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Writing for the web: Home pages

27th May 2015
Brought to you by
Practiceweb logo

PracticeWeb has been a leading digital marketing agency in the accounting sector since 1999. We’re proud to be a part of the AccountingWEB and Accounting Excellence family, helping to support, celebrate and nurture the UK’s ambitious and diverse accountants.  

We put the accountant and their customers in the centre of everything we do.

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Have you found this content useful? Use the button above to save it to your profile.

First Impressions Count

A good homepage is the internet equivalent of strolling into a bakery and immediately being greeted by the amazing aroma of baking bread, rows of cakes, pastries and pies; and a smiling cashier ready to take your order. You know exactly what is being offered, whether it is right for you and how to go about getting it almost straight away. 
 
Your homepage should function in the same way, marrying design, navigation and content in a way that tells people who you are, what you do - encouraging them to engage with you further. So what are the key points to remember when writing homepage text?
 

Keep it short 

You are going to need to make your introductions quickly. Potential customers won’t wade through a dense swamp of text to try and find out whether you offer the services they are looking for. 
 
So, keep it brief. Aside from your headline, you should be aiming for under 100 words of text. This equates to about 4-5 sentences maximum. The more detailed content can be placed on individual product or resources pages.
 

The 4 key components of homepage text 

Apart from making sure you keep the waffle to a minimum, effective homepage content encompasses the following: 
 
Headline
 
The headline of your page should give people an immediate taste of what you are offering. If you are running a company that primarily deals with business accounting, then the following headline is too vague: 
 
“Accounting services that put you in control.”
 
Instead, something like this would be more appropriate: 
 
“Business accounting for companies of all sizes.” 
 
Value proposition
 
This is the heart of your homepage, the point where you inform your visitor why they should stay and choose you, instead of bouncing onto one of your competitors.  The value proposition can be broken down to the following equation: 
 
Your product + product benefits = value to your customer 
 
So in a nutshell: what you do, why it’s good and how it will help your customer achieve what they want to achieve.
 
Audience engagement 
 
You should have a pretty good idea of who your customers are. You need to make sure you engage these people.  Here, the choice of words is important. If you want to be perceived as a serious business, you will probably want to avoid hyperbolic terms like “awesome” and “incredible.” 
 
Overly technical language can also be disregarded at this point. If necessary, it can be used elsewhere on your site.
 
Call to action
 
The final piece of the puzzle is actually trying to get the visitor to engage with your business. If you would like them to sign up for a free meeting, this should be be prominently displayed with a message like:  
 
“Register today to arrange your free meeting.”
 

Get help with your homepage 

A good homepage will tell people who you are and how you can help them. Talk to one of PracticeWEB's editorial team today to talk about making your words work for you.
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