5 Things Your Website Should Answer in the First 30 Seconds
Your website should not make people play detective.
When someone lands on your site for the first time, they do not know your business the way you do. They don’t know which service they need. They don’t know what all your industry terminology means. They don’t know where you work, what makes you different, or what you want them to click next.
And they probably aren’t going to spend ten minutes figuring it out.
Within the first 30 seconds or so, a potential customer should be able to answer five pretty basic questions:
What do you actually do?
Is this for someone like me?
Where do you work?
Why should I trust you?
What am I supposed to do next?
If your website makes any of those harder than they need to be, getting more traffic probably isn’t the first problem you need to solve.
1. What do you actually do?
This sounds painfully obvious.
It is also one of the things I see businesses get wrong all the time.
A homepage opens with something like:
“Elevating your vision through innovative, personalized solutions.”
Cool. What do you sell?
Business owners sometimes get so worried about sounding polished or professional that they remove all of the useful information from their copy. Your homepage should say what you do in plain English.
If you’re a commercial cleaning company, say that.
If you provide bookkeeping for small businesses, say that.
If you’re a photographer specializing in newborn and family photography, tell people.
You can have personality. You can have a clever headline. You can absolutely sound like your brand.
Just don’t sacrifice clarity for it.
A quick homepage test
Open your website and look at the top section without scrolling.
Now pretend you have absolutely no idea what this company does.
Can you figure it out in about five seconds?
Even better, show it to someone who isn’t involved in your business and ask them what they think you sell.
If you have to explain the answer afterward, your website probably needs clearer messaging.
2. Is this actually for me?
Knowing what you sell is only part of the equation.
The next thing a visitor is trying to figure out is whether you’re the right fit for them.
Your website should give the right customer little moments of recognition.
They should see the type of problem they’re dealing with. They should recognize the kind of business or person you work with. They should understand how your service fits into their life.
This is where generic website copy starts causing problems.
Take this:
“We provide high-quality solutions tailored to your unique needs.”
That sentence could belong to a bookkeeper, contractor, marketing agency, insurance company, consultant, dentist, or approximately 47 million other businesses.
Compare it with:
“Bookkeeping for small business owners who are tired of spending Sunday night trying to figure out QuickBooks.”
Now we know what the business does.
We know who it’s for.
And we know exactly which problem they understand.
That doesn’t mean every line of website copy needs to be hyper-specific. But someone should be able to read your site and think:
Yep. These people work with businesses like mine.
Specific, with some actual personality, beats vague and “professional sounding” every time.
3. Where do you actually work?
If your location matters to the customer, put it somewhere they can actually find it.
Please do not make people dig through the contact page, scroll to a six-point-font footer, or search your Instagram bio to figure out whether you work in their area.
This is especially important for:
Contractors
Photographers
Home service businesses
Medical and wellness practices
Restaurants
Attorneys
Real estate professionals
Local consultants
Businesses with a defined service area
You don’t necessarily need a giant WE SERVE ELKO, NEVADA banner across the homepage.
But your location or service area should appear naturally in places where someone would expect to find it.
For example:
Residential and commercial electrical services in Elko County and surrounding Northern Nevada communities.
Done.
Now the customer knows.
Location information can also help search engines better understand where your business operates, which is another reason not to hide it.
4. Why should I trust you?
A stranger landed on your website.
Maybe they found you through Google.
Maybe someone recommended you.
Maybe they saw one of your posts and clicked over.
Either way, they’re deciding whether you seem legitimate enough to call, book, buy from, or hand over some amount of money.
You need proof.
That proof can look different depending on your business:
Customer reviews
Testimonials
Before-and-after photos
Project examples
Case studies
Certifications
Years of experience
Professional credentials
Awards
Client logos
Real photos of you and your team
Actual results you’ve helped customers achieve
You don’t need all of them.
You just need enough to back up what you’re saying.
There is a huge difference between telling someone:
“We provide exceptional customer service.”
and showing them three reviews from customers talking about how responsive and helpful you were.
One is marketing copy.
The other is proof.
Let your customers do some of the bragging for you.
5. What am I supposed to do next?
You can have a beautiful website with great copy and solid proof, then completely lose someone because they have no idea what to do next.
Every important page should have a job.
Do you want the visitor to:
Schedule a consultation?
Request a quote?
Call you?
Shop?
Book an appointment?
Join your email list?
View your services?
Apply?
Send an inquiry?
Tell them.
And make the button say something useful.
Request a Quote is better than Submit.
Book Your Consultation is better than Click Here.
View Website Packages is better than Learn More when the thing they’re learning more about is your website packages.
Your call to action doesn’t need to be creative. It needs to be clear.
You also don’t need five equally important buttons competing with each other in every section.
If everything is a priority, nothing is.
Give Your Website the 30-Second Test
Here’s the easiest way to see whether your homepage is doing its job.
Pull it up and pretend you’ve never seen it before.
Don’t edit anything yet. Just look.
Can you answer these questions?
What do they do?
Could someone describe your main service or product without guessing?
Who is it for?
Would the right customer know fairly quickly that you work with people like them?
Where do they work?
If geography matters, is your service area easy to find?
Why should I trust them?
Is there actual proof somewhere on the page?
What should I do next?
Is there one obvious next step?
If you can answer all five quickly, you’re in pretty good shape.
If you can’t, your website probably doesn’t need more words.
It needs the right answers in the right places.
More Traffic Won’t Fix a Confusing Website
This is the part that gets overlooked.
Businesses spend money on SEO, social media, ads, networking, email marketing, and every other traffic strategy under the sun.
Then all of those people get sent to a website that doesn’t clearly explain the business.
More traffic is great.
But before you pour more people into the top of the funnel, make sure the thing you’re sending them to can actually do something with them.
Sometimes your marketing problem isn’t that not enough people are finding you.
Sometimes they’re finding you just fine.
They just don’t know what the hell they’re supposed to do once they get there.
If Your Website Is Failing the Test, Let’s Fix It
You do not need to spend the next six weeks going back and forth over a website project while also trying to run your actual business.
That’s exactly why I offer Dedicated Website Days.
We do the strategy and prep ahead of time, then I build your Squarespace website during your dedicated day so you can get a professional, strategic site without turning “fix the website” into your new part-time job.
Because you have better things to do.
