Your homepage can end up cluttered and confused if you put too much on it. So this part of the toolkit is all about how to prioritise and edit.
On this page...
At this stage of the process, you might have a very long list of potential elements. This can be especially true if:
- your audience is made up of user groups with very different needs; for example, if you have a very broad product portfolio, or serve both buyers and sellers
- you work in a siloed organisation where different teams have different goals and aren’t aligned on the priorities
- you have an extensive website with lots of different content
In these scenarios, it’s tempting to put lots of elements on your homepage so you can cover everything. But if you take that approach, you can end up with a homepage that’s overwhelming and confusing to users. Landing on a homepage and being met by too many messages, or having to scroll and scroll and scroll to find what you’re looking for, is a poor user experience.
How to narrow down your list
You need to prioritise and edit if you want a focused and effective homepage. To do that, take another look at the list of potential elements you’ve created and narrow it down.
Focus your attention on the elements that meet all or most of the following criteria:
- You have it or could create it
- It reflects a user need
- It reflects a strategic priority
- A stakeholder has asked for it
On the ‘4. Prioritising content elements’ worksheet in the spreadsheet, you’ll see that your answers have been automatically copied over from ‘3. Potential content elements’. There’s conditional formatting to help you spot the content elements that meet the most criteria. Assign each element as high, medium, low, or not a priority in column G. Once you’ve done that, you should have a much clearer picture of which elements should be at the top of your priority list.
If you have more than ten high-priority elements, you might need to work through the task again. Take a second look, and be ruthless in your assessment of what really matters the most.
Element prioritisation examples
A B2B brand that’s focused on driving sign-ups for a single product and retaining existing customers by helping them grow their business might choose these elements (in no particular order):
- Tagline/mission/description
- About us/what we do
- Benefits / features
- Statistics
- Testimonials / quotes
- Clients / partners
- Email sign-up
- Info/help/advice
- Stories/case studies
- Reports/research/publications
A well-known ecommerce platform that’s focused on driving product sales might choose these elements (again, in no particular order):
- Campaign/offer/sale call-to-action
- Campaign/offer/sale call-to-action
- Product portfolio call-to-action
- Product page call-to-action (multiple)
- Product category call-to-action (multiple)
- Email sign-up
- Competition
- Social media
Before you move on...
Complete the ‘4. Prioritising content elements’ worksheet in the Homepage Content Workbook spreadsheet to get an idea of the highest priority elements.