What exactly is a hero section of a brochure website?

A hero section of a company website is relatively simple to implement, yet it can have a dramatic effect on whether your website converts shoppers into actual paying customers.

A well implemented hero section can help to massively increase dwell times on a company website.

For those who do not know, a hero section of the website is simply the main picture or the video section that appears above the fold (ATF), often on the company’s homepage.

It often instantly communicates what the business is about, and provides visual cues about the company.

For example, if it’s an autoloading video featuring drone footage of your car showroom, that has over 500 cars shown in the lot, it instantly communicates that you’re a large business to the customer.

 

In this article, we will cover the following:

• What is a hero section of a company website?
• What should a hero section of the website include?
• How to make your hero section eye-catching so you improve the dwell time and lower the bounce rate on your company website
• Why it’s essential to consider how long it takes your website to load

 

First things first, what exactly is a hero section of a company website?

A hero section of the website is simply a large visual graphic, that loads in the top portion of the website known as “above the fold”.

Often, when choosing a content management system (CMS like WordPress), businesses also sometimes upload a low-resolution video of their business.

As we mentioned earlier, for example, you might own a car dealership and want to show the range of cars you sell to the customer.

Therefore, by having drone footage, that automatically plays on the homepage, it can instantly communicate to customer, what the business is selling.

For example, it’s rather dull to read text that says you have, let’s say, 400 cars in stock; however, drone footage playing automatically on the website’s homepage, instantly communicates more about what your business can offer.

The hero section is therefore often placed above the fold (ATF), and web designers worldwide refer to it as the ATF (above-the-fold) section of the company website.

 

What is often incorporated into the hero image / video?

Often, the hero section of your website, where you place your auto-loading video, is the most eye-catching element of your website.

Therefore, you usually want to put some short, snappy text to convince the seller to stay on your website, therefore improving the SEO, by improving the dwell time.

For example, you might want to show, that you have so many cars in stock, or that you specialise in certain car brand such as a nice Lexus.

Incorporated into the main menu will often be the company logo, and the main navigation menu as well will often be incorporated into the hero image.

When you talk to any highly talented web designers / web developers, they will tell you to ensure that the main menu stands out on the homepage.

It can be a common problem that some businesses face: when adding a auto playing video on the homepage section of the website. The video might have a light colour at the top, for example, as it displays part of the sky when a drone is flying over your car lot.

However, if the text describing the main menu buttons is also a light colour, say using white text, it might become invisible on the background of the sky, when certain parts of the video are played in the hero section.

Therefore, it makes it hard, if not extremely difficult, for the customer to pick the right buttons in the drop-down menu, for example when the autoplaying hero section of the video is playing.

These are all the things you need to think about when designing a good website, because it’s all well and good making a company website look impressive with a hero image, or an autoplaying video, but you still have to make it work perfectly every single time and think about the

U.X.

A good web design agency in Cardiff, will think about how they can improve the U.X of the company website.

 

For example, this is just some of the ways you can improve the companies U.X:

– Make the website fast
– Make it simple to use
– Write clear CTA
– Make the website responsive
– Use simple and easy to read font
– Hire top web design agency like W&P

 

Does your web design business recommend using hero images as part of the web design?

We would say that over the last seven years, the vast majority, if not all, of the content management systems (CMS) that we’ve designed using

WordPress, have actually used auto-loading videos or a hero images. Most of our £950.00 WordPress CMS websites can come with a hero image for free.

This is simply a high-impact way to grab the customer’s attention, and reduce the bounce rate while improving dwell times.

 

Do add a persuasive and punchy headline

Good web designers and highly experienced web design agencies know you have literally seconds —or sometimes even milliseconds —to persuade the customer to stay on your website. This is to help improve dwell times.

For example, if the customer instantly takes a dislike to the overall design of the website, it can contribute to the business in Cardiff having a very high “bounce rate”. You can instantly check your businesses bounce rate for each page using “Google Analytics”.

Instead, therefore, you want to persuade the customer to stay on the website for longer, one way of doing this is to use a hero image that also auto loading video.

For example, if the hero image says “free next day delivery on all running trainers” this might be enough to encourage the customer to stay on the website, and browse the items you have for sale.

 

Don’t sacrifice site speed.

The problem with your hero images, and also loading videos is that it can slow the company website down

 

Come to one of the best web designers in Cardiff

Whether you’re a tradesman setting up in Cardiff, and need a new brochure website, or are looking to open a brand-new solicitors practice in the beating heart of Cardiff city centre- we are here to help you.

We specialise in designing websites using the content management system WordPress. Prices start from £950 for a 7-page website.

We can often turn around a brand-new content management system (CMS) in less than three weeks if the customer supplies us with the information we need.

We are one of the most experienced and highly talented web designers in Cardiff, South Wales.