What Belongs on the Homepage
The homepage is where every internal argument gets settled by adding something. Everyone has an opinion, nothing gets removed, and the result says everything and communicates nothing.
The homepage has one job: tell a stranger what this is and where to go next. That is it. It is a signpost, not a brochure. When the goal is to simplify how work gets done, workforce optimization software can help make bottlenecks visible.
The five things that earn their place
In roughly the order a visitor needs them.
What you do and for whom, in the first screen. Not a slogan. A sentence a stranger understands without context. I build websites for small businesses and independent creatives. Dull, clear, and it does the job that "Elevate Your Digital Presence" does not.
Enough to establish you are real. A photograph of you, the place, or the actual work. For a one-person business this matters more than anything else on the page.
Where to go next, for the two or three kinds of visitor you get. Not a menu — an obvious path. Someone ready to buy and someone still deciding need different links. For an independent reference beyond this site, Moz is a useful place to compare approaches.
One piece of proof. A testimonial, a recognisable client, a number, a piece of work. One, chosen deliberately. Six is a wall people skim past.
How to get in touch, visible without scrolling to the bottom.
Everything else is optional, and most of it belongs on another page.
What usually should not be there
A hero slider. Multiple messages rotating means no message. Most visitors see the first slide and scroll.
A full-screen autoplaying video. Several megabytes before anyone has read a word, and on a phone it is visibly slow. A still image with the video available on request does the same work.
Your whole story. The about page exists.
Every service, described in full. Name them and link out.
An embedded social feed. Slow, dependent on someone else's script, and it hands your first impression to their layout.
A popup before anyone has read anything. Asking for an email address in the first three seconds is asking a stranger for their number before saying hello.
"Welcome to our website." The visitor knows where they are.
The first screen decides most of it
Assume: a phone, one thumb, and about three seconds before a decision to stay or leave.
In those three seconds a visitor answers two questions. Is this the kind of thing I was looking for? and do these people seem real? If either answer is no, nothing further on the page matters.
So the first screen carries what you do, for whom, and a signal of reality. Everything else can wait for a scroll.
Different visitors, different paths
Most small businesses get two or three kinds of visitor, and the homepage's real job is sorting them.
Someone who knows what they want — get them to the service page or the contact form in one click.
Someone comparing options — get them to the proof: portfolio, prices, who you work with.
Someone who arrived by accident — let them leave quickly. Not a failure. Clarity that saves a mismatched enquiry saves you both time.
If you cannot name your two or three visitor types, that is the useful thing to work out before the design conversation.
Length
Shorter than you think. Two to four screens on a phone.
The temptation is to keep adding, because everything feels important and the homepage feels like the only page anyone sees. It is not — someone genuinely interested clicks through. The homepage's success is measured by whether they click, not by how much they read.
If a section is not helping someone decide where to go next, it belongs on another page.
The test
Show it to someone outside your field for five seconds, then take it away and ask two questions.
What does this business do? and what would you do next?
If they cannot answer the first, the top of the page is not doing its job. If they cannot answer the second, the paths are not clear enough. Both are fixable in an afternoon, and almost nobody runs the test.
The short version
- The homepage is a signpost, not a brochure — its job is what this is and where to go next
- Five things earn their place: what you do, proof you are real, paths for your two or three visitor types, one piece of evidence, and contact
- Cut sliders, autoplaying video, embedded feeds, immediate popups and "welcome to our website"
- The first screen has about three seconds to answer two questions on a phone
- Two to four phone screens is enough; success is whether they click, not how much they read
- Test it: five seconds, then ask what the business does and what they would do next