10 Steps to Writing Website Homepage Copy

Yesterday, we wanted to entertain you with our personal roller coaster ride of homepage bloopers and today, we want to help you build a strong homepage by getting specific about what you actually do. We learned a lot from this HubSpot article and want to leave you with a few key takeaways.

Make your headline crystal clear. Try to offer only one thing to only one market. Narrow your niche service and your niche market. Consider this your “above the fold” opportunity … it’s your chance to get the right people to pick up your newspaper from the newsstand and start flipping through the pages.
Explain the benefits of the service you offer. What is the client getting? Ease of mind, more time back, a great deal, longevity for their business, etc.
Give examples of real clients who have used this specific service and how they are experiencing real benefits now. Testimonials would be great here. Put them right on the site!
Explain what the client would lose if they don’t get this service. Put it right there on the homepage. This is your best MadMen sales opportunity. “Without thoughtful branding, you’ll be spinning your wheels and wasting time with each new design project, weakening your brand and ultimately your sales.” You can be kind, but be direct. After all, if you know your service is helpful to a very specific person, sell it to them. Don’t let them miss this opportunity!
Use call to action buttons that link to various parts of your sales funnel. All of our homepage sales buttons link to different parts of the branding process. The biggest investment is a branding project, but the homepage offers a free option using our newsletter signup (more on that below) that grants a free self-guided brand audit to everyone. Between free and a high investment, we also give visitors the option to build from their current logo using our “Brand Guidelines” service. All of these options are part of the branding process, but they can be broken apart to serve a greater part of our audience.
Give something for free in exchange for an email. This may feel super salesy but if you don’t know who is coming to your site unless they give you all their contact information in your “Contact Us” form, then you’re missing sales. Getting an email from someone who has already browsed your site and is familiar with your services gives you someone to market to! I wasn’t a marketing major in college, but I like to call these pretty strong leads. Everyone needs branding, so this gives me some time to convince them they should invest in their own business with branding through our newsletters and sales funnels. This should be directly related to your service or product and should strategically provide a place where you can show off your industry expertise. (In other words, don’t offer a free guide to your favorite European city if you’re not a travel agent or travel blogger.)
Write out your homepage then trim down your words. Use pictures to communicate your ideas when possible and use direct statements to describe your service.
Talk directly to a specific person. Use more “you” and “your” than “I” and “my.” This is not high school English class so get all those second person pronouns on the screen!
Don’t share your life story on the homepage. Your “About” page is a great place to beef up your why and how you started your business. Don’t use your homepage real estate to get too personal (unless this is your brand message … in which case, you do you).
Link to various pages on your website. This helps build strong SEO and tells Google you know what you’re doing.