A plumber sent me his homepage draft last spring. Nine hundred words, four testimonials, a photo of his van, and a paragraph about how his company believes in integrity. He asked me what was wrong with it.
Everything, I told him. Then I apologized, because he was paying me.
His page was doing six jobs at once: introduce the company, explain the services, tell the origin story, prove the values, collect leads, and impress his brother-in-law. A page that chases six jobs finishes none of them.
Your homepage has one job. A stranger lands with a question in their head, and the page answers it before their thumb starts to scroll.
Say what you sell in the first screen
Here is the headline he wrote: “Welcome to Greenline Plumbing, your premier provider of comprehensive plumbing services in the greater metro area.”
Here is what we shipped: “We fix drains, pipes, and water heaters in Fort Myers. Most quotes go out within two days.”
Thirty-four words became twenty. The second version names the work, names the town, and answers the question every buyer asks (how long until I hear back?). The first version could belong to any company in any city, which is exactly what a tired buyer assumes.
Your headline carries three obligations: what you sell, where or for whom, and the next step. A line that carries zero of those is decoration. Cut it.
Here is one more, from a bookkeeping service. Before: “Professional bookkeeping solutions tailored to your business needs.” After: “We keep the books for about sixty contractors in Tampa. Monthly close by the 10th, or the month is free.” The second version dares the reader to check a claim, and a claim you can check is worth ten you cannot.
Your subhead earns the scroll
Under the headline, one sentence of proof or detail. A florist I work with runs “Same-day delivery across the east side, 400 weddings and counting.” The number does the work.
Generic lines ask the reader to trust you before you have given them a reason. “Quality service you can trust” belongs painted on a van. Concrete beats complimentary. Numbers beat adjectives. A date beats a promise.
Fit the first screen
On a phone, the first screen holds roughly a headline, a subhead, and one button. That’s the whole budget. When a welcome paragraph eats that space, the visitor scrolls past the actual offer to find it.
Stack the pieces in the order a buyer needs them: what you sell, where or how fast, then the button. Proof can ride along as a short line under the button (“400 weddings and counting”), but it comes after the action, not before it. I sketch the first screen on an index card before writing anything else. Whatever doesn’t fit on the card belongs further down the page.
Put proof next to the doubt
Buyers get suspicious at specific moments: when you claim a price, when you claim speed, when you claim expertise. Put the receipt right there.
His original page buried all four testimonials at the bottom, stacked in matching boxes. We pulled one quote up beside the pricing paragraph (“they fixed the drainage in one afternoon”) and left the other three at the end. Quote requests went up that month. Same testimonials, better placement.
Think of proof as a footnote in an argument. It belongs where the claim is boldest.
Watch the difference on a single claim. Before: “Fast, reliable service.” After: “Emergency calls answered within two hours, 6 to 10 p.m. and weekends included.” The second version is harder to write because it can be wrong, which is exactly why buyers believe it.
Choose one action
His page asked for five things: call, email, fill the form, follow the crew on Instagram, read the articles. Five doors leave a visitor standing in the hallway.
Pick the action that pays you. Put it top right, under the headline, and after the proof. Let the footer hold the polite extras (phone, hours, address) for the buyers who scroll past everything.
“Get a quote” beats “Learn more” every time, because the visitor knows what happens after the click.
And name the button like a person. “Get my quote” or “Book the inspection” tells the visitor what lands in their inbox. “Submit” tells them a form is about to eat their afternoon.
Keep the menu short
His menu had eleven items, including “Our Philosophy.” We shipped four: Services, Work, About, Contact. Every menu item is a small promise about what the visitor will find there. Keep the promises to the four things a buyer actually hunts for.
Save the story for later
His origin story (“founded in 2009 by two brothers and a pickup truck”) was lovely. It sat at position two, right under the welcome. We moved it to its own page and left one line of it near the footer.
Buyers read your story after they decide you can do the work. Give them the work first.
The welcome paragraph went in the bin. Visitors arrive mid-task, phone in one hand, comparing three companies. They want the answer and the next step, in that order.
The red-pen test
Print the page. Mark it up in one pass:
- Does the headline name what you sell?
- Can a stranger say what you do after ten seconds?
- Is there one action, repeated in three places?
- Does every bold claim have proof within a paragraph?
- Did you cut every line that would sit unchanged on a competitor’s page?
Five yeses and the homepage is doing its one job. Anything less and the page is asking a stranger to do the work of figuring you out. That work belongs to you, with a red pen.