Putting blog posts on your affiliate blog's homepage seems like the logical thing to do right?
But what might not be so quite so obvious is... what else to put on there.
Your affiliate blog's homepage is actually one of the best places to push for conversions, and in today's website review video, we're going to give you the exact recipe you need to make that happen.
While we're focusing mainly on affiliate blogs, this recipe will be helpful for any type of blog. If you're just starting out with blogging make sure to read our guide on how to write your first blog post.
More...
Before
Click to enlarge
To highlight the typical blog post homepage, we are looking at Bullseye Hunting and Shooting, an affiliate blog that focuses on hunting and cooking game.
Most blog homepages we see are structured this way. A few blog posts and not much else.
So what else should you be putting on your blog's homepage?
The Ingredients
01
Your Unique Selling Proposition
For tips on how to come up with your USP (Unique Selling Proposition) take a look at this post. Highlight your USP in your homepage's headline.
02
A Call To Action
Usually you'll want to offer your site's 'catch all' opt-in offer here, to appeal to as many visitors as possible.
03
Trust & Authority
This can be in the form of testimonials, logos of companies you've worked with, banners of awards received or anything else that adds to your credibility and authority.
04
A Selection of Blog Posts
You can either add your latest blog post, or a selection of your best posts. If you have a few major categories, show a few posts from each.
05
Recommended Resources and / or an About Section (Optional)
If you have a few affiliate links that are particularly successful for you, add a resources section and link to them, or the posts relating to them, straight from your homepage. You can also add an about section if you feel your homepage needs some extra information or context.
The Recipe
You can mix and match these elements when putting together your recipe. Here's an example of how you could use the 5 elements to create your blog's homepage.
A few elements should be kept in the same position for any blog homepage. We've shown them in red.
Your Homepage
Your Unique Selling Proposition
A Call To Action
Trust & Authority
An About Section
A Call To Action
A Selection of Blog Posts
Trust & Authority
A Call To Action
You should always start your page with your Unique Selling Proposition and a Call to Action, and end your page with a Call to Action too.
The Recipe in Action
Let's take a look at the before and after of the Bulls Eye Hunting and Fishing homepage remake.
Remake
Click to enlarge
Make Your Blog Homepage This Tantalizing
So what are you waiting for? Mix and match the five elements above to create your blog's perfect homepage recipe!
Adding a Homepage to Your Site
This homepage was built from scratch using Thrive Architect. For complete tutorials on how we've built similar pages, take a look at our Landing Page from Scratch series.
If you use a template or build a homepage from scratch, in order to have it show up as the homepage of your website you need to change your WordPress settings. This tutorial shows how you can set a certain page to be the homepage of your website.
Has this homepage recipe been helpful? Or have I just succeeded in giving you a major craving for a big ol' plate of deer steak? Let me know in the comments below.
Nice work – Simple yet very effective!
On average how many hours does it take you to so such a HomePage overhaul ?
Hi David,
It should take an afternoon, so about 4-8 hours from planning to making the finished product with Thrive Content Builder.
Awesome! Quick and easy to follow systematic approach.
I think this series is actually tackling the most important part for me to finally start – increased motivation by a systematic and effective content/product presentation that is easy to adapt and customize in the future and therefore very sustainable.
Thanks Johannes! Our hope is to make the theory as actionable as possible, so I’m glad we’re achieving that 🙂
This is a great setup. How do I edit the blog page though? In WordPress, that page is showing as not editable. Is there a section in Thrive to set this up? Thrive Leads has an opt in form, but it’s not showing up. The same lead group has a banner that is showing up on that blog page.
Hi Carlos, you would not need to edit the blog page. This is simply the home page. And the home page shows a grid of latest (or certain specific) posts from the blog!
Hi Carlos,
I have just the tutorial for you! You need to change the settings to display a separate page as your homepage. Then you can add what ever you want to your homepage, including opt-in forms and specific blog posts.
Another course that might be helpful for you is the Website from Scratch Thrive University course. This will take you through how to change the blog page to a homepage, how to build your homepage and how to set up Thrive Leads for that page.
Hey 🙂 why do you let the menu if the home page have to focus on the conversion ? Thanks
Hi Charles,
While you can tailor your homepage to focus on conversions it is still also the main directory page for the rest of your site. Because of this, it’s also where people will go to get to certain pages on your site, making it important to keep menu items on the page.
We don’t recommend menu items on Landing Pages, because their ONLY purpose is to get you to click that one ‘buy’ or ‘subscribe’ button. Your blog’s homepage however serves many jobs, including a place to direct people to other pages on your site.
I hope that helps clarify 🙂
Fantastic – thank you, very helpful
Glad it was helpful Clint!
Great post Stephanie! Excellent advice on how to improve your homepage and make it more effective.
Thanks Michiel 🙂
Great tips, right on time for the real estate blog Im setting up next week
Good timing!
Hi Stephanie, thank you for the great video with explanation. I followed along one of the homepage from scratch videos from Shane modeling Neil Patels homepage. That’s my current homepage right now. But I now learned that it is missing a couple of elements, like Trust & Authority and a selection of blogposts. So, there is work to do for me!!
By the way: would it be possible to get access to the template you made for this case study?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Harry,
We wont be giving out a template for this one, since it’s based one of our existing customer’s homepages. But feel free to model some of the same elements using TCB. The Neil Patel design is a great one, so you’re off to a good start 😉
Great advise. I always try to follow all that you guys teach in this kind of posts for building unique home pages (although is not that easy for me).
Thank you.
Hi Luis,
Hopefully it gets easier as you get through more of the tutorials. Let us know if there’s anything in particular you’d like to see a tutorial on!
Ps. Have you seen Thrive University yet? It’s filled with courses on how to build pages, set up sites etc.
Thank you, Stephanie. This was great content and very inspirational. Which theme did you use for this overhaul?
Hi Mark,
This was a custom design built with Thrive Content Builder, much like our landing page from scratchpages. Depending on the theme (and if you have Thrive Content Builder) you just need to create a new page, use the default template then ‘Edit in Thrive Content Builder’. You can build the page with the Thrive Content Builder editor from there, then change it to your front page.
Any chance we could either add this TCB page into the Thrive Cloud, or better yet make a walk-through video on how to do it?
BTW: I am a Thrive Themes “evangelist”. You guys just keep getting better and better!
Hi Mark, since the reviews are based off real websites (and we usually send the remade designs to the site owners) we cant share the template. We do have a few new website from scratch videos coming up though, so hopefully that fills the hankering for more page creation videos 😉
Stephanie is famous!
One day Kevin :p I’ve actually done many website review videos before, but Hanne and I are commonly confused!
Stephanie, thank you for this information. I know that this was specifically about a homepage being a blog page, but please indulge me on this question: What if my homepage is not a blog page? What is the criteria for a conversion-rich homepage? (By the way, I do have a blog page, it’s just not my homepage. It is a separate page that is accessible through the main menu.)
Hi Joel,
This is heavily dependent on the context of your business, by this I mean factors like what your business is (membership site, product, consulting etc.), what sort of conversion you’re after (email subscribers, sales etc) and much more.
I’d suggest searching through our Website Review videos for a review on a page that’s similar to your business. Alternatively Shane gives a good overview on a few different types of conversion focused homepages in this video (it’s an announcement about new Thrive Landing Page templates, but he goes through all the reasoning being each element so stick with it).
Hope that helps!
Great video and content
Thanks Richard!
Helpful post with easy to use information, just want to ask for suggestions for new people with no testimonials etc , for any trust and authority
Many thanks
Hi Dave,
We actually have a mini-course that tackles that exact topic! At the bottom of this article there’s a link to for a Free Mini-Course to Master Testimonials. In it is a full lesson how to get testimonials when you’ve got none. I linked to the article instead of the course itself because the article might be useful too, if you have an existing email list.
An excellent video, clearly presented. Much appreciated.
I love the structure of the video and the details in the supporting text.
This is a recipe that I think even I can follow! 🙂
Hi Stephen, Hanne was the clever one that came up with the recipe, so we have her to thank for that! She analyzed all of the top affiliate blogs to figure out the pattern 🙂
I love this. ..easy to do and if you’ve already got a lot of published content it is easy just to shuffle a few things around to go from “blah” to WOW and actually make your site 100× better. You guys are awesome and as always short, sweet, and simple. Keep us informed and successful thank you Hanne.
Hi Howard, You just helped me prove a point 😀 😀 so thank you :p Hanne was actually the brains behind the recipe though, so you’ve got the right idea thanking her!
Dabbles in documentary making? Well, aren’t you a jack of all trades *modestly*? I love it.
I struggle with my homepage and I cannot wait to implement the CTA in my header. I am revving up to start building my email list, so honestly … This post couldn’t have came at a better time.
Hi Shonna, I’d refer to it more as shiny objects syndrome :p Glad to hear the post was helpful!
This is very helpful and much needed. Thank you! It’s confusing just knowing which is the best approach with so many options out there. This gives clarity. Nice work. The remake looks good.
Hi Mary-Anne,
I agree, there’s so much out there it’s almost optimization to the point of decision paralysis!
Always nice to see some info on how to improve your websites 🙂
Its handy to know where you must think of when you want to make the website better.
Thanks 😉
NP Ray 🙂
Awesome post Stephanie!
‘ve been trying to remake my own homepage and was actually using this “blocks” approach. Your post helped me confirm and improve on what I had already done in this direction. Thanks a lot! 🙂
Great strategy Maricarmen. All the best with the site building!
Awesome article.
I ran a very successful blog (25,000 uniques a day) for many years before I realized not only the need to restructure the homepage but the need to have a product focus instead of a content focus.
Makes sense
Oh wow, well it sounds like you’re doing something right Onuora 🙂 but I agree, it’s easy to fall into the trap of focusing on just the content and forgetting what the purpose of the content is.
Hi Stephanie,
Great blueprint. Homepage is one of the major sections specially for brands & affiliate blogs, so putting up all important sections up can certainly give good results.
I have been testing out different things on various blogs and soon I will get the results.
~ Donna
So nice to hear your taking a systematic approach and testing Donna! All the theory in the world can’t compete with real world testing on your own sites. Theory can guide the tests, but ultimately you need to work out what performs on your particular site, so happy to hear you’re already doing that 🙂
Hey this is so helpful I’ve just got access to my WordPress so I can build my first funnel .. if I want to change my blog page can I just hit edit with thrive themes and go for it ? My designer did the WordPress for me so I’m a little hesitant .. but if I don’t hit publish I’m good for a while right? Will the original page stay up on my sight until I hit publish ?
Hi Ally,
You can assign any page you want to be your homepage in WordPress, so you can build the homepage then once you’re finished _then_ you cana assign it as your homepage.
To do this you’d make a new page, build it out to be your homepage (still unpublished) then publish it. Once you publish the page you’ll need to set it as your front page in the WordPress settings in order to have it show up as your homepage. Here’s the tutorial on how to do that step.
I hope that makes sense, let me know if it doesn’t!
Thank you!
Thanks Stephanie – nice work!
PS: It was the seared venison heart that really caught my eye!
Thanks Randy,
We’re actually an office full of vegans so this was an interesting review to do :p
Great INFO!!! Especially the USP and the Call To Action, I love it! This is real Internet Marketing for bloggers and local businesses. I regard most websites on the Internet as visitor cards. Sadly, they all lack conversion elements to boost sales on the Internet. With this information we know how to spice them and turn them into sales engines. Thanks for sharing this valuable information.
Exactly! A lot of people forget the main purpose of the blog and get lost in producing the content.
Awesome Stephanie!
I love the look of the transparent CTA button with the colored boarder. I’ve messed around in TCB, but am only able to make the buttons transparent (no color boarder). What’s the secret?
Hi David,
To get that look I used a content box (style 6) and made the background color transparent. This keeps the border. You can then turn the content box into a CTA button by selecting Event Manager in the content box menu, choosing click as the trigger, and getting it to open up either a Thrive Lightbox or a Thrive Leads Thrivebox as the action.
That’s AWESOME! Thanks Stephanie! : )
Hi Stephanie,
Great stuff on all fronts! I do have a questions. How do you segment the blog posts on the homepage by catagory? Right now I have it set up to show the last 6 posts but would love to segment further.
-Zack
Hi Zack,
You can use a post grid element and set it to display only posts from a certain category. The tutorial on how to do this can be found here.
One last thought on my question, how do you get the gallery to become centered when choosing only two blog posts to show? I figured out how to add the gallery of my popular posts but can’t figure out how to get the posts to be centered instead of left aligned when showing only two posts per category.
Thanks!
Make sure you select Number of Columns = 2 in the Display Setting of the Post Grid options. This will ensure there’s no gaps for missing post. You can then center the whole thing in the options menu that comes up when you click on the post grid, or put the post grid inside a content container and center it that way.
Hope that helps, apologies for the late response!
Awesome! I’ve been looking into making my home page a little more lively- instead of just adding blog posts on there. Great suggestions
Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Yeah it’s hard to know what the else you’re meant to put on there. Or to avoid putting stuff on there just to… have stuff on there 🙂
I loved it.
I’m planning a total remake to my website and it helped me
Good timing then Rafael!
Excellent article and video. I would be interested in your thoughts on a page I made as a possible new home page for my site based somewhat on your recommendations. My site is WordPress based, yet it’s a membership site and the “blog posts” are actually content accessible after membership purchase. I’m not sure it’s ok to share a URL here, but if so, let me know so you can take a quick look.
Thanks!
Hi Norman,
We don’t do direct consultation but if you’re a member you can submit your site for a possible website review like this one. You can do that here. Another post that might be useful for your situation is this one.
Hope that helps!
Thanks! My homepage was almost there, but I’ve gone ahead and tweaked it with these suggestions!
If you’re anything like me Kay, the tweaking never ends :p (at least not with any of my websites!)
Well explained. Since I got no social proof and have not been featured yet, do you have any ideas on how to fill the trust and authority sections during a business startup?
Hi Maxtuerlings,
Take a look at this previous comment, there’s a great course to help you with that.
Thank you so much. Learned a lot and changed my homepage immediately to reflect a better one as you have shown. Thank you again.
Great Sedelia!
Hi there. Great article. Question, do any particular Thrive landing pages templates use these rules? Can you recommend any? Thank you!
Take a look at the two “Hybrid Homepage” templates. Those are in some ways similar to what was shown here.
Good Job Stephanie! I’ll implement this structure in my homepage and make it more effective like your example.
Good to hear Promotor, I hope it makes an impact 🙂
Excellent article. I’ve just stumbled across Thrive Architect on Facebook – I’m very, very interested! All your posts seem to be exactly the advice I’m looking for with building my online business at the moment. Will be checking out your product today.
Hi Marli,
Welcome (maybe) to the Thrive Themes team 🙂 Make sure you check out Thrive University too, there are a lot of great tutorials in there. It’s free too!
Great Job Stephanie! I will implement this structure on my blog homepage and make it more effective like your.
Regards
Stephanie: outstanding. I recognise a fellow accent. We are ready to market, for the first time (after being in business for 30 years!). Your advice here, we can see straight away, is gold. Thanks.
We will be watching all the Thrive University videos. And as an author, I appreciate you having a text version; much easier to refer back to.
Hi Kit,
Exciting times! I wish you the best of luck with it all and glad this information was helpful.
As for the text version, thanks for the input. I am designing the tutorials for new members, and realizing that everyone learns /consumes information in different ways was a huge step forward. Good to know it’s valid in the real world too 🙂
thank you so much for the info, this is the stuff I needed as I am just redesigning my money sites blog. We have a WordPress setup in a subfolder of our main website and have great content waiting to fill it, but the design of the homepage of the blog needed some help. So the elements you reviewed makes sense. Still not sure if sub-folder vs sub-domain will rank better. I am sure we have all heard that whole debate lol. I will update as to how it all goes.
All the best Auggie
Thanks Auggie, glad this was helpful!
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks for sharing the great recipe for blog homepage.
Just need to know how I can fetch the latest post on static landing page in thrive architect specially category wise.
Thanks
Yavan