A homepage has one job: let someone decide, in about five seconds, whether you’re the right business for their problem. Almost everything that goes wrong with a homepage is a failure to do that quickly.
The five things the first screen has to say
Before any scrolling, a visitor should be able to answer:
- What do you do? In their words, not yours.
- Who is it for? “Small manufacturers” tells someone more than “our clients”.
- Where are you? Especially for anything local or trade.
- Why you rather than the next tab? One concrete reason, not an adjective.
- What do I do next? One obvious action.
That’s it. If the top of your page answers those, the rest of it is just support.
The six things that waste the first screen
“Welcome to our website.” They know. It’s costing you the most valuable line on the site.
A slideshow. Nobody waits for slide three. Whatever’s on slides two through five is effectively unpublished, and it slows the page down to hide it.
“Committed to excellence in customer service.” True of everyone, claimed by everyone, believed by nobody. Every business that says this could swap it with a competitor’s and neither would notice.
A stock photo of people who don’t work for you. Especially a boardroom of twelve when you’re a team of one. It reads as a small lie, and it makes people wonder what else is exaggerated.
Your whole service list. Twelve things given equal weight is the same as saying nothing. Lead with the one you most want to sell.
A cookie banner covering the whole thing. If you must have one, make it small and honest. Sites that store nothing on your device don’t need one at all, which is worth knowing before you install a widget that adds the problem it then solves.
The bit people skip
Your phone number, visible without scrolling, on a phone. Not behind a menu. Not in a chat bubble. For trades and urgent services this single change does more than a redesign.
How to tell which one yours is
Open your homepage on your phone. Screenshot just what’s visible without scrolling. Show it to somebody who doesn’t know what you do, for five seconds, then take it away.
Ask them what you do and who for. If they can’t say, that’s the whole diagnosis — and it’s usually fixable with words rather than a rebuild.
One honest caveat
Beautiful homepages that say nothing are extremely common, because “make it look modern” is easier to brief than “make it obvious”. The best-performing homepage I have built for anyone was not the prettiest. It just said, immediately and plainly, what the business did and who it was for.
Pretty is worth having. It’s worth having second.