema.

Bonus: SEO for Your Homepage

Your homepage and website as a whole must meet specific technical requirements to rank well in Google.

Here is a checklist to get a good SEO on page :

Write the Best Title Tag and Meta Description You Can

Paying attention to the title and the meta description is crucial, because it’s your one chance to encourage users to visit your website from Google results.

With the implementation of Google Rank Brain, the CTR (click-through rate) is an essential criterion for ranking results.

If many people click on your article, Google considers it a great signal.

The difference in CTR between 2 titles can be significant. Changing a few words can have a real impact.

Look for example at these 2 versions:

• Version 1 :

• Version 2 :

It changes everything, don’t you think? 😊

Here are a few tips to get your title and meta description right:

• Insert your primary keyword in the Title tag and in the meta description
• Describe precisely the content of your page
• Use action verbs: “Discover”, “Enjoy”, “Here is the”…
• Highlight your benefits: “Free delivery”, “Simple payment”…
• Be concise: about 60 characters for your title and 200 characters for your meta description
• Respect if possible the 4 U rule : Unique, Ultra-specific, Useful, Urgent

Image SEO

Here are some tips for the SEO of your images:

• Descriptive file name
• Presence of an alt tag
• Insert appropriate semantics before and after the image

Insert 3 to 5 Internal Links

It’s essential to link your content together. Your homepage is often the most powerful page on your site.

Take advantage of this to send “SEO juice” to the most important pages.

For example, for an eCommerce site, you can highlight popular categories. This what Zappos does, for example:

Get an Excellent Semantic Score

If the days of “keyword stuffing” are over, semantic optimization is still a must. Google understands the content like never before and long content with semantically related keywords is a key factor to rank.

Therefore, you need to write enough content for your homepage.

The good news is that many tools exist to make this task easier.

For example, you can use the Semrush “SEO content template” tool:

Type your keyword and the tool will analyze the first search results of competitors to provide you with many recommendations:

The list of semantically related words is very useful. Do not hesitate to integrate them in your text.

You also have indications about the length of the content you should aim for.

Optimize Your Text With WordPress

If you use WordPress for your website, you can install a SEO plugin to help you with semantic optimization.

You can use Yoast SEO :

Or Rankmath :

Structure Your Hn Tagging

Hn tags are used as “summary” by search engines. In practice, these tags are the titles and subtitles for your content.

For your Hn tagging, insert :

• A single H1 on your homepage
• Several H2 and H3 that follow each other in a logical hierarchy

PRO TIP:

get the Hn structure of your competitors with the Chrome extension SEO META 1 click.

Optimize the Speed of Your Homepage and Site

Loading speed is an increasingly important criterion for both internet users and search engines.

Google has recently deployed its update “Google Page Experience” which takes into account loading time. It is therefore essential to offer a fast website to your users.

Here are some actions you can take:

• Use a lightweight WordPress theme like Astra
• Compress your images
• Use webp or svg format where possible
• Set up a CDN
• Host your site on a fast server

You can also read our article “Experience Faster Gutenberg Pages with Optimized Code”.

The Best WordPress Plugins for Speed

The following plugins have many features to improve the speed of your website.

WP Rocket:

Nitropack:

Conclusion: Now It’s Your Turn

We hope that these tips and examples will help you to build a great homepage!

The structure we’ve seen is clear and compelling, but remember that the key is to know your customers’ needs to propose content that converts.

Also make sure to offer a simple contact solution such as a chatbot. This is very important to generate trust.

Technically, it has never been easier to create a site. As we have seen, you can quickly build your homepage with the free Spectra.

Now tell us, what will you try first?

Integrate more social proof?

Use the problem solution combo?

Insert an FAQ?

Don’t forget to share your opinion in the comments below!