How to write copy for a website’s homepage: A step-by-step guide

Content Marketing | Digital Marketing | SEO

You know that your website’s homepage needs to look good, right?

The homepage is often the first impression visitors get of your brand. It serves as the gateway to your business’s website and is critical for quickly grabbing the attention of your target audience.

But, not many people think about the quality of their homepage’s copy (by “copy” we mean the text on the page). Poor quality copy can hinder how well you communicate your offer, values and services and discourage users from taking action. 

In this guide, we’ll walk you through how to craft compelling homepage copy so your website works hard to convert your users into leads. 

What does the copy on your homepage need to do?

As a digital marketing agency that takes a holistic approach to website design, we believe that the copy on your homepage needs to do a few different things:

• Engage. It has to grab users’ attention quickly. 
• Build trust. It then needs to say the right things to ensure users delve deeper into your content. This will make it more likely that users will make an enquiry. 
• Rank. Copy also needs to be optimised for search engines so that you can be discovered by your target audience. If it’s not ranking, you won’t be getting your target audience on your website anyway. 

But which comes first – the user or the search engine?

We believe that you should have a user-first approach when writing copy. Ultimately, people buy from people. So, writing in a way that encourages users to trust you will, theoretically, ensure you convert more users into leads. 

So, our instructions will follow this approach – we’ll go through how to write for users, and then optimise the copy for search engines.

Copy versus design: which is more important?

If you’re about to undertake writing copy for your homepage, then it stands to reason that you’re probably either already got a website or are getting one designed. 

If you’ve already got a website, your homepage may be built in such a way that you are restricted in where you can put copy or how much you can add. 

There are different approaches you can take here. Either make do and simply fit in as much good quality content as you can (not what we recommend, but we’re realistic about how restricted budgets can be). Or, work with a designer/developer to get the homepage redesigned to suit your needs. 

Although human beings are visual creatures and poor design will definitely turn users off your brand, if the copy is good, many users will go on to enquire. Great messaging can redeem poor design. However, poor-quality copy on a beautiful webpage will have a more damaging effect. If you’re saying the wrong things, users will not engage. 

Ultimately, it’s the copy that sells! 

Design should complement and augment great messaging. Not, dominate and restrict your message. 

So, if you need to choose between design and copy, we would always recommend going with a copy-first approach over design-first. 

If you’ve not had a website built yet, then definitely write the copy first, and then talk to your website designer about what copy you want to include on your homepage. Any decent designer will take your needs into account and create a design that compliments your copy and messaging. 

Use concise, scannable text

Users skim-read more than they read. They simply don’t have the inclination or time to read huge walls of text. So, throughout your homepage copy break it up, make it easy to digest and ultimately write something that’s an enjoyable read. 

Throughout your copy, make sure that you:

• Use short paragraphs (1–3 sentences).
• Add bullet points to highlight key features or benefits.
• Break up text with bold headings and whitespace.

So, let’s get started on writing copy for your website’s homepage.

How to write copy for a website’s homepage

1. Understand Your Audience

If you’ve been reading our blog for any length of time, hopefully by now you’ll be aware that understanding your target audience (the fancy name for “who you want to sell to”) is the foundation of everything that you do. 

So, it is no surprise that this is listed as the first point!

Before writing anything, make sure you identify your target audience. Craft user personas that include information about the following criteria:

• Sex
• Age range
• Job role
• Organisation size
• Likely budget
• Likes & motivations
• Dislikes & objections
• Goals
• Frustrations/Pain points
• Behaviours
• Decision-making process
• Needs/expectations
• Digital maturity

Creating user personas that encapsulate “typical” prospects can help you write better copy. You can meet any of their objections head-on, empathise with their pain points and write FAQs that answer the questions they’re likely to ask. 

2. Craft a value proposition

Did you know that you have about 10 seconds to catch someone’s attention online? 

Users are busy, so when they’re searching various competitors when seeking out a solution, they don’t tend to spend a lot of time on websites that don’t engage them quickly. 

That’s why marketers craft a “value proposition” for their homepage. A value proposition is a concise statement that sums up your offer. It focuses on what prospective clients will gain from using your services. 

Here are some examples (they’re made up):

• Consistent commercial cleaning services for offices. 
• Affordable web design services for small businesses.
• Responsive testing that delivers assurance that your assets are safe. 

For a full description of how to write your value proposition, read our guide. 

Your value proposition should be clear, engaging, and value-driven.

• Make it concise: Aim for 6–12 words.
• Highlight benefits: Communicate what visitors will gain.
• Include the solution: What’s the main service that you’re offering?

3. Write a clear subheadline

The subheadline supports the main headline by adding depth. You have a bit of flexibility in how you craft it. For example, you could:

• Explain the value proposition in more detail.
• Address a key pain point.
• Explain how you deliver what you do.
• Promise a solution.

Here’s an example (I’ve written the value proposition too, so you can see how they connect):

• Value proposition: Build stunning WordPress websites that convert. 
• Subheading: Custom, user-friendly designs that connect with your target audience.

In this example, the subheading explains how the product (websites) delivers the benefit (conversion), namely because they can help businesses connect with their customers through their user-friendly design. This subheading explains how the product delivers the benefit. 

And another one:

• Value proposition: Consistent commercial cleaning services for offices. 
• Subheading: Delivering great results every time with our robust cleaning schedule. 

This subheading does the same – it explains how the company achieve a consistent finish (they utilise a cleaning schedule to ensure that cleaners are doing a proper job). The concept of “consistency” addresses a pain point that the target audience has, namely turning up to work and finding that the cleaner hasn’t done a good job, or hasn’t turned up. 

4. Introduce your business

Next, write a paragraph that introduces your company, delivering key messages or information. Explain what makes your business unique from your competitors. 

Don’t be tempted to use jargon here. Keep it simple, as you’re aiming to ingratiate yourself with your users. Consider things such as:

• Your location (if you serve a particular geographical region)
• Your approach (full service, specialised, hyper-niche, holistic)
• Your personality (friendly, professional, respectful, helpful)

5. List your services

This element of your homepage will most likely be included within the design of your website. It normally includes hyperlinks to the services that you sell. 

6. Establish trust

Most users will want to be convinced that you’re a safe, reliable choice. Most website designers will include some element of “social proof” to that end. This may be:

• Google Review rating (e.g. 5 out of 5 stars)
• Testimonial snippets

Normally, this is included within the design of your website’s homepage. If it’s not, ask why. 

7. Identify the sectors you serve

Again, this is normally included in a homepage’s design. If you only service certain sectors it can be really useful to list them, as it will stop you from getting enquiries from clients who you can’t service. This will save you time. 

8. Include an FAQ section

Now, this section is really important (and is often overlooked). 

Remember when I told you to create user personas that describe your target audience? Well, the FAQ section is the perfect place to answer any questions or address any objections that your target audience may have.

Not only does this improve the user experience of your homepage, and help you connect with your target audience, but it can also be used to include copy that includes specific keywords that you want to target. 

Note that these FAQs shouldn’t be for specific services (add them to the relevant service pages instead), but should be FAQs about your company as a whole. 

Here are a few examples (I’ve invented an imaginary commercial cleaning company):

• What areas do you service?
• Do you do domestic cleaning?
• Can I order a deep cleaning service if I don’t have a cleaning contract with you?
• Do you provide office toilet supplies (e.g. toilet paper and handwash)?

9. Add a CTA (Call To Action)

CTAs guide visitors to take the next step in their customer journey. For each page on your website, you need to think, what’s the first step in the process? What does the user need to do once they’ve read this page?

So, for a homepage, it might be as simple as contacting you for a consultation. But, it could be to learn more about a service. 

Make it:

• Visible: Place it prominently above the fold.
• Actionable: Use verbs like “Get,” “Start,” “Download,” or “Learn.”
• Specific: Clarify what visitors get by clicking.

Some examples include:

• Free audit (CTA will take users to a page where they can complete a form to get a free website audit)
• Download (CTA will allow users to download a PDF)
• Talk to us (CTA will allow users to open their email software and send an email to your sales team)
• Book a demo (CTA will allow users to access a Calendy link where they can book a time to see the software in action). 
• Learn more (CTA will allow users to access informational content such as a blog).

10. Incorporate SEO Best Practices

Now your copy is written, it’s time to go back over it and incorporate SEO best practices. This will ensure that your website will rank well on search engines. 

But before you do, check that these technical SEO best practices are in place:

• Make sure that your website developer/designer has optimised the subheadings throughout your website. This means, making sure they are labelled “H1”, “H2”, “H3” etc within the code. H1 tends to be used for page titles, H2 for main subheadings, H3 for sub-sub headings… and so on. 
• Also, check that there will be internal links (hyperlinks between your homepage and the deeper pages on your website). So, for example, when the services are listed, users should be able to click on them and travel through to the relevant service page. Internal linking is useful, as it helps search engines crawl your website. 

This will help search engines understand the content on your website when they crawl it. 

On to the copy itself…

At the heart of all SEO is keyword research. 

We’re going to presume that you have completed this before you start. You will need to have identified which keywords you want each page on your website to rank for. Aim for one primary keyword (let’s call it a “focus keyword”), and two or three secondary keywords for each page. 

If you haven’t completed this yet, it might be best to head over to our guide on keyword research before you begin. 

• Focus keyword: This needs to be included within the first 150 characters of your page, within one subheading and three times within the body of your homepage’s text. 
• Secondary keywords: Add them within the body of your copy. Make sure they read “naturally”. 

What is metadata?

Metadata is the description of your content. It helps search engines understand the content of your page. You may not realise it, but you tend to see metadata every time you do a search. 

Your focus keyword needs to be included in the meta title and meta description of your homepage. 

• Meta title: This needs to be 525 pixels long, so that it’s not truncated by search engines. Make sure you include the focus keyword. 
• Write a meta description: This 150–160 character snippet should summarize the page and entice clicks.
  • Example: “Affordable web design services for small businesses. Custom WordPress websites designed to grow your brand.” (focus keyword is highlighted for emphasis)

It’s normally added to each page using an SEO plugin. Yoast and Rank Math are examples of SEO plugins. You should see them when you go into your website’s content management system. [insert graphic]

What is alt text for images?

Alt text is a piece of information that describes an image. It helps search engines understand what the image is showing when it crawls your website. But, it is also useful for users with site problems. Screen readers can “read” the alt text and describe the images to those who struggle to access visual content. It’s a great way to make your website accessible to everyone. 

• Add a description of what the image contains and include your focus keyword.
  • For example for the image that appears below you might write “An operative of a commercial cleaning company wipes down the surface of a desk.” (the focus keyword is highlighted for emphasis)

Writing homepage copy: user-first and constantly evolving

Writing great homepage copy doesn’t have to be complicated. By getting to know your audience, clearly showcasing what makes your business special, and including trust-building elements like testimonials, you can create a homepage that really connects with visitors and encourages them to take the next step. Don’t forget to sprinkle in some SEO best practices to make sure the right people find you online.

Remember, your homepage is like a friendly introduction—it’s your chance to make a great first impression. Focus on clear, engaging user-first copy, and let your website work its magic to grow your business!