A well-designed hero image can help your company by increasing the USP, reputation, traffic or sales among other benefits.
This one doesn’t wear a swaying cape or mask but is nevertheless a saviour. It is the most significant and pivotal tool in your web design. A hero image is the high definition video or a visually appealing image that is displayed prominently on the top web page. And trust us it is the first thing your customers notice when they visit your website. This for a simple reason. The banner gives a bird’s eye view of the vital information on your website as it complements your brand and is an indicator of what your customers can expect from further navigation. But unfortunately, the direct CTA of a banner design is often overlooked and so is the effect it has on the conversion rate.
In this article we are going to talk about some of the best practices to improve the performance of your hero image or Billboard.
Design
The primary objective should be to attract attention to the rest of the website. Hence you need to bear these pointers in mind when your design your banner.
- Have a visually appealing, striking and authentic banner design;
- Your headline message should resonate with your audience and should convey the purpose clearly;
- Prominent CTA that defines your goals and visitor needs;
- The portrayal of products and services should be highlighted well on the website.
- Avoid using poor quality, non-descriptive and irrelevant images;
- Avoid using stock pictures;
- Avoid poor contrast between the text and the background of the image.
- Avoid placing text on the images. Use the HTML form.
We have 2 cases for you here as examples.
Case- 1
Do you see too much content on the image above?Trying to convey too much simultaneously is confusing and distracting. This is the very first thing visitors notice when they arrive on the landing page and if not optimally presented, it means a hard hit on the conversions.
Case- 2
The image above has just enough copy to clearly communicate the message with a strong call-to-action button.
‘Learn More’ draws more click throughs because CTAs like that are a match with what customers want to do at that stage in the process resulting in increased conversion rate.
Size
The size of the banner depends upon the number of products or services your organisation wants to include in the web design of your homepage. If there are many different products or services, then it is ideal to keep the image size smaller, leaving ample space to display all of them sufficiently.
Presentation – Dynamic or Static
A rotating banner allows many sections of content to be displayed in a single top billed part of the website. Your company can convey varied information, experiment with the banner design and can provide latest updates on the homepage itself. But there is a flipside to the dynamic design. It can be a conversion rate killer.
This is Why.
- Sliders increase the loading time of your website if not achieved ideally in the web design and affect your search engine optimization and user experience.
- Your key message gets jumbled and misplaced. Saying six different things on individual banners disrupts clarity.
- The spot for the hero image/ billboard is one of the most expensive areas on your website and an inefficient page load time can have a detrimental effect on your overall conversion rate.
- The attention span of people is low as they are hard pressed on time to wait for every single slide to load on a business home page.
Test different hero images/billboards using ab testing
Since the banner captures the major portion of your website, it is essential to experiment with various versions of hero images to identify which one is driving your conversion rate objectives. It could be reading a blog or clicking a CTA to interact on your site. By showcasing different versions to your visitors, you can utilize the data to figure out which version of you page converts better.
If a challenger page fails to beat actual page, you can always experiment new hypothesis, with changes in CTA and hero image.
Your takeaway- keep it attractive, keep it simple and keep testing it.
By continuously testing different images you can improve your conversion rates and website experience over time.