What to put on your homepage (and what to leave off)

Every homepage we build starts the same way: a sheet of paper with one question at the top. What does a stranger need to know in the first ten seconds to decide this business is for them? Everything else on the page is there to support that answer or to move the visitor to the next step.

Most homepages we are asked to fix fail that test. They open with a slogan, a slideshow and a welcome paragraph, and a new visitor still cannot tell what the company sells, where it works or what it costs to get started. Here is how we put one together instead.

The six things every homepage needs

These are the sections we sketch before any design work begins. Not every business needs them in this exact order, but almost every business needs all six.

1. A headline that names what you do

Your headline should say what you do and who it is for, in words a customer would use. "Family dentistry in Northeast Portland, with evening hours" beats "Smiles that last a lifetime." The first one tells a parent searching on their phone that they are in the right place. The second one could belong to any dentist in the country.

A good test: cover your logo and read the headline out loud. If it could sit on a competitor's site without anyone noticing, rewrite it.

2. One primary action

Decide what you want a ready buyer to do, and put that button in the first screen. For a clinic it is "Book an appointment." For a builder it is usually "Get an estimate." For a software team it might be "Start a free trial." Pick one. Two buttons of equal weight make people stop and think, and thinking is where they leave.

You can offer a softer second option, like "See our work," styled as a text link rather than a second big button.

3. Proof, early

Right under the opening section, show that real people have trusted you. This can be a row of client logos, a star rating with the number of reviews, a short quote with a name and a photo, or a single number that matters ("1,200 kitchens remodeled since 2009"). Keep it short. A wall of twenty logos reads as noise; four or five recognizable ones read as proof.

4. What you offer, in plain groups

List your main services or products in three to six groups, each with a one-line description and a link to its own page. Hawthorne Family Dental, a client of ours, went from fourteen service links on the homepage to four groups: checkups and cleanings, fillings and crowns, Invisalign, and emergency visits. Calls about "do you do X?" dropped because people could finally find X.

If you want to go deeper on the pages those links point to, we wrote a separate guide on how to write a services page.

5. How it works

Three or four steps that show a new customer what happens after they reach out. "Call or book online. We confirm within one business day. Your first visit takes 45 minutes." This section removes the fear of the unknown, which is the most common reason people hesitate.

6. A closing call to action

End the page with the same primary action you used at the top, plus one reassuring line: a response time, a guarantee, or what the first step costs. Someone who has scrolled to the bottom is interested. Do not make them scroll back up to act.

What to leave off

Cutting is harder than adding, because every item on a homepage has someone in the business who wanted it there. These are the things we remove most often, with the reasons we give clients.

• Sliders and carousels. Almost nobody waits for slide three. Pick your strongest message and show it alone.
• A "Welcome to our website" paragraph. The visitor already knows they are on your website. Use the space to answer a question.
• Your full company history. One line ("Family-owned in Beaverton since 1998") does the job. The full story belongs on the About page.
• Every service you have ever offered. List the ones that bring in most of your revenue. The rest can live one click deeper.
• Social media feeds. An embedded Instagram feed slows the page down and sends people away from your site the moment they click.
• Stock photos of handshakes. A real photo of your team, your shop or your work beats the most polished stock image. People can tell the difference.

Write it before you design it

The single biggest change you can make is to write the homepage text before anyone opens a design tool. When words come last, they get squeezed into boxes that were drawn for placeholder text, and the result is vague copy that fits the layout instead of the customer.

Our process is simple. We write the headline, the action, the proof, the service groups, the steps and the closing line in a plain document. We read it out loud to someone who does not know the business. If they can tell us what the company does and what to do next, the copy is ready for design.

A quick example

Here is a homepage outline we wrote for Ridgeline Builders, a remodeling company in Tigard, Oregon. It fit on half a page.

1. Headline: Kitchen and bath remodels in the Portland suburbs, with a fixed price before we start.
2. Button: Get a free estimate. Text link: See recent projects.
3. Proof: 4.9 stars from 310 Google reviews, plus one quote from a homeowner in Lake Oswego.
4. Services: Kitchens, bathrooms, basements, additions.
5. How it works: Free visit, written fixed quote within a week, one project manager from start to finish.
6. Closing: Get a free estimate. We reply within one business day.

That is the whole page. It looks simple because the hard thinking happened before the design.

How to check yours this week

You do not need a redesign to improve your homepage. Try this:

1. Show the first screen to a friend for five seconds, then close the laptop. Ask what you do and what they would click.
2. Count the buttons in the first screen. If there are more than two, demote all but one.
3. Find your best proof (a rating, a number, a quote) and move it higher.
4. Delete one section that nobody would miss.

If you would like a second pair of eyes, send us your homepage and we will tell you the three changes we would make first. You can also see how we approached this for other clients in our case studies.