Your homepage gets judged faster than any job interview you’ve ever sat. A visitor lands, glances, and decides in a few seconds whether you look like the answer to their problem or another tab to close. They’re not reading. They’re scanning for signals.
The good news is the signals they scan for are remarkably predictable. A homepage is a sorting page: its job is to tell the right visitor they’re in the right place, and show them where to go next. It’s not a brochure, not an autobiography, and not a place for a rotating banner of stock photos. Here are the nine things it needs, in roughly the order eyes travel.
The 9 things, top to bottom
1. A headline that says what, and where
The first line of text must answer “what do you do?” in plain words, with your area if you’re local. “Electrician covering Wilmslow and South Manchester” works. “Powering your tomorrow” does not. If your headline could sit on any company’s website, it’s not a headline, it’s wallpaper.
2. A visible phone number or contact button
Top right corner, every page, tappable on a phone. Some visitors arrive ready to enquire; make them hunt and a slice of them won’t. Give both routes where you can: a number for the callers, a Get a quote button for the form-fillers.
3. Proof, early
Reviews, star ratings, accreditation logos, “serving Cheshire since 2011”. Trust evidence belongs in the top half of the page, not buried at the bottom. One genuine Google review quoted near the top does more work than three paragraphs about your passion for excellence.
4. Your main services, scannable
Three to six named services with a line each and a link through to the relevant page. Not your full price list, not every job you’ve ever done. This is signposting: the drain-unblocking customer and the bathroom-refit customer should each spot their route within seconds.
5. A price signal
You don’t have to publish a full menu, but silence about money reads as “expensive”. Even “websites from £99 a month” or “fixed quotes, no call-out fee” answers the question every visitor is silently asking. Businesses that are open about pricing filter out the wrong enquiries and attract the right ones.
6. Photos of real work
Your van, your team, your finished jobs. Real photos beat stock every time, even when the lighting’s ordinary, because visitors can smell stock photography a mile off. One before-and-after pair says more than any paragraph.
7. A short “why us”
Two or three concrete reasons to pick you: guarantees, response times, qualifications, years trading. Concrete, provable things. “Friendly, professional service” is what everyone says; “all work guaranteed for 12 months” is a reason.
8. Simple navigation
Five to seven menu items, named plainly. Services, About, Reviews, Contact. Nobody has ever clicked “Synergies”. If your menu needs two rows, your homepage is trying to do too much.
9. One obvious next step
Every homepage needs a single primary action repeated down the page: get a quote, book a call, start now. One button style, one colour, one verb. When everything on the page shouts, nothing gets clicked.
The 5-second test (run it today)
Show your homepage to someone who’s never seen it, on a phone, for five seconds. Take it away. Ask three questions: What does this business do? Where do they cover? What would you tap to get in touch?
Wrong answers to any of the three tell you exactly which of the nine elements is missing or buried. It’s the cheapest piece of website research that exists, and we’ve yet to see a homepage that couldn’t be improved by it.
A worked example, in words
Picture a homepage for a Wilmslow dog groomer, top to bottom. Header: logo left, phone number right. Headline: “Dog grooming in Wilmslow, gentle handling, easy online booking”, with a Book now button. A strip of five stars and a line from a real review. Three service blocks: full groom, puppy introduction, nail trims, each with a from-price. Four photos of actual dogs, mid-groom, looking reasonably dignified. Two lines on the groomer and her qualifications. A final Book now. That’s the whole anatomy in action, and there isn’t a wasted section in it.
What to cut
Half of good homepage design is deletion. Lose the auto-playing slider (nobody waits for slide two). Lose the paragraph about your journey. Lose the generic stock handshake. Lose the wall of text; if the words matter, they deserve their own page, written properly, and we’ve got a formula for website copy that sells when you get there.
Remember the homepage can’t do everything alone. It sorts visitors; your service pages convince them. That’s why a homepage plus even a handful of well-aimed pages beats one page trying to carry the lot, something we cover across our small business website design guide.
And if your homepage already has decent bones but the enquiries still aren’t coming, the leak may be elsewhere: forms, mobile experience, speed. Work through our guide to finding the leak in your website.
If you’d rather it were just done
This checklist is exactly the layout thinking behind our web design service. Every MarketingDone4U website is built around the nine elements above, with the copy written for you, from £99 a month as a managed monthly service (minimum 12-month term, hosting and professional email included; MarketingDone4U owns the site unless you buy it out, and a buyout is available). One less thing on your list.
Frequently asked questions
What should a website homepage include?
Nine essentials: a plain-English headline stating what you do and where, a visible contact route, early trust proof such as reviews, your main services with links, a price signal, photos of real work, a short concrete “why us”, simple navigation and one repeated call to action. Everything else is optional decoration.
How much text should be on a homepage?
Less than most owners write. Aim for scannable fragments: a headline, short service descriptions, a few proof points and clear buttons. Long explanations belong on service and about pages, where interested visitors will actually read them. If a homepage paragraph runs past three lines on a phone, tighten it.
Should I put prices on my homepage?
Give at least a signal, even if full pricing lives elsewhere. “From” prices or “fixed quotes” reassure visitors and filter out mismatched enquiries before they waste your time. Total silence about money makes people assume you’re expensive, and it hands an advantage to any competitor who is upfront about cost.
What’s the biggest homepage design mistake small businesses make?
A vague headline. If the first thing visitors read could apply to any business (“Quality you can trust”), they have to work out what you do, and most won’t bother. Say what you do and where you do it in the first line. Clarity converts; cleverness bounces.
How often should I update my homepage?
Review it every few months and after any change to services, prices or areas covered. Refresh photos and reviews a couple of times a year so the business looks active. You rarely need a full redesign; small honest updates (a new review, a recent job photo) do more than a yearly overhaul.
Want this done for you? See our web design plans, or compare every service and price in one place.
