How to write homepage copy

Your homepage is the page people land on when they hear your name: from a message, a friend, Google or ChatGPT. If your homepage copy does not tell a stranger in 5 seconds what you sell, who it is for and what to click, they leave, and they never tell you why. Here is how to write it in one sitting, then test it on 20 new people a day until 8 in 10 get it.

Do these three things

About 4 hours today, then about 1 hour 30 minutes a day and 20 minutes each Sunday. Judge the words after 100 people, and the page after every 100 visits.

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1. 1Today: write your homepage in one sitting: a headline under 15 words that says who it is for and what they get (your value proposition), one line under it, one button that names the next step, and five short parts below.
2. 2Every day: show your homepage for 5 seconds to 20 new people who fit your buyer, ask what it sells and who it is for, and watch every recording of a visit in Microsoft Clarity.
3. 3Every Sunday: count clicks on your main button for every 100 visits, and rewrite the one part where most people stopped or got it wrong. Change one part at a time, and skip the A/B test until you have far more visits.

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1. Pick who your homepage is for and the one button they should click

Before you write a word, write down the one kind of buyer your homepage speaks to and the one button you want them to click. Every other line on the page serves those two things.

Who lands on your homepage. A landing page gets people from one ad or one post. Your homepage gets everyone else: people you messaged, people a friend told, people who typed your name into Google, and more and more, people sent by AI answers. On 7 May 2026, ChatGPT started turning brand names in its answers into links. Similarweb found that homepages went from about 26–32% of the visits ChatGPT sends to sites to about 60%, and the share has held. Those visitors heard one sentence about you, and your homepage has to confirm it fast.

Write the buyer line. Take it from your ideal customer profile: the kind of business or person, their size, and the moment the problem hurts. If you sell to two kinds of buyer, pick the one you can name the most real people for. The second kind gets its own landing page later.

Pick the button with this rule. Use the first one that fits how people buy from you:

Say what happens after the click, with the real number: the trial length, the call length, the time until a quote. If you have no product live yet, use a waitlist button and nothing else.

If you run an agency: the buyer line names the kind of client you serve, such as "SaaS companies of 2 to 15 people". If you have not picked one kind of client yet, do that first.

• Tool: a Google Doc.
• Time: 20 minutes.
• You will have: one buyer line and the exact words on your main button.
• It worked if: the buyer line names a kind of business or person and a size or moment, and the button says what happens after the click.
• Common mistake: two or three buttons of the same size, such as "Learn more", "Contact us" and "Sign up". Similarweb's 2026 advice for homepages is one main button, repeated. Keep the menu at the top for people who want to look around, and make one button the big one.

2. Write the top of your homepage: a headline, one line and one button

The top of your homepage is what a visitor sees before they scroll: a headline under 15 words that says who it is for and what they get, one line of 20 to 30 words under it, your button, and a real picture of what you sell. Write this part first and spend the most time on it.

People read the top of a page far more than anything below it. In a 2018 eye-tracking study, the Nielsen Norman Group found that people spent 57% of their time on a page in the part they saw before scrolling, and 74% in the first two screens. So put the above-the-fold part to work: it alone must answer "what is this, is it for me, what do I do now?"

Write the top screen in this order:

1. The headline. Use your tested value proposition: one sentence, under 15 words, that says who it is for and what they get. If you have not tested one yet, write three versions from your buyers' own words and use the one that 8 of 10 strangers understood. Say what the buyer gets. Do not say what the product is built on.
2. The line under it. 20 to 30 words: who it is for, and the one thing you do that what they use today does not. Your competitor analysis tells you what that is.
3. The button, from step 1.
4. One line under the button with the real terms: what it costs after the trial, how fast you reply, or the delivery time and returns. Write only what is true. If your price is not set, leave the cost out until it is.
5. A real picture of the product doing the job: a screenshot, a photo of the product in use, or a 30-second screen recording. No stock photos and no slideshow that changes every few seconds.

Let AI draft the options, and you choose. Paste your buyer phrases and your value proposition into ChatGPT or Claude with the prompt below. It takes about a minute. Pick the best line, then change any word a buyer would not say.

Here is who my business is for: [your buyer line from step 1]Here is my value proposition: [paste it]Here are phrases my buyers used about the problem, word for word: [paste 10 to 30]Write 10 versions of the line that goes under my homepage headline. Each one is 20 to 30 words. Each says who it is for and the one thing we do that what they use today does not. Use only words and ideas from the phrases. Do not use: all-in-one, AI-powered, streamline, powerful, innovative, solution, platform, leading, next-generation.

Headline (under 15 words): [who it is for] + [what they get]Line under it (20 to 30 words): For [who, with size]. [The one thing you do that what they use today does not], so [the result, in their words].Button: [verb] + [what happens next], such as "Start your 14-day free trial" or "Book a 15-minute call"Under the button: [the real terms: price after the trial, reply time, delivery and returns]Picture: [a screenshot, a photo or a 30-second recording of the real product doing the job]

If you run a D2C store: the headline can name the moment of need, and the picture is your product, in use, on a plain background. Put the price, delivery time and returns in the line under the button. In Shopify, go to Online Store, then Themes, then Customize. The home page opens first; click a section in the left sidebar to change its text, then click Save. Your product pages carry the same headline idea.

If you run a B2B business: name the industries you serve in the line under the headline, such as "for food and drink brands", and put your reply time under the button: "We reply within 1 working day".

• Tool: a Google Doc, and ChatGPT or Claude to draft.
• Time: 1 hour.
• You will have: the five lines of your top screen, written out, and the picture chosen.
• It worked if: the headline is under 15 words and names who and what they get, the line under it is 20 to 30 words, and all five fit on one phone screen.
• Common mistake: a clever or technical headline, such as "Feedback infrastructure for modern teams". A stranger cannot tell what it does, and they will not scroll to find out.

3. Write the five parts under the top, in the order visitors ask

Under the top screen, write five short parts, in the order a careful visitor asks their questions: the problem, how it works, the proof, the answers to five common questions, and the same button again. Keep the whole page under about 600 words.

Write each part from what buyers really said. Take the words from your customer interviews, sales calls and messages. Simple words tend to do better: in Unbounce's 2024 study of over 41,000 landing pages, pages written at a 5th to 7th grade reading level converted at 11.1%, and pages written at a professional level at 5.3%. Pages with more words also tended to convert less.

The problem (2 or 3 sentences)
[The moment the problem hurts, in a buyer's exact words.] [What it costs them today: hours, money, a lost client.]


How it works (3 steps, each with a picture)


[What they do first.] 2. [What happens next.] 3. [What they get.]


Proof (only things that are true and that you can show)
[A quote with the person's name, role and permission] · [a number from your real work] · [your photo, your name and one line on why you built it]


Five questions buyers ask before they buy
What does it cost? · How long until it works? · What if it does not work for me? · Who is behind it? · Does it work with [the tool they already use]?


The button again
[The same button as the top] + [the same terms line]

Proof when you have no customers yet. You do not need logos or star ratings. Use what is true today:

• A quote from a beta user or a first customer, with their name, their role and their OK to use it. Ask for a testimonial the day they get a result. If you have no users yet, get beta users first.
• A number from your real work: reports sent in the beta, orders shipped, projects delivered, years in the trade.
• You. Your photo, your name and one line on why you built it. A real founder is proof that someone stands behind it.
• A short recording of the product doing the job, or a demo clip.
• Your terms: the trial, the refund, the guarantee, the reply time.

Never invent proof. Since 21 October 2024, the US Federal Trade Commission's rule bans fake testimonials, including AI-written ones from people who do not exist or never used the product, and the FTC can seek fines from businesses that break it. Do not use a former employer's logo, a client's logo without their OK, or a rating you did not collect. Your social proof must be checkable.

Write the five questions from real questions. Use what people asked you on calls and in messages. If price is one of them, answer it with the number and link your pricing page.

If you run a D2C store: your proof is reviews on the product, photos from real buyers, and your delivery and returns times. Put them near the top. Read how to make a new store look trustworthy and get your first product reviews.

If you run a B2B business: "How it works" is your process from first call to delivery, with the time for each step. Put one short case study in the proof part once you have one, and ask your 2 clients for a Google review.

If you run an agency: with no case studies, show the result you got for your own channels or for one client, with the numbers and the client's OK. More ideas are in getting agency clients without case studies.

• Tool: a Google Doc, and ChatGPT or Claude to shorten and simplify each part.
• Time: 1 hour 30 minutes.
• You will have: the full text of your homepage, top screen and five parts, under about 600 words.
• It worked if: every part answers a question a real buyer asked, each part is 3 sentences or 5 short lines at most, and every proof item is real and you can show where it came from.
• Common mistake: a long list of features in your words, like "Integrations · Analytics · API". Buyers want to know what changes for them. Write the result, and move the feature list to its own page.

4. Put it live with a page title and meta description that match the headline

Publish the new homepage with the headline as the page's first heading, then change the page title and meta description so they say the same thing. Google, ChatGPT and the visitor should all read one message about you.

Publish it. Put the headline in the page's first big heading (the h1), as real text, not inside an image. Check that the words show up in the page source: right-click the page, choose View Page Source, and search for your headline. If they do not, follow the technical SEO checklist: some site builders hide the text from search tools. If you are still building the site, pick a site builder first.

Change the page title and meta description. The page title is the line on the browser tab and, usually, the blue link in Google. The meta description is the short text that may show under it. Google's own guide says not to use a vague title such as "Home", and that the home page title can add a little about the site. Google may use your meta description when it describes the page better than the page's own text. Write both from your headline:

Page title (under 60 characters): [Your name] | [who it is for] + [what they get]Meta description (about 150 characters): [Your headline, said a little longer]. [The button's promise, such as "Start a 14-day free trial."]

Google needs to visit the page again before the new title shows, which can take a few days to a few weeks. You can ask it to come back sooner with URL Inspection in Google Search Console.

If you run a D2C store: in Shopify, go to Online Store, then Preferences. Under "Social sharing image and SEO", fill in the title (keep it to 60 characters) and the description (about 160), then click Save. More on this is in SEO for a Shopify store.

Install Microsoft Clarity. Clarity is free, with no traffic limit and no card. It records visits so you can watch them, and shows how far people scroll and where they click. Sign up at clarity.microsoft.com, add a project, then go to Settings, then Setup. Pick your platform (Shopify, Wix, Squarespace and WordPress are listed) or paste the tracking code into your site's head. Clarity keeps recordings for 30 days, so watch them as they come in. If any visitors come from the EU, the UK or Switzerland, your site must ask for their consent before Clarity can record full visits.

Ask ChatGPT about you. Type "What does [your website] do, and who is it for?" If the answer does not match your headline, find the pages that still say the old thing and change them. Ask again once a month and write down what it says. The same words on every page help AI tools describe your brand the way you do. In G2's March 2026 survey of 1,076 software buyers, 51% said they now start their research in an AI chatbot more often than in Google.

• Tool: your site builder, Google Search Console, Microsoft Clarity (free) and ChatGPT.
• Time: 1 hour.
• You will have: the new homepage live, a matching title and meta description, and Clarity recording visits.
• It worked if: your headline appears in the page source, the title on the browser tab is not "Home", and Clarity shows your own test visit.
• Common mistake: keeping the site builder's default page title, such as "Home" or "My Store". That is the line people see in Google, and it says nothing.

5. Show your homepage for 5 seconds to 20 new people every day

Every day, show your homepage to 20 people who fit your buyer and have never seen it, for 5 seconds each, then ask three questions. Keep going until you have 100 answers and at least 8 in 10 people get all three right.

This is a five-second test. It checks what a visitor decides before they scroll: is this for me, and what do I do? You have too few visits to learn this from your numbers, so you ask people instead. 20 a day gets you 100 answers in 5 days.

How to run it. On a call or in person, show the top of your homepage on your phone for 5 seconds, then put the phone away. By message, send a screenshot of the top screen and ask them to look once, close it, and answer. Then ask:

[Show the top of your homepage for 5 seconds, then hide it.]
What does it sell?
Who is it for?
What would you click first?
[Write down exactly what they said. Explain nothing until all three answers are written.]

Where to find 20 people a day. People who fit your buyer and have never seen your site:

• People you already message. If you send 100 personal messages a day, add the test as a small favour to some of them. AI drafts each ask from the template below; you add the person's name and one true line about them. That is about a minute an ask.
• Feedback threads in the online communities where your buyers talk. Some subreddits and forums run a regular feedback thread. Post only where the rules allow it, and read the rules first.
• People you meet: at meetups, at events, on sales calls with new buyers before you show anything.

Hi [first name], [one true line about them or their work].I'm rewriting my homepage and I'd value 30 seconds of your eyes. Could you look at this screenshot once, for about 5 seconds, close it, and tell me: what does it sell, who is it for, and what would you click first?No need to be kind. Wrong answers help me most.[Your name]

Stay inside each platform's limits. LinkedIn limits how many connection requests you can send, and a block usually lasts a week, so ask people you are already connected to there. If you email many strangers, use a second, warmed-up domain. If one place says no, move the rest of the 20 to another place.

Use this rule to change the words. When 3 of a day's 20 people give the same wrong answer, rewrite the line that caused it, using the words they used. Then test the new version on 20 new people. Your co-founder, your family and anyone who has seen the product do not count. They already know the answers.

• Tool: your phone, a screenshot of the top screen, and a sheet with one row per person.
• Time: about 1 hour a day for 20 tests, including the asks.
• You will have: 100 written answers after 5 days, and a top screen that strangers understand.
• It worked if: at least 8 of 10 people name what you sell, who it is for and your main button, across 100 people. If you are under 8 of 10 after 3 rewrites, your value proposition is the problem, not the page: test new versions of it first.
• Common mistake: asking "Do you like it?" People are kind, and a page they like can still be unclear. Ask what it sells.

6. Watch every visit, and count button clicks per 100 visits every Sunday

Every day, watch the Clarity recordings of yesterday's homepage visits. Every Sunday, count visits and clicks on your main button. After every 100 visits, rewrite the one part where most people stopped.

Every day, watch the recordings. In Clarity, open Recordings and add a Visited URL filter with your homepage address. At 300 visits a month, that is about 10 recordings a day. Watch each one at double speed and write one line: how far they scrolled, what they clicked, and where they left. About 20 minutes a day.

Every Sunday, fill in one row. In Clarity, open Heatmaps and type your homepage address. The click map shows how many people clicked your main button. The scroll map shows what share of visitors reached each part. Copy the numbers into your sheet. If your button leads to a signup, order or form, count those too, and tag the links you share with UTM parameters so you know where visits came from.

Week | Homepage visits | Clicks on main button | Clicks per 100 visits | Signups, orders or enquiries | Part where most people stopped | Change made

After every 100 visits, change one part, using this rule:

• Few people click the button, and few scroll past the top: the top screen is unclear. Go back to step 5 and test it again.
• People scroll but stop at one part: that part is too long or answers the wrong question. Rewrite only that part, shorter.
• People click the button but do not sign up, buy or book: the page after the click is the problem, not the homepage. Fix your site after the click.
• Clicks per 100 visits fell after a change: put the old words back.

Compare each 100 visits with the 100 before. If you get fewer than 100 visits in 2 weeks, the words are not your biggest problem yet: bring more people to the site first.

If you run a SaaS: count trials started as well as clicks. If people start trials but never use the product, read how to improve your activation rate.

If you run a D2C store: count clicks on "Shop" and orders. If shoppers add to cart but leave, fix the store and win back abandoned carts.

If you run a B2B business or an agency: count calls booked and quote requests. Read how to get more leads from a B2B website.

• Tool: Microsoft Clarity (free) and Google Sheets.
• Time: about 20 minutes a day, and 20 minutes each Sunday.
• You will have: a sheet with visits, button clicks and results for every week, and one change written down for every 100 visits.
• It worked if: clicks per 100 visits are the same or higher after each change, and your signups, orders or enquiries per 100 visits (your conversion rate) do not fall.
• Common mistake: changing three things at once, so you cannot tell which one helped. The other mistake is judging after 20 visits. One click more or less is not a result.

Your homepage copy checklist for the next 2 weeks

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Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

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Step 1 · Pick who your homepage is for and the one button

• Write one line that says who your homepage is for.
• Pick your one main button using the rule in step 1.

Step 2 · Write the top of your homepage

• Write the headline from your tested value proposition.
• Write the line under the headline and the terms line under the button, and pick a real picture of the product.

Step 3 · Write the five parts under the top

• Write the problem, how it works, five buyer questions and the button again.
• Write the proof part using only real quotes, numbers, photos and terms.

Step 4 · Put it live with a matching page title and meta description

• Publish the homepage with the headline as real text in the first heading.
• Change the page title and meta description to match the headline.
• Install Microsoft Clarity on your site.
• Once a monthAsk ChatGPT what your website does and who it is for, and fix pages that disagree.

Step 5 · Show your homepage to 20 new people every day

• Every dayShow your homepage for 5 seconds to 20 new people who fit your buyer and ask the three questions.

Step 6 · Watch every visit and count button clicks every Sunday

• Every dayWatch every Clarity recording of a homepage visit.
• Every SundayFill in one row of the Sunday homepage sheet.
• After 100 visitsRewrite the one part where most visitors stopped.

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