The homepage is the page most argued over and least planned. It ends up carrying everything, because every part of the business wants to be represented, and a page that says everything says nothing.
A homepage is a shop window. Its job is not to contain the shop. It is to make someone want to come in, and to tell them quickly whether the shop is for them.
Here is the order that works, and why.
What has to be visible without scrolling?
Three things: what you do, who for, and one thing to click.
Someone landing on your homepage is deciding one question in about five seconds. Is this relevant to me? Everything above the fold exists to answer it.
That means a headline stating what you actually do, in words a customer would use rather than words your industry uses. “We make your business easy to find and easy to trust” works. “Innovative digital solutions” does not, because it could describe two thousand companies.
Then a line of context, and one clear action. Not five.
What does not belong here: a slideshow, a mission statement, a welcome message. Nobody has ever been converted by the word “Welcome.”
What comes next?
Proof, and earlier than feels comfortable.
Most homepages explain for several sections before showing any evidence. That sequence assumes the reader is willing to take your word for a while, and they are not, because they have no reason to yet.
Client names, real projects, numbers, testimonials with full names. Anything a stranger can verify. Putting this second rather than sixth changes how everything after it is read, because the reader has decided you are real before you start making claims.
How much detail about services?
A summary with a route to the detail. Not the detail itself.
The homepage should say what you offer at a level someone can scan in fifteen seconds, then let those who care click through to a proper page.
This is where most homepages become unmanageable. Every service gets a paragraph, the page grows to six thousand words, and the person who wanted one thing has to wade through nine.
Summaries on the homepage. Depth on service pages. The homepage’s job is routing, not explaining.
What about the section explaining how we work?
Useful, but later than most people place it.
Your process reassures people who are already interested and bores people who are still deciding whether you are relevant. That tells you exactly where it belongs, which is after the proof and the services.
Keep it to four steps. Nobody reads seven. The point is not to document your methodology, it is to show that one exists and that the client will not be left in the dark.
What actually gets ignored?
Five things that appear on most homepages and get almost no attention.
Sliders and carousels. Measured repeatedly, and beyond the first slide almost nobody sees them. You are hiding your content behind an animation.
Mission statements. Written for the business, read by nobody.
Stock photos of people who are not you. Actively harmful, because they read as generic and every visitor has seen the same handshake before.
Long company history. Interesting to you. Move it to the About page where the small number of people who care will find it.
Multiple competing calls to action. Offering four things to do reliably produces fewer of all four than offering one.
Removing these is usually the fastest homepage improvement available, and it costs nothing.
How long should a homepage be?
Longer than a single screen, shorter than a brochure.
The idea that nobody scrolls is outdated. People scroll happily when each section earns the next. What they will not do is scroll through sections that repeat what they have already read.
Six sections is a reliable shape. Hero, proof, services summary, how you work, testimonials, and a closing call to action. That is enough to move someone from never having heard of you to willing to make contact, and short enough that they reach the end.
The test is not length, it is whether each section does something the one above it did not. If two sections make the same point, delete one. You will not miss it, and neither will anyone else.
We plan homepages around what a visitor needs to see before they get in touch, rather than around what the business wants to say. Tell us what you are working on.
