What To Put On Your Homepage

Someone lands on your homepage. They have not heard of you, they have somewhere else to be, and they are deciding in about five seconds whether to keep reading.

Almost every homepage fails in those five seconds, and it fails the same way.

The three things above the fold

What you do, in plain words. Not your positioning statement. What you actually do. "We build websites for trades businesses" beats anything with the word "solutions" in it.

Who it is for. The more specific, the better. A visitor who recognises themselves stays. A visitor who cannot tell whether you work with businesses like theirs leaves.

What to do next. One clear action. Not four.

If a stranger cannot answer all three from the top of your homepage, nothing else on the page matters.

The slogan problem

Most homepages lead with something that sounds good and says nothing.

"Elevating brands through innovation." "Where strategy meets execution." "Your partner in growth."

Read one of those as a stranger. You cannot tell what the company sells, who it sells to, or whether it can help you.

Say the boring thing. The boring thing gets chosen, for the same reason plain service names get chosen.

What goes below

Proof, early. Reviews, logos, results, work. Whatever you actually have. People decide with evidence, and they want it before they read your process.

The problem you solve, in their words. Not your words. Use the sentences customers actually say on the phone. If people ring you saying "our site gets no enquiries", write that.

What it is like to work with you. Three or four steps, plainly. Buyers are not only choosing a service, they are trying to work out what they are signing up for.

Real photos. Your work, your team, your premises. Stock photography of people in a glass office shaking hands is worse than no image, because it signals that nothing here is real.

The action again. Repeat the call to action down the page. Someone convinced in the third section should not have to scroll back up.

What to take off

The long company history. Nobody arriving for the first time cares when you were founded.

The mission statement. Every business says the same thing.

Four different calls to action competing with each other. Pick the one you actually want.

Anything that talks about the industry rather than about the visitor's problem.

A slider with five rotating messages. Visitors read the first one and scroll. The other four do nothing except slow the page down.

The test

Show your homepage to someone outside the business for five seconds. Close the laptop.

Ask them what you do, who for, and what they would click.

If they cannot answer all three, the page is not finished. This is the same test that decides whether your website is converting, and it costs nothing to run.

The part most people get wrong

The homepage is not where you say everything. It is where you say enough that the right person keeps going.

Every extra paragraph is a chance for someone to stop reading. The best homepages are shorter than their owners are comfortable with.