"So what is it you do, exactly?"
Someone is referred to you, looks at the website before calling, and still opens the conversation by asking what you do. Or a friend of the business glances at the homepage and says it sounds impressive, but they are not sure what you sell.
The homepage says something like "Delivering integrated solutions that empower growth". It is accurate in the way that it could describe almost any business. A visitor who arrived from a search has a few seconds to decide whether they are in the right place, and the page does not tell them.
Why this happens to good businesses
The people who write the homepage know the business too well. Words that are precise inside the company, like the name of your method or a product line, mean nothing to a stranger. Worried about sounding too narrow, the team generalises until the sentence fits everything.
Committees make it worse. Every director wants their division mentioned, so the homepage becomes a list of everything, weighted equally, with nothing leading.
| What the page says | What a visitor needs instead |
|---|---|
| A slogan or brand line | A plain sentence: what you do, for whom |
| Internal product names | The thing the customer would call it |
| Every service listed with equal weight | A way to pick the one that applies to them |
| About the company's history | What working with you involves |
| "Solutions", "services", "excellence" | Specific examples of problems you handle |
What the confusion costs
Visitors who cannot tell what you do leave before reading anything else. People who do get in touch ask basic questions first, which slows every sales conversation. And the wrong people enquire, because a vague homepage does not filter anyone out.
It also weakens search. Google struggles to match a page to searches when the page does not use the words searchers use.
There is a hiring and partnership cost too. Recruits, suppliers and potential partners check the website as well, and a vague one makes the business look smaller or less focused than it is. People who could have referred work to you cannot describe what you do to someone else, because the site never gave them the words.
How we make the site say what you do
- Watch strangers read it. We run short tests with people who match your customers but do not know you, asking them what the business does after a few seconds on the page. Their answers are usually the most useful evidence there is.
- Collect the customer's words. We read enquiry emails, sales call notes and the searches people use to reach you, and note how customers describe the problem.
- Rewrite the top of the homepage: one heading that says what you do and for whom, a line that says why it matters, and a clear next step.
- Add a route for each type of visitor, such as by sector, by problem or by service, so they can move to the page that is about them.
- Replace abstract claims with specifics: the kinds of work you do, how a project runs, what the customer provides.
- Carry the same clarity into service pages and page titles, so the words that describe you are consistent across the site and in search results.
- Test again with new people and compare their answers.
What changes
New visitors can tell within a moment whether you are what they are looking for. Enquiries start at the second question rather than the first. Staff can send a link and expect the reader to understand it. The words on the site match the words customers use, which helps search as well as people.
Does your homepage have this problem?
- Referrals still ask what you do before the first call
- The main heading is a slogan rather than a description
- Every service or division gets equal space on the homepage
- The site uses internal names customers would not recognise
- Many visitors leave from the homepage without clicking anything
- You get enquiries for things you do not do