Eight seconds is generous. That is roughly what a new visitor gives a homepage before deciding whether this business is for them, and the decision is mostly made by feel — but feel, on a screen, is built from specifics arriving in the right order.
First: what this is. Not a slogan, not a welcome message — a plain statement of the offer, in words the customer would use. Second: who it is for, close enough behind the first that the right visitor recognizes themselves. Third: one proof, early — a name, a number, a piece of work — because an unsupported claim reads as noise at speed. Fourth: one obvious next step, singular. Two equal buttons is a question, and questions cost seconds.
Notice what is not on the list: the full story, the whole catalog, the company history, the newsletter. All of it can live one click down, where interested people will happily read it. The homepage is not the book. It is the moment someone decides to open it.
We test homepages the crude way: show the screen for eight seconds, take it away, ask what the business does. When the answer comes back accurate and warm, the page is doing its job. When it comes back as “something about synergy,” we start again.
Leave a Reply