What to Write on Your Homepage

01.What does a headline that brings in clients look like?

The base rule: the headline states the outcome, the subheadline explains how. Most headlines describe the company's activity or, worse, describe it in words that would fit any company in the country.

A few rewrites, from generic to concrete:

• "Complete solutions for your business" becomes "Websites for medical practices that bring in bookings." The service, the client and the outcome, in eight words.
• "Quality and professionalism since 2012" becomes "Custom furniture, measured, built and installed in three weeks." The founding year describes the company; the deadline describes what the client gets.
• "Your trusted partner in logistics" becomes "Courier service for online stores: daily pickup, next-day delivery." "Trusted partner" is a conclusion the client draws on their own, after delivery. The page carries the facts they draw it from.
• "Welcome to our website" becomes "Same-day boiler repairs, anywhere in Cluj." The welcome line confirms only that the website exists.

Under the headline sits the subheadline that explains the mechanism: how exactly you deliver what you promised. Under both, one primary button. Three buttons asking for three different things split the attention three ways, and every way loses.

02.Which phrases should you cut from your homepage?

There is a family of expressions that appear on thousands of websites and carry zero information. The test is always the same: if any competitor could claim the phrase without lying, the visitor has learned nothing about you from it.

• "Complete solutions." Nobody searches for solutions. People search for a website, an accountant, a boiler fixed by tonight. The word covers everything, so it promises nothing. The replacement: the name of the service, said plainly.
• "Quality at competitive prices." The claim cannot be checked before buying, so the eye skips it on reflex. The replacement: a verifiable fact, the delivery deadline, the guarantee in years, what happens if the client is unhappy.
• "A young and dynamic team." The visitor does not buy the team's age. The replacement: what they gain from the way you work, for instance "we answer every message within one working day."
• "Professional services." That is the minimum a client assumes anyway, like a restaurant advertising edible food. The replacement: the evidence itself, delivered projects, named clients, deadlines kept.

The first screen holds twenty or thirty words. Each of them either says something only your company can say, or takes the place of a word that could have.

03.Who is the page about: your company or your client?

The client, and this is the hardest correction in the whole article, because the page gets written by someone inside the company, and from the inside the company feels like the natural subject. This is where pages that open with "our company was founded in 2009" come from, followed by mission, vision and values.

Donald Miller puts the correction plainly in Building a StoryBrand: the client is the hero of the story, the company is the guide. The visitor arrives with a problem and looks for the sign that you have solved it before, for people like them. So the page names their problem first, in their words: "you have a website, but nobody calls," "you have changed accountants three times in two years," "the boiler quits exactly when it gets cold." People who see their own problem in writing stay on the page, because they have just found someone who understands it.

The company's story has a home on the about page. Even there, the version that convinces is written through what the client gains from it.

04.What proof convinces a visitor who has never heard of you?

For someone seeing you for the first time, three kinds of evidence outweigh any adjective.

• Real photos. The workshop, the team, the work, even imperfect. Stock photos of people in suits shaking hands show up on ten other sites the same week, and the eye skips them automatically, along with the section they sit in.
• Small, precise numbers. An invented example, to show the principle: "23 bathrooms renovated last year" convinces more than "hundreds of happy clients," precisely because somebody clearly counted. The hygiene rule: publish only numbers you could defend in a conversation, list in hand.
• The client's words, left as spoken. A testimonial polished until it sounds like an ad convinces like an ad. Ask for the recommendation right after delivery, with three precise questions: what problem did you come with, what changed, what would you tell someone still hesitating. From the answers, publish full sentences, with the person's name and company, with their consent.

One placement detail: proof sits next to the claim it supports. The project count next to the deadline promise, the testimonial about communication next to the section about process. A carousel of praise at the bottom of the page is a warehouse, and few people go down to the warehouse.

05.Why does a three-step plan work?

Some visitors who are already convinced still do not write. What stops them is the question few pages address: "and if I click, what happens then?" The fear of pushy phone calls and unclear obligations is real, even if nobody says it out loud.

Donald Miller works on exactly this step in Marketing Made Simple: people buy when the road to the result looks short and familiar. On the page, that takes the shape of a three-step plan, written in plain sight:

1. Write to us about what you need. A few lines are enough.
2. You receive a proposal. With a price, a deadline and the next steps, within days.
3. We launch. With one person responsible for the project who keeps you posted.

The steps existed anyway; written on the page, they turn a leap into the unknown into a road with stages. Three are enough. Seven steps describe your internal process, and nobody buys your internal process.

06.Which sections earn their place, and in what order?

After the first screen, good sections answer an interested visitor's objections one by one: what problem you solve, with what proof, how working with you goes, what exactly you sell, and what to do now. Each section has one job, and a section that convinces nobody of anything gets cut without regret.

In the services list, order is a sales decision. The first item gets the most attention, so the top spot goes to what you most want to sell, followed by the rest in order of commercial interest. Alphabetical order only shows that nobody decided.

How long does the page end up? Long enough to answer the real objections, how long it takes, roughly what it costs, who you have worked with, what happens after the message, and short enough to stay honest. The homepage receives everyone, from the returning client to the person who arrived from a search, which is why it layers: essentials at the top, depth below. A landing page runs on different rules, with one audience, one goal and, usually, paid traffic; we covered it separately in the anatomy of a landing page that converts.

07.What do you write on the buttons?

A good label finishes the sentence in the visitor's head, which always starts with "I want to...". "I want to request a quote" sounds natural, so a "Request a quote" button works. Nobody thinks "I want to submit": "Submit" describes the mechanics of the form, while the person is thinking about what they get. Kinneret Yifrah puts the rule simply in Microcopy, her book about the small words in interfaces: the button is written from the point of view of the value received, the technical gesture goes without saying.

From there, two small adjustments with a large effect:

• Lower the perceived commitment. "Request a quote" sounds like a conversation, so the bar is low. A reassurance line under the button lowers the remaining hesitation: "We reply within one working day. No strings attached."
• One primary button, repeated. The same ask appears at the top, after the proof, and at the end of the page. "Learn more" as the primary button is the page declining to ask.

08.How do you test the copy before it goes live?

1. The read-aloud test. Read the page to somebody who has no idea what you do. Wherever you stumble, rewrite. A sentence you would never say out loud to a client across a table has no place on the site either.
2. The swap test. Put your closest competitor's name above your headline. If the line still fits, you have described the category, and your own headline is still waiting to be written.
3. The five-second test. Show a stranger the first screen for five seconds and ask for the three answers. The full version of the test, diagnosis included, is in the article linked below.

And one honest note to close the list: if the current page brings steady inquiries, do not rewrite it for fashion's sake. And if the copy passes every test and inquiries still do not come, the cause usually sits elsewhere, in traffic, in the offer or in trust. We wrote up the full diagnosis in why your website does not convert.

09.The GoodGlyph take

Write the three answers on paper first, before touching the site: what you offer, who it is for, what the visitor does next. Then rewrite the headline until it passes the swap test, and cut every phrase a competitor could sign. Design comes after the words, because it has something to stage only once the message exists. If you would rather have someone else write it, we laid out separately how much copywriting services cost, so you know what to expect. And if you want us working on your site's copy, we start with an interview about your clients and only then write, in their language. Send us your current page along with your own three answers written down: it is the shortest start to a collaboration we know.

10.Closing

A good homepage is a short conversation with a stranger in a hurry. You tell them what you offer, who it is for and what to do, you show proof and a three-step road, then you step aside. The rest of the page, like the rest of the site, only supports that conversation.