4 days ago
Converting Better: Simple Ways To Improve Your Startup's Home Page
Daria Gonzalez is Founding Partner @ Wunderdogs, an award-winning branding agency and digital studio for high-growth companies and VC firms.
My agency has completed more than 250 brand and digital transformations in the last eight years, and we've learned that website conversions are a priority for most startups. But startup marketers, who are usually responsible for website performance, often have dozens of tasks on their plates. When navigating shifting priorities, the task of improving conversions may seem insurmountable, especially seeing how most people consider a complete website overhaul to be a necessary step to move the needle. A full redesign can take a long time and require a significant budget.
But what if you could make meaningful improvements without a complete overhaul? We've found over the years that several high‑impact, low‑cost tweaks can significantly improve the way your home page performs.
When building a client website, we like to view the home page as a road map for visitors. Yet many startups still organize navigation based on internal logic rather than user behavior.
Take a step back and look at your current navigation through your users' eyes. Does it reflect how they actually want to move through your site? Users are unlikely to explore further if they don't see the answers they are looking for immediately and need to dig through a lengthy menu to find them.
Create a navigation structure that answers your users' most pressing questions: What problem does your product solve? How does it work? Who is it for? What does it cost? Make these pathways crystal clear, and you'll likely see immediate improvements in engagement.
Page loading time may seem like a technicality, but it's one of the quickest wins for improving conversions. Remember: 40 % of visitors will probably leave if it takes longer than three seconds for your page to load. That's nearly half your potential audience gone before they've even seen what you offer.
Fortunately, several simple fixes can improve your loading time without spending your developers' or designers' limited resources. Start by compressing any images on your home page using free tools like TinyPNG or Compress JPEG. Next, remove any unnecessary plug-ins, widgets or third‑party scripts that might be slowing things down. For WordPress users, caching plug-ins offer significant speed improvements with minimal setup.
These optimizations might seem small, but they add up to deliver a smoother experience that keeps visitors engaged rather than frustrated and abandoning your site.
The hero section of your home page is prime real estate. Knowing this, many websites attempt to cram as much information as possible into that all‑important area, which, perhaps counterintuitively, does it a disservice.
A common mistake is including multiple calls to action targeting different audience segments. For example, you might have a 'Get Started' button for potential users alongside a 'Book a Demo' button for enterprise clients. While this seems logical, we've found that it actually can create decision paralysis and dilute your conversion rate.
Instead of diluting your message, choose one primary audience and one clear action you want them to take. This doesn't mean abandoning other segments; you can create dedicated pathways for them elsewhere on your site. But your hero section should have a singular focus with a compelling, unmistakable call to action.
Every field in your form is a potential reason for users to abandon ship. Those comprehensive multistep forms gathering name, company, title, phone number and more? They are sure ways to kill conversions. For initial engagement, all you really need is an email address. Once you have that connection, you can progressively gather more information over time as the relationship develops.
If you're currently using a form with more than three fields, try this experiment: Create a simpler version that only asks for an email address and A/B test it against your current form.
In the rush to explain everything about your product, it's easy to overwhelm your visitors with dense paragraphs and technical jargon. But the average website user doesn't read; they scan. Research from 2008 found that most people read only about 20% to 28 % of the words on a typical webpage. Therefore, content structuring is critical if you are to keep visitors engaged and on your website for longer.
Break up your content into scannable chunks with clear headings, short paragraphs and strategic use of white space. Let your content breathe. Use bullet points to highlight key features or benefits. Include images or icons that communicate concepts visually. When visitors can quickly grasp your value proposition, they're more likely to take the next step.
The beauty of these improvements is that they don't require extensive design work or development resources. You can implement most of them with minimal technical expertise using your existing website platform.
Start by auditing your current home page with fresh eyes. Identify one or two areas where you can apply these principles, make those changes and track the results. Even modest improvements in conversion rates can dramatically impact your startup's growth trajectory.
Remember that optimization is an ongoing process. By continuously refining your home page with user behavior in mind, you'll create a conversion engine that performs better month after month, without draining your marketing budget.
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