What should the homepage say?

The five seconds

Anyone landing on your homepage asks three questions in order, and it takes them a few seconds:

1. What is this?
2. Does it apply to me?
3. What do I do now?

If they get no answer to the first, they go back. If they get answers to all three, they get in touch. Everything else on the page supports those three questions.

The headline: say what you do, not what you stand for

The most common headline on small business sites says nothing. “Quality since 1998.” “Your partner in property.” “We are passionate about craftsmanship.” Those words fit any company at all, which is why they say nothing about yours.

Write what you do and who for. Preferably with the place in it.

• Does not work: Integrated solutions with a focus on quality
• Works: Electrical installation for homeowners in Solna and north Stockholm

The test is simple: if a competitor could paste your headline onto their own site with nothing being wrong, it says too little.

The opening lines: remove the hesitation

Below the headline you have two or three sentences. Spend them on whatever makes someone hesitate.

Usually that is the price, the timing, or whether you even take jobs of that size. Write it out. “Fixed price, a quote the same week, and we take both small and large jobs” does more work than another sentence about your passion.

The button: one of them, and say what happens

Have one clear call to action, not five. Five choices is the same as none.

Say what happens when they press it, not what they should do. “Submit” says nothing. “Get a quote within two days” says what you get and when. The same button can happily reappear further down, because someone who has read to the end should not have to go looking.

The rest of the page, in order

After the three parts above, a working order is roughly this:

• What you offer. Three to five points, not a catalogue.
• Why you. Concrete: response time, fixed price, guarantee, years in the trade. Not adjectives.
• Proof. Photographs of real jobs, customer quotes with names, clients you have had. Only what is true and cleared for use.
• Common questions. The ones customers actually ask on the phone. That is free content, you already have the answers.
• Contact. Phone number and email as text, plus a short form.

Five sections is enough for almost any small business. More is rarely better, only longer.

Three things that sink the page

• A slideshow at the top. Almost nobody waits for the second image, and it pushes down what actually matters.
• Copy written to sound professional. Write the way you talk to a customer on the phone. It is the same person.
• No place name anywhere. Local businesses are found through local searches. If the place is not on the page, it does not exist.

If you need the whole structure rather than just the homepage, see what a business website should contain. If you would rather have someone write the draft for you, we do that without you ordering anything: see how it works.