Homepage SEO is Real! Here’s How to Do It

The homepage is the main entry point of your website and is generally the most crucial. It often receives the most backlinks and includes links to all essential pages, greatly impacting your website’s overall ranking. It also drives most of your brand’s traffic. 

Homepage SEO refers to optimizing your homepage for search engines. This means following standard SEO principles and creating effective homepage UX and content optimization strategies to represent your brand. A homepage can rank for your brand keywords and be optimized for your highest priority “bottom-of-the-funnel” keyword cluster if it aligns with your goals.

Here are some simple homepage SEO tips to help you get your site to the top of Google Search!

How to optimize a homepage for search engines

Make your homepage SEO-friendly by optimizing key on-page elements for relevant keywords, providing outstanding user experiences that satisfy search intent, ensuring your homepage gets sufficient backlinks, and managing the technical health of your entire website. 

Let’s start by defining the goals of your homepage and how to pick your target keywords.

Step 1. Define Your Homepage’s Primary Goals

The homepage:

Your homepage can have various goals, so begin by brainstorming and analyzing your competitors’ strategies. Are any of your competitors’ homepages ranking highly? Review homepage SEO best practices in your niche and identify the factors contributing to their success.

Step 2. Pick The Right Keywords

Since the homepage is typically a “bottom-of-the-funnel” page, you won’t be able to get substantial organic traffic just by ranking for a single branded keyword. On the other hand, your website should rank easily for branded keywords, so optimizing your homepage for keywords that contain your brand names is key. 

Besides brand keywords, focus on a small but strategic selection of queries related to your business and incorporate them naturally into your content next to branded search terms. This approach will help crawlers understand the context of your homepage and increase your chances of attracting new visitors who are currently unfamiliar with your brand. Avoid trying to get your homepage to rank for all keyword clusters. Instead, select the most general or lucrative cluster for your business. Research your competitors’ keywords and identify the best keywords for your homepage to target.

How exactly do you pick the right keywords for your homepage’s SEO? Start by brainstorming a list of potential search terms related to your business to use in content. Next, put these keywords into a keyword research tool and shortlist potential search terms based on search volumes and ranking difficulty. SE Ranking’s Keyword Suggestion Tool can help with this task. Enter a keyword or upload a keyword list, choose the location, and get keyword ideas. You can use filters to find the best search queries for your business.

Step 3. Prioritize UX

Since UX is crucial in SEO, you must prioritize it when optimizing your homepage’s design. It requires combining different types of content into a single page to fulfill various user intents. This includes providing easy navigation, company information, a product or service range, and a CTA.

Let’s look closely at the various elements needed on your homepage.

Navigation

The homepage must provide visitors with a clear path to other website pages. Make sure your navigation is simple and well-structured. You can use header and footer menus along with sidebar menus. Still, including a search bar in the header is common.

Hero section

The most eye-catching part of your homepage should feature an attractive, concise headline summarizing what your company does.

Take SE Ranking’s hero section, for example, which describes the company as an “Agency-tailored powerful platform for SEO pros”. This is a catchy, clear headline for identifying SE Ranking’s target audience.

It’s also good practice to add a subheadline to provide additional information. You can even create a clear call-to-action button that invites users to engage with your product while using a support image to grab more attention.

Remember to optimize your section for mobile devices. Designers usually hide images on smaller screens to make this block responsive. Also, always compress your support image and add alt-text.

Product or services overview

Prepare content blocks that will reveal more about your products or services. Explain what features make your offer unique, describe how potential users can benefit from being ongoing clients, and so on. 

Add a carousel or a list of your flagship products or services. For example, on the SE Ranking website, we use a carousel block that features our tools with illustrations and links to internal pages.

Credibility elements and social proof

Add more details about your company to enhance its credibility with site visitors. Describe your team and executives, and show your location and contact information.

Testimonials and reviews build trust, so consider adding a block featuring customer feedback. You can also share your Trustpilot score or embed the Google Reviews widget.

If you have any industry affiliations, quality marks, or certifications, this is the right place to share them. You can also share media quotes and all related publications here.

CTA elements

Add a block inviting your site’s visitors to purchase, subscribe, or leave their contact information. Use direct messages like: “Sign Up”, “Get started”, or “Buy now”.

Step 4. Create Optimized Homepage Content

Start optimizing your homepage content for SEO by creating the correct H1 tag. Make it catchy and insert your primary keyword to boost your rankings. Also, mentioning your brand name several times helps your homepage rank for brand keywords. Your content must be SEO-friendly but still speak to human visitors. It should answer the following questions right off the bat:

• What your website is about. 
• How it can help users. 
• What makes it stand out from the competition. 

This will capture your users’ attention, pique their interest in your offer, and make the homepage more relevant to targeted traffic. Below are some general SEO standards for your homepage to follow:

• Your content must be engaging and informative to reduce the bounce rate and increase conversions. 
• Write comprehensive content that answers key questions about your business: what do you do? What are the benefits of choosing your company, etc?
• Add keywords, but avoid keyword stuffing at all costs. Inserting your primary keywords into major parts of your content is essential for on-page optimization. This includes the H1 tag, title tag, and the first passage.  
• Don’t forget about the LSI. Use related words to help Google understand your topic better.
• Stick to smaller passages and make your content easy to browse.
• Maintain a clear headline hierarchy: H1 followed by H2, H2 followed by one or more H3s, etc.
• Use bullet points, lists, and tables, and use bold text and quotes to draw attention to key messages. 

Various tools can help you create SEO-optimized content. SE Ranking’s On-Page SEO Checker Tool is chief among them. Use it to analyze your homepage and other key pages for on-page SEO factors, including title tags, meta descriptions, header tags, and content. Identify areas for improvement and optimize them to improve your website’s SERP visibility and ranking.

If you need creative content ideas for your homepage, you can also use SE Ranking’s AI Writer. This tool quickly generates catchy headings that you can then integrate in your page.

Step 5. Establish your brand voice

Create content on your homepage in your brand’s unique voice to leave a lasting impression. Brand voice refers to your brand’s distinct personality, meaning its style, attitude, values, and perspectives. A strong brand voice should align with your company’s mission statement and core values. It must be reflected in your website design, communications, and calls to action (CTAs).

You can demonstrate your brand voice on your homepage by including a section about your company’s mission, goals, team, or background. Use your brand voice to build a strong connection with your clients. A diverse and inclusive team speaks for itself and portrays your company as open-minded and cohesive. Also, sharing a story about your founders’ enthusiasm for building the company will resonate with passionate clients.

Step 6. Create a distinct homepage title tag

Crafting a standout meta title is crucial because it’s the first thing individuals see when searching for your website on Google. The meta title should contain your primary target keyword and clearly explain what your webpage is about It should also provide additional context to users and Google about the page’s relevance. 

The meta title is also a major part of driving CTR, so make sure it’s eye-catching and informative. Use attention-grabbing words like “Free,” “Best,” or “Professional,” and incorporate special symbols or numbers. If space is limited and you must choose between the target keyword and the brand name, prioritize the keyword.

Step 7. Write an engaging meta description

Your meta description should provide a general overview of your website or product, and be compelling enough to encourage users to visit your site while incorporating relevant keywords. This is the perfect opportunity to highlight the benefits or features that set you apart from competitors. 

A well-written meta description can improve your homepage CTR, so keep it concise and unique. Add target keywords for Google to highlight should they match the search query.

Step 8. Craft Clear CTAs 

There is a big difference between homepage CTAs (or Calls to Action) and CTAs on other pages of your website. For most businesses, having CTAs on the homepage is usually more critical than having them on the website’s inner pages because they serve as the first impression of your business and get visitors to take action (i.e., make a purchase or sign up for a free trial/consultation).

With other pages, like blog posts, the focus is more on delivering high-quality, helpful, and engaging content. This builds brand awareness and cultivates positive relationships with visitors. 

An SEO myth some time ago claimed that placing CTAs above the fold was bad for SEO. However, John Mueller of Google clarified on Reddit that “Google’s search doesn’t say anything about CTA buttons.” — CTAs do not impact SEO. But effective CTAs encourage more visitors to take ideal actions on your website and convert into users, which is what matters most.

CTAs should be bold, clear, and stand out from the rest of the webpage. To make your CTAs stand out, use contrasting colors and write compelling and interesting copy tailored to your target audience.

Also, don’t be afraid to place CTAs in several locations on your homepage, including above the fold, but don’t overdo it.

The last thing to do is to conduct A/B testing on your CTAs. Experiment with placement, copy, and color to find the variation your target audience loves best.

Step 9. Diversify Your Content Types 

Use images and video content to keep your homepage from being overly text-heavy and to help users better understand your services. Although visual elements are essential for most industries and can improve conversion rates, avoid overusing them and remember to optimize them for search engines.

Image SEO  is an effective way to help search engine crawlers understand your content. Since search engine bots use image file names to understand what your images are about, start by customizing them. Both file names and alt texts should include relevant keywords and be descriptive, allowing Google to better understand your content.

The same principle applies to video titles. Search engine crawlers use these to determine what your content is about. Video titles should also be descriptive and contain keywords whenever possible. While you can be creative with videos, a short video pitch of your services or a product presentation is often the most effective approach. Recording video testimonials is another widespread practice.

Finally, compress your images and videos before uploading them to your website, and enable lazy loading. Large files are a leading cause of slow loading speeds, which can negatively impact user experience and SEO.

Step 10. Prove Your Website’s Trustworthiness

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to include elements that demonstrate customer satisfaction with your products or services. There are several ways to do this:

For example, SE Ranking uses a carousel widget on its homepage to share testimonials.

In addition to social proof, you’ll need to prove your company’s credibility. Provide key information like your contact details and company registration. If your industry requires certification or licensing, include screenshots, pictures, or certificates. Sharing the brains behind the business also builds trust, so introduce users to your company’s owners and team members.

Highlight indicators of your expertise and success. Share your achievements, awards, and proficiency certifications. Include links to your portfolio or product catalogs to give visitors a firsthand visual of your work. 

Provide key metrics, such as the number of clients served, products made, or the size of your database. SE Ranking, for example, shows off its clients’ successes on its homepage, which is a clear indication of the platform’s usefulness and success.

Lastly, include links to your “About Us” page, Terms and Conditions, and privacy policy to meet E-E-A-T standards.

Step 11. Prioritize technical optimization

The technical aspect of your homepage must be properly optimized. Although we have already covered some technical optimization areas, like adding a meta title and description, and compressing images and videos, there are more to take care of. 

Schema Markup

Schema markup is a form of code that describes website data to search engine crawlers to help them understand your content. For example, markups can indicate articles, events, reviews, products, etc. 

Adding Schema Organization markup to your homepage is key because it helps search engines understand who you are and what you do. Here’s Google’s official documentation.

You can write schema manually, but there are plenty of plugins that can help you generate it automatically, especially if you use WordPress to build your websites.  

Optimize for Mobile Devices 

Mobile-friendliness is essential for both SEO and UX. Mobile devices account for 54.67% of all web traffic and Google has set mobile-first indexing as the default for all websites. This means that going mobile-friendly is now a must, as crawlers prioritize mobile web pages in SERP rankings.  

Mobile-first websites provide the greatest experience for mobile users, but that doesn’t mean they’re easy to create. Designers might be limited in creativity due to a lack of screen space, and the site’s visual appeal on desktops might be lackluster. 

Check your site’s mobile friendliness with SE Ranking’s Website Audit Tool. It analyzes technical health, highlights mobile optimization issues, assigns severity, and provides fix tips.

Optimize for Loading Speed

Visitors won’t wait long if the web page takes ages to load. Speed test your website against the 2.5-second standard. If it’s slower, try compressing images, enabling lazy loading, reducing redirects, and using a Content Delivery Network.

You should also pay attention to your Core Web Vitals — a set of metrics that quantify real-world user experience based on page loading performance, interactivity, and visual stability. 

Step 12. Build High-Quality Backlinks

While your homepage attracts more backlinks than any other page, actively building links through digital PR and outreach bumps up its ranking potential.

 Here are some techniques to get started with:

Check our link building guide for more ideas. 

Step 13. Monitor Your Front Page’s Rankings

Once you’ve optimized your page and submitted it for indexing, it’s time to start monitoring your rankings to ensure your optimization efforts are paying off. You can automatically track your site’s positions with SE Ranking’s Rank Tracker Tool. After setting up the Rank Tracker up, it will start collecting ranking data immediately and update you daily about your site’s positions.

Final thoughts

Homepage SEO is important for all website types. Your homepage is more than just a “storefront” or an entry point. An optimized homepage means happier visitors who trust you. It also translates to search engines with a clear path to find and rank your pages. 

No matter how you choose to optimize your homepage, you’ll need to focus on these three reigning factors: