This is how you write good Home page copy

Be concise to keep your content engaging and readable.
Aim for a readability score of 60 or more, which is the standard for Web writing.
Your visitors are just getting to know you, so write to match their intent – to raise awareness.
Break it down into short sections to make your page scannable.
Use visuals, but do it in moderation. Images and videos can increase conversions, but they’re not one-size-fits-all.
Create consistent Calls To Action, keeping in mind the visitors’ intent. Don’t confuse visitors with different button labels for the same action; make the text actionable and benefit-orientated.

We expand on each of the points in the links above and in our no-BS guide to writing website content.

The purpose of your Home page

The Internet’s most hated answer, “it depends”, applies here. But most times, your Home page has just one purpose – to introduce your company.

There’s a single exception for smaller, single-page websites. These “do it all”, but larger sites and companies can’t always rely on that.

Most people will come to your Home page being in the “awareness” stage of the marketing funnel. This will be the same for every type of funnel, whether you used AIDA or something else.

That’s why in the previous section, we focused on the clarity of your Home page copy. And copy is what we are writing.

Home page is all about copy, not content

Copy and content might seem like the same thing, and we’ve even used them as synonyms so far.

But there’s an important distinction to make here. Your educational blog articles are content. Your informational social media posts are content. These help you solve your customers’ problems.

When it comes to introducing your business and convincing people to buy from you, copywriting requires a different skill set.

You’ll need to understand digital psychology and how to persuade people to take the next step. Every page, including the Home page, will be part of a customer journey – deliberately designed by you to make people take action.

Where does the Home page sit in the buyer’s journey?

We said it’s often the first point of entry for your visitors, but it doesn’t end there. So what’s next?

This time, it truly depends. There are too many variables to come up with a rule of thumb, but here’s our best attempt.

Working with businesses in B2B tech, our data shows that nearly half of new visitors go to the About page as the second step. And guess what?

A lot of them go back to the Home page after! Both of these target the “awareness” stage of the funnel, so it makes sense – people expect the Home and About pages to complement one another.

Then, it all depends on your product or service. In complex use cases, there could be several steps to conversion. But for a streamlined ecommerce business with one offer, the product/service page could be next in line.

How to write an About page

The controversial Home page SEO

Everyone wants to rank at the top of search results, so what role does your Home page play in it?

We have a controversial take on it.

Since the Home page is all about awareness and describing your company to new visitors, it won’t be as SEO-driven as you’re used to.

Sure, you’ll still tell people who you are in simple terms through the meta title and the meta description. But natural, awareness-stage content of the Home page won’t always make the best “SEO content”.

And that’s fine!

You can use other pages to rank for the specific terms. Just think of the Home page as the business card. It says who you are, but does it go on to explain the definition of who you are in 2,000 words of more to meet some assumed SEO criteria and rank high?

Probably not.

So if you find a guide that starts with “choose the target keyword”, just don’t do that.

Businesses don’t start with a keyword – unless they’re SEO businesses.

Other tips from the guides are generally valuable, though.

Here’s everything you need to start writing

“How To Write Your Website Content” is a 92-page ebook that aims to help you hit the ground running. We’ve compiled our 20+ years of content and copywriting experience and included our bespoke Website Messaging Workshop framework as a bonus.

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