What to Put Above & Below the Fold for Maximum Conversions

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Did you know that the layout of your homepage can make or break your website's success? 🧐

 If visitors land on your site and don’t instantly find what they’re looking for, they’ll bounce faster than you can say “conversion rate.” Today, we’re diving into the Homepage Formula—what you need to put above and below the fold to maximize your conversions and keep visitors engaged from the get-go. 

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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:01):
Did you know that the layout of your homepage
can make or break yourwebsite's success?
If visitors land on your siteand don't instantly find what
they're looking for, they'llbounce and leave faster than you
can say, conversion rate.
Today we're diving into thehomepage formula what you need
to put above and below the foldto maximize your conversions and

(00:21):
keep visitors engaged from thebeginning.
Let's get started.
Welcome to the eCommerce MadeEasy podcast.
I'm your host, k Saunders.
When we started this business,all I had was a couch, a laptop
and a nine month old.
My main goal to help others.
Now, with over 20 years in thee-commerce building industry and
even more than that in webdevelopment, I have seen a lot.

(00:41):
I love breaking down the hardtech into easily understandable
bits to help others besuccessful in their online
business.
Whether you're a seasonede-commerce veteran or just
starting out, you've come to theright place, so sit back, relax
and let's dive into the worldof e-commerce together.
Welcome back to the show.
Today, we're talking about oneof the more crucial elements of

(01:02):
your website the homepagespecifically, how to structure
it for maximum conversions.
We're going to be talking aboutone of the more crucial
elements of your website thehomepage specifically how to
structure it for maximumconversions.
We're going to be talking abouthow to make a first strong
impression and strategicallyplace content that guides
visitors towards taking actionand not just leaving your site
really fast.
So, first off, why does yourhomepage matter?
It is often the firstimpression visitors get, so we

(01:24):
want to make sure that it counts.
We want to make sure that it'swarm welcome, inviting and very
clear as to what you do and whoyou serve.
Studies have shown thatvisitors form an opinion about
your website within 50milliseconds.
That's really fast, 50milliseconds.
Think about a time you landedon a web page the first time or

(01:45):
the next time you go to a newweb page.
Consider how long does it takeyou to form that initial opinion
.
I bet you're going to find it'sreally fast like that.
And if your homepage iscluttered or unclear, they're
likely to leave, and you'relikely to leave too when you
visit a website that's clutteredor unclear.
So our goal is to guidevisitors and build trust and

(02:07):
drive them to take the next stepand take action.
So first we need to make surethat we have the above the fold
part of our website dialed inand great.
So what is above the fold.
In case you're not familiar,that is what you see when you
land on the web page, withoutscrolling, whether that's on a
desktop, a laptop, a tablet, aphone.

(02:28):
So that's what they see andwhat your customers see when
they open your web page beforethey do anything else.
So at the top of this web, ofyour web page, what you really
need to have is a clear andcompelling call to action.
It should really immediatelycommunicate your value to the
potential prospect, who youserve, what you do, and it

(02:52):
should be very clear and notclever.
So we want to make sure thatwe're really speaking to the
audience's words and speakingmore towards the benefits of
your services or your productsthan to the features, more
towards the benefits of yourservices or your products than
to the features.
So get in your customer's mindand try to come up with you know
.
What are they, what's theirpain points, what am I solving,

(03:12):
what's my end result?
So talk about your end resultand how you help them.
You want to make sure we areavoiding vague language and then
also clever language.
We want to be very, very clear.
You can also if you feel likeyour headline tends to want to
be a little bit too wordy.
Consider having a sub headlineor brief description underneath
it if you need to furtherexplain.

(03:33):
So maybe your headline is amore brief summary that captures
their attention, but you needto explain a little bit more.
Use that with a subheading or abrief description underneath.
And then we want to have a verystrong call to action and we
want to make sure the call toaction is very clear.
Do you want them to book a call?
Do you want them to download afree guide of yours?

(03:55):
Do you want them to startshopping on your website?
If they're e-commerce, what doyou want them to do?
And whenever you have that callto action, we want to make sure
it's very action oriented, asthe word says, and we want to
make sure that that is veryclear.
So, download your free guide.
That's not what I wouldrecommend, because that's too

(04:16):
vague.
What kind of guide are wegetting?
We don't know what's going tohappen.
Now, when we say book a call,we know we're going to be
booking a call, but maybe wewant to maybe say book an.
That way they know oh well, ifI book a call, I'm getting
information about this person.
So it's a little bit morespecific.
So you might want to say youknow, download a free SEO

(04:37):
checklist.
I might want to say that, likeon my website, for example.
Then you know it's a free SEOchecklist.
Somebody looking to searchengine optimize their website
will be like, oh, that's what Ineed and that's what I want, and
they'll go get it, rather thandownload a free guide Very vague

(04:57):
and it's not very.
You're not compelled to do it.
So we want to make sure we keepit as short as possible but
make sure it's action orientedand we want to also make it a
bit more visually stand out.
So we have our brand colors.
Maybe you have two to fourbrand colors.
Typically people have three.
Well, you want to reserve oneof those brand colors generally
for your call to actions and forthe places you really want to
grab their attention.

(05:18):
Amazon does this really well.
Their orange checkout button is, you know, right there in your,
in your face.
Now it is part of theirbranding.
You know that, but yet itstands out from the rest of the
page because the rest of thepage is like white and gray and
things like that.
So we want to make sure thatour button's standing out.
So if they were to put a graybutton.

(05:38):
Not that most people put a graybutton, but if they were to put
a gray button, you wouldn'tnotice the add to cart as much.
So we want to make sure thatthe button stands out visually
as well, and then towards thetop and above the full content,
it's a really good idea to havea visual element.
We want to use a high qualityimage or video.

(05:58):
I highly recommend, if it's avideo, not to have an autoplay,
please.
That makes some of us motionsick, but we want to make sure
that it supports your message.
And if you're a your own brandsay you're a coach or a course
creator you know a great photoof you may be the best idea here
.
People like to look at people.
It's just our nature.

(06:19):
So when we have a picture of aperson looking us in the eye on
our website, we're more drawn into look at that person and then
look at the items around thatperson on the website.
So having your photo is greatif you're comfortable with that
and if that makes sense for yourbrand.
If it doesn't make sense foryour brand say your traditional

(06:40):
e-commerce and you're sellingproducts then it's fine to have
some sort of.
Maybe it's your main feature ofwhat you sell, or maybe it's a
collage of what you sell.
Obviously, we don't want to betoo busy, but we want to support
our headlines and all the otherelements that are with it.
And, like I said, peopleconnect with faces, so showing
and welcoming you can even havea team photo if you're a team

(07:02):
too, or a short intro video ofyour team as well, if that is
applicable to you.
And then our navigation is alsovery important.
We want to keep it clean andsimple.
We want to limit that top menuitems to about four to six,
maybe seven if possible, and sowe want to make sure that it's

(07:22):
very clean and clear.
We want to make sure the wordsare what people expect.
Don't be using really oddclever versions of the words
that people expect to see up atthe website at the top, because
most people scan a website andthen they'll decide from that
scan whether to actually thenread the words.

(07:44):
So we want to make sure it'svery scannable.
We want to have each of themenu items delineated or spaced
out enough that we can easilyscan each of the words, and we
want to make sure that thecommon terms you're going to
find, like about services, blogcontact or contact us.
Those are the typical words wesee.
At the top Could be shop.

(08:05):
If you have an e-commerce store, or, let's say, if you are a
traditional e-commerce store,you may have your top five
categories at the top as well as.
As well as some othersupporting links for an
e-commerce store, like checkoutand login and things like that.
So we want to make sure theseare important, more like
industry standard use the restof your website to really stand
out, because we want to makesure the navigation is easy and

(08:27):
clear.
We don't want to be clever inthe navigation 99% of the time,
so also make sure we want tolook at how your homepage looks
on desktop, mobile, tablet, ifpossible.
We want to make sure that itlooks great on all of those,
because some of your above thefold content may not show on
mobile.

(08:47):
So you might want to adjustsome of the elements when it's
on mobile so that it's moreeffective for mobile.
So we don't want to be hidingthose really important things.
You designed for the desktopversion, so make sure you're
testing it on mobile as well.
And then, what do we put belowthe fold?
What do we put next on thewebsite.
So once they're intrigued, ourcustomers and visitors will

(09:10):
scroll down more, and so thisarea should build on the value
you have presented above thefold.
So we can include some elementslike social proof, and this is
in no particular order.
It kind of depends upon yourvibe and what you're trying to
come across with on your website.
So as I list these out, youknow that you can rearrange

(09:30):
these as it seems fitting foryour website, but social proof
would be definitely one of them.
Testimonials, reviews or clientlogos could be media mentions,
things along those lines thatproduce a social proof.
People want to know that theycan trust you.
So word from other people is agreat way to get social proof.
As we talk about on the websitea lot, it just is that next

(09:54):
step to building that trustfactor and feeling confident in
this person that's new to you.
It's kind of like a friendreferring you to this potential
person.
So it's kind of like a friendreferral there.
So think of it like that.
And then you also want to putthe features and benefits.
We generally want to talk aboutbenefits first versus features,

(10:15):
so we want to go into detailabout what makes you unique and
what benefits they'll get.
What end result are they goingto get from your products or
your services?
You can use bullet points oricons to help make this part
scannable.
And if you do need to dofeatures, I would you know you
maybe put them a little bitfarther down the page.

(10:36):
We do want to grab them firstwith benefits before we land
them with features, so, butstill want to make sure it's
clear and it really supports thebenefits as well, so they kind
of go hand in hand.
And then any supporting contentthat you think is necessary.
So maybe a brief section aboutyour services or your products,

(10:57):
with links to learn more.
We want to keep it very focusedand very easy to navigate so
you can kind of play with thisarea here, because it kind of
depends upon who you are and whoyou serve as to what kind of
supporting content you mightwant.
And then, as you're going doingthis, as you're building this,
going down through the page, wedon't we want to make sure there
are visual breaks Alternatingbackground colors is a great way

(11:20):
to do it or images.
We want to keep the contentvisually interesting and if you
have a website where it's likeyou have an image and then you
have text beside it and an imageand text.
What you really want to do tohelp the reader scan down the
page is to image on the left,text on the right and then
alternate it, do text on theleft, image on the right, and

(11:44):
you know as you go down the page, if you do all images on one
side and all text on the left,image on the right, and you know
as you go down the page, if youdo all images on one side and
all texts on the other, our eyesaren't drawn naturally to
follow the page and keep goingdown.
We get stuck.
We get stuck at every singleimage, that's, let's say they're
on the left.
We get stuck at every singleimage and we don't tend to scan
to the right to see the wordsthat go with it.

(12:04):
So making sure you'realternating images and text if
you're having some contentthat's like that is a really
good idea to keep them lookingdown through your page and then
you can add some additional callto actions on a page.
This is something I want tomake sure that you're doing,
especially if your page is long.
We want to have several call toactions.
You can reiterate your maincall to action or you can offer

(12:27):
a secondary option.
This kind of kind of depends onthe case by case basis, but you
could start with just the samecall to action, see how it goes
and then maybe add in anotherone at a later point and see,
you know, see what?
Whether you get a lot of clickson it or not.
So you can play with this.
I don't feel like you have toget it perfect the first time.

(12:48):
We want to make sure that weare testing things and letting
things stay up long enough sothat we can get a good feel as
to whether they worked or not,and we don't want to overload or
below the full content too much.
So let's prioritize our mostimportant information on the
homepage and our most importantcall to actions.
We want to make sure it's nottoo cluttered.
So when you're done listeningto this episode, I want to

(13:11):
challenge you to take thehomepage test.
I want you to open up yourwebsite on both your laptop or
desktop and on your mobiledevice, and I want you to look
at it with a new set of eyes.
Is your headline clear?
Do you see the main call toaction immediately?
Is that clear as well?
Does it have action words in it?

(13:32):
Is your most important contenteasy to find?
Are your navigation menu items?
Do they make sense still, or isit outdated ideas that you had,
you know, months or years agothat you need to readjust now
that your business maybe haschanged a little bit?
So I want you to take a goodlook at your homepage after the
episode and really let'sevaluate it and pick, you know,

(13:54):
one to three items that you wantto accomplish in the next one
or two weeks so that you don'tput this too off too much,
because a great homepage canreally make or break your
website and can really increaseyour conversions.
If you have this nailed downproperly, your homepage should
not only just look good, itshould work hard for your

(14:15):
business.
It should be a supportingsalesperson for you.
So take a few minutes and lookat it after this episode, and we
would love it if you would rateor review us on your favorite
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miss out on any new episodesthat we come up with.
And we will see you next week.