Question 1

Should the homepage try to rank for keywords?

Accepted Answer

Primarily, the homepage should rank for your brand name and serve navigational intent — people searching directly for your company. Trying to rank the homepage for high-competition industry terms (like "SEO agency") is usually a poor use of effort: the homepage competes at a disadvantage against dedicated service or pillar pages that have more focused content. The homepage's job is conversion, not keyword ranking. Build dedicated landing pages or service pages for the transactional keywords you want to rank for, and let the homepage serve the visitors who already know they're in the right place.

Question 2

How long should a homepage be?

Accepted Answer

Long enough to answer all five questions above, not longer. For most service businesses, that's three to five sections: hero (what/who/why), problem/solution, proof, offer detail, CTA. For product businesses, add product imagery and features. A homepage that runs longer than that is often serving the team's desire to communicate everything rather than the visitor's need to decide quickly. Scroll depth data in GA4 will tell you where visitors stop engaging — anything below that point isn't converting and should be shortened or restructured.

Question 3

What's the right tone for homepage copy?

Accepted Answer

Plain, specific, and direct. Avoid superlatives ("the best", "world-class", "transformative") — they're unverifiable and read as generic. Avoid jargon the visitor wouldn't use when describing their own problem. The test: would a real customer, in a real conversation, say the things on your homepage? If not, the copy is written for the brand, not the visitor. The tone can be formal or casual depending on your market — what it should always be is honest and specific.

Question 4

How do I know if my homepage copy is working?

Accepted Answer

Two primary signals: conversion rate and bounce rate from direct and branded search traffic. If visitors who are specifically looking for your brand land on the homepage and leave immediately, the page isn't clearing the "is this for me?" bar quickly enough. If they stay but don't convert, the offer or CTA is the problem. For baseline benchmarks: a homepage converting at under 1% from direct traffic is underperforming; above 3% is strong for most service businesses. Track changes month-over-month in GA4 whenever you update the copy, and tie changes to conversion rate movement rather than aesthetics.

Question 5

Should the homepage be different for B2B vs. B2C?

Accepted Answer

The five-question structure applies to both, but the emphasis shifts. B2B homepages typically need more "why you" content (proof, methodology, case studies) because purchase decisions involve more stakeholders and more risk aversion. B2C and e-commerce homepages can often move faster to the offer and product, since the decision cycle is shorter and the visitor's intent is often closer to purchase-ready already. In both cases, question one and two (what do you do, who is it for) still need answering in the first screen — that part doesn't change with audience type.

Question 6

How often should homepage copy be revisited?

Accepted Answer

Review it whenever your positioning, audience, or core offer changes — not on a fixed schedule. That said, a light annual check is worth doing even without a strategic shift: language that felt sharp a year ago can drift into the same generic phrasing everyone else uses, especially as new team members edit the copy over time. If conversion rate on direct/branded traffic has been flat or declining for several months with no obvious external cause, that's also a signal the homepage copy has stopped doing its job and is due for a fresh look against the five-question framework.

messaging

How to Write a Homepage That Says What You Actually Do