A homepage has one job, and it is not to describe your company. It is to let a stranger work out, in a few seconds, whether they are in the right place — and to give them somewhere obvious to go next. Almost every homepage problem is a failure of one of those two things, dressed up as a design problem.
Answer the three questions immediately
Someone arriving cold is asking, whether or not they could phrase it: what is this, is it for me, and what do I do now? All three should be answerable without scrolling and without interpretation.
The most common failure is a headline that means something only to people who already know the answer. “Empowering tomorrow’s workflows” describes nothing. “Payroll software for restaurants with under 50 staff” answers all three questions in nine words. Specificity reads as confidence; abstraction reads as evasion.
A useful test: show the top of your homepage to someone unfamiliar with your business for five seconds, then ask them what you sell and who for. Their answer is your homepage’s real content, regardless of what is written there.
One primary action
A homepage offering eight equally weighted things offers nothing. Decide the single action that matters most — start a trial, book a call, browse the catalogue, get a quote — and let it be visually dominant. Everything else can be present without competing.
This is where the fear sets in: what about the people who want something different? They will find it. Navigation exists for them. A dominant primary action does not remove the alternatives, it just stops the page abdicating the choice to the visitor, which is what a wall of equal buttons does.
Design decisions that carry weight
| Decision | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Real photography over stock | Visitors recognise stock imagery instantly, and it reads as having nothing real to show |
| Generous whitespace | Space is what makes the important thing look important |
| A small type scale | Three or four sizes used consistently beats nine used once each |
| Specific evidence | A named customer with a concrete outcome outperforms any number of anonymous testimonials |
| Visible contact details | Absence of a phone number or address is read as something to hide |
| Loading speed | The best-designed homepage nobody waited for has no effect at all |
Write for a stranger, not for yourself
Homepage copy is usually written by people who know the product too well to see it plainly. The symptoms are recognisable: internal vocabulary presented as if universal, features listed without the problem they solve, and a paragraph of company history above anything a customer cares about.
Cut the history. Name the problem in the visitor’s words, then say what you do about it. Nobody has ever bought anything because a company was founded in 2009, but plenty of people leave because they could not tell what was being sold.
Design it on a phone
Most visitors arrive on a phone, and search indexes the mobile version, so the small screen is the real design and the wide one is the variant. In practice that means the headline has to work at a narrow measure, the primary action has to be reachable without hunting, and the elegant multi-column arrangement has to survive being stacked into a single column — because that is what most people will actually see.
Then check whether it works
Opinions about homepages are cheap and abundant. Two things are worth more than all of them: watching a few recordings of real visitors trying to use it, and looking at where people actually click. Both routinely contradict what everyone in the room was certain about, which is the point of doing it.
Frequently asked questions
How long do I have to make an impression?
A few seconds. Long enough for a visitor to decide whether they are in the right place, not long enough for them to read a paragraph to find out.
Should the homepage explain everything we do?
No. It should make one thing clear and give obvious routes to the rest. Completeness on a homepage produces a page nobody finishes.
How many calls to action should a homepage have?
One that dominates. Others can be present, but if several compete equally the page has made no recommendation and the visitor has to do the deciding.
Is a slider or carousel a good idea?
Rarely. They are usually a way of avoiding a decision about what matters most, and later slides are seen by very few people.
Do I need professional photography?
Real images of your actual work, premises or team beat stock photography convincingly, even when the stock is technically better. Recognisable authenticity is the point.
How do I know if my homepage is working?
Watch real visitors use it and look at where they click. Both will tell you things no internal discussion will.
Related reading
See also why the mobile version is the one that ranks and whether to build your own website or have it done for you.
