As website owners, we are continuously trying to rework on the existing design, to upgrade it to something more contemporary and user centric. As the online visitors instill their trust on the websites, it is important that the very homepage of the website should be inviting, relevant and meaningful enough to motivate the user to stay and surf freely through its various pages. If statistics are anything to go by, a lot of business websites, especially the small scale ones, lack the basic riveting features that would enthrall the visitors and keep them hooked. Confronted with the conundrum oh improving the website, a little help from the professional companies providing articulate web development services would not be that sordid a deal.
Enthusiastic as we are about developing and redesigning websites, we have enlisted a few poignant features which should be an indispensable part of the homepage of the website. Planning a redesign of your website, it would actually be good to consider the following check points and make certain that all of these features are included in the website. To discover these features, please read ahead.

Does the website include proper contact information?

Contact information is one thing that renders relevancy to a website; it permits the visitors to trust it. A recent survey revealed that as many as over 75% of the websites owned by small businesses did not have an email link on their homepage altogether. An additional 60% percent had quite comfortably chosen to do away with putting up their phone number.
We get it, enlisting the phone number might be an intrusion to working environment or perhaps the privacy as well, but ignoring it is like preparing your own grave. Enlist an email id, and if it is not too much to ask for, mention the office phone number on the homepage itself.

Show them what you do!

Now, one would easily discard this point, thinking perhaps it’s too much of a common knowledge to put relevant images of the products or services on the homepage. However, shockingly enough, a lot of businesses opt for cliched internet images and graphics – something which the online visitors have long grown tired of.
Instead show them what you actually do. Like if you are selling homemade ice-creams or cakes, put the pictures of what you have made so far, instead of just showing happy faces of children and elderly or other picnic photos.

Work out a clear navigation

It is important to have a clear cut and systematic navigation scheme both, for the online visitors and for the search engines. Ensure that design of the website does not cloud over the navigation, and that it is clearly visible and well understood. Also, check the links every now and then to ensure there isn’t any redirect error, and weed out the broken links.

Ask them to sign up with their email

An important component of the website’s homepage is a refreshing little sign up box. You surely don’t want to sound pushy or over the top, and yet you would like them to subscribe to your page. A sign up box, with minimal design, and perhaps with a nice offer – like offering 5% discount on the next purchase to anyone who signs up, would be a nice way to improve the loyalty of the users to your page.

Links to social media

And it still remains a mystery why small businesses would not use the power of social media to uplift their rankings and gain prominence. Got little tidbits to share? – Get a Twitter account right now! Have a lot of cool images? - Please upload them on pintertest. And please, your business should have had a LinkedIN and Facebook page, like yesterday!
Besides, if you just opt for any of the cost effective and swift offshore web development services, you would have all these pages optimized and brought to you to administer, underneath one roof; which is in addition to ensuring all of the other aforementioned features are optimally used for your website, along with other necessary features.
And Endnote
We hope that this write up was helpful in letting you upgrade your website, to provide a more user-centric and customer focused experience. To unravel the world of website design and development and other development services, please do keep commenting your opinions..