Short and Sweet: 3 Tips for Writing Your Perfect Homepage
I’ve never been great at making a long story short. I love to add in details and paint a picture with all of the colors in my head.
Unfortunately, this also means that the point of my stories can get lost in my habit of expressing every. single. thought. If I don’t take the time to think about the key points, then the people I’m talking to are sure to get ALL of the information rather than just the bits they’ll remember.
Thank goodness I have patient people in my life. I’m sure they’re also grateful that I’m working on making more conversations short stories rather than novels.
If this struggle to make your point short and sweet resonates with you, no worries: I’ve got some tips coming at ‘ya to help streamline your thoughts.
Obviously, when we’re talking to friends and family who care about us, long story long conversations are often welcomed. But when you start to market your brand with the same elaboration, your audience gets lost in all the extra noise. You might have thousands of unique ideas and hundreds of details that FULLY get your point across. The problem with giving people the whole story is that it doesn’t tell them how you can help them with the reason they came to you:
To fix THEIR problem.
Your homepage should pack a punch. It needs to be short, sweet, and significant. If you’re a business owner, your future clients need to know precisely what you do or sell so that they know they’re spending their money wisely. If they aren’t sure you can give them what they need, they’ll pass and find someone else who can. And, they need to know quickly. Like in less than 10 seconds quickly.
If you cloud your website with endless info that isn’t easy to read, or worse yet, leaves potential clients totally unsure of what you do: you’re losing business. No one wants their time wasted. Let your audience immediately know if what you do is what they need. If you are, they’ll continue to other pages of your website that give them more because now they’re interested.
You might be thinking: great, Maggie. I get it. Get clear and make it snappy. Now how in the world am I going to do that?
Never fear! Here’s my 3-step checklist for making sure you are clear and concise so that your community knows what you’re all about:
1. Always remember: your website isn’t about you.
And okay, okay, your website is about what you offer, and it will have information about you. That said: your website isn’t FOR you. It’s for the person who got to your website by searching for ‘best (insert what you do here)’ on their search engine. THEY are who it’s for, who it should be about, and who every single word on your website should be directed to. Make them the hero of the story you’re sharing via your website.
Visualize and get specific about your ideal client, think as they would think, and answer the questions they would ask when looking for someone who sells or does what you do. They probably won’t care that your office space is 1000 sq. feet and brand new. They will care that your product is exactly what they’ve been searching for, and that is what they’re buying.
HEADS UP:(Lookout for a future blog post on how to create your future client bff)
2. If you can’t say it in one sentence, it’s not clear enough.
Consolidate, consolidate, consolidate. I do this literally 100% of the time when I’m writing for my clients. Good marketing is about being able to take all of the swirling and massive ideas, connecting the dots, and then writing a one-liner that beautifully encompasses what your business is all about.
For example, I love the dating app Hinge’s headline on their homepage: “The dating app designed to be deleted.” Ooooo- What yummy marketing. You get what their goal is for you, the customer, right away. Solves your problem (wanting to find your person for good) and makes them feel relatable and like they don’t care about them- they care about YOU. This then turns into what they really want- for you to use their app.
Start with a stream of consciousness style writing session. Write down whatever comes to your head that describes what your business does. Then read it, find the key points, and cut it down. Then do it again. And again. And again. Hopefully, you’ll be left with a headline for your homepage that’s a hook AND explains what you do.
When we can get focused and concise about what we do, people are more inclined to want to know more and click on your Call to Action because they know right away if you’re what they’re looking for.
After your headline, make sure those calls to action are also clear and that you have descriptions that are MAXIMUM three sentences long. Make ’em want more!
3. Keep it Simple, Stupid. (JK, you’re brilliant. But truly- keep it simple).
While you’re paring down all of the fantastic things you can offer your audience, remember that they not only want it short and clear, it also needs to be easily digestible. Flowery language and terms that only people in your industry would understand just aren’t helpful for the person who wants to hire you so they don’t have to know all of the jargon.
A standard guide in writing for the average reader is to write at a 5th-grade level. Don’t make the people who might give you their hard-earned money work too hard. They’re coming to you to make their life easier, not so they have to pull out a dictionary to understand what you’re talking about.
I love the famous Albert Einstein quote when thinking about this: “If you can’t explain it to a six-year-old, you don’t understand it yourself.” Now, you probably understand it yourself. But if no one else does, you’re not going to sell your product or leave any of your potential clients with a lasting impression.
Focus on the Hero, Keep It Short, Keep It Simple.
You’re ready to ROCK that Homepage.
Don’t like handling any of this stuff? I do! Let’s chat about what I can do for you: https://maggievrhodes.com/copywriting
