How to optimize the home page of your website for users and search engines

The home page of your website is the most important page of your site. It’s the page that most people will see. Your home page must convince visitors that your website is interesting and it must enable visitors to find the other pages of your site.

home pageYour home page is not made for keyword optimization

The main purpose of your home page is not to rank for your keywords. The home page of Amazon.com does not have high rankings for the search terms “lcd tv”, “gardening equipment” or “buy books”. That’s what the other pages on Amazon.com are for.

The home page of your website has the following purposes:

  • Welcome the visitor on your website.
  • Guide the visitor to the interesting pages on your site.

If you want to get high rankings for particular keywords, optimize other pages of your website for these keywords. The more pages you optimize, the better. In general, you should optimize one page of your website for one search term.

A web page that is highly relevant to one search term is better than a web page that is somewhat relevant to many search terms. If you optimize many of your web pages for different keywords that are related to the same topic, you’ll show Google and other search engines that your website is relevant to that topic.

Keywords for which your home page will get high rankings

In general, the home page will get high rankings for a limited set of search terms:

  • Your company name.
  • If you offer local services (for example “plumbers”), your home page might rank in local searches.
  • If your company name contains keywords, the site might rank for these keywords if they aren’t too competitive.

In addition to these keywords, the home page of your website can rank for other keywords if they are closely related to the company. In general, it is more likely that other pages of your site will rank better for these keywords. Of course, both the home page of your website and the individual pages of your site need enough backlinks to rank.

home page optimizationHow to optimize your home page

Although you should optimize the individual pages of your website for particular keywords, there are still some things that you can do to optimize the home page of your website:

  • The title of your web page should focus on your company name, your main product and the main benefit that your company provides.
  • Your home page should contain a structured menu that offers access to all important areas of your website.
  • Your home page should communicate the main benefit that you provide with your products and services.
  • Your home page should contain good product images.
  • Your home page should have a clear focus. Do not add too many links. The pages of your website should be available through the navigation menu and/or a search box.
  • Add your contact information to show your website visitors that your website can be trusted.

The basics must be in place

Search engine optimization only leads to results if the basics are in place. That means that your website must be quick and accessible, that there are no technical errors on your pages, etc. You can use the website audit tool in SEOprofiler to check your web pages for errors that can cause ranking problems.

The Top 10 Optimizer will help you to optimize the pages of your website for the keywords that are related to your business. If you haven’t done it yet, try SEOprofiler now:

Try SEOprofiler now risk-free

Tom Cassy

Tom Cassy is the CEO of SEOprofiler. He blogs about search engine optimization and website marketing topics at “http://blog.seoprofiler.com”.