My team and I recently finished the design phase of a project with a DC-based membership-driven organization. With this project, our design phase included a style guide, a homepage comp, and several internal page comps. For this post, I’m going to focus on the Homepage and how we ended up where we did.

In today’s digital world, search engines are more powerful and more used than ever before, search terms are more conversational, and new devices provide more opportunities for users to discover content. A lot of the organizations I work with, especially smaller organizations, have experienced the trend of fewer and fewer users starting their digital journey on the homepage. A lot of the organizations that I work with that number is less than 50%. The organization I mentioned above, their number was 5% of users started their journey on the homepage.

The homepage is the homepage, right?

You may be asking, why is this important, all homepages do the same thing? Does it matter where someone starts their digital journey?

In my humble opinion, it does matter. Not all homepages are equal. They are all still important, but it does matter where a user starts their digital journey. By using data we’re able to widdle down the messaging and content on homepages. This means homepages can become more customized, something users are craving and organizations are running towards. Think about it, using data you can understand the type of user who starts their journey on a homepage, the type of user who navigates to the homepage after visiting another pages (or series of pages), or the user who comes back to the homepage at a later point in time after they’ve experienced some other content and potentially create custom homepage experiences for all of them. This doesn’t have to mean different designs, but different messaging, different imagery, different content, the list can go on and on.

When exploring the data about the users who started on the homepage with the organization I mentioned above, we were able to determine that they’re users who are informed about the industry. Users who have at least heard of the organization. Users who can be considered knowledgeable or well informed. With this information our homepage strategy became clear. We spent time (and space) providing a visually appealing design that reinforces the organization’s values. That introduces users to the organization’s structure and highlights opportunities for users and the organization to connect.

The Organizational Elevator Pitch

In a previous post, I talked about the importance of having an elevator pitch for all content. In other words, to be able to quickly summarize the goal of a piece of content. Homepages are that pitch for organizations. By knowing the users who visit the homepage that pitch can become super compelling. By spending time thinking about what the real value is to the user and tailoring the language to speak to them, an instant connection can be made.  To help accomplish this, I often loosely follow a 3-part recipe for homepages:

1. Tell the story of the organization first. This can be done with facts, infographics, videos, text, or any number of elements.
2. Show the value of the organization and digital property. There are lots of ways to decipher this point, but it is different than telling the story, it is more practical.
3. Nudge users towards interactions. It is always surprising how many small organizations do not have a clear CTA on their homepage. Digital users need to be led to water, they may not drink it, but they need to know where it is. CTA’s provide that for users.

No matter if you have a personalized homepage approach or a more standard one, it’s important to use the homepage as a tool to help users learn more about your organization and nudge them towards your digital goals. Homepages need to be more than a place where content is pushed in an attempt to show volume. While it’s not always the first interaction a user has with an organization, it’s an important part of all digital properties. One that can set your organization apart.