What Your Small Business Homepage Needs to Say (And What to Cut)

Your homepage has one job: to stop a visitor from leaving and make them take the next step. That step might be calling you, filling in a form, or clicking through to a specific service page. Whatever it is, your homepage either helps or hinders it.

Most small business homepages try to do too much — too much text, too many options, too many things that need to load. Here’s what actually needs to be there.

The first thing a visitor sees (above the fold)

“Above the fold” means what’s visible on screen before the visitor scrolls. On a phone, this is a small amount of screen space. Every element in it needs to earn its place.

In that space, you need to answer three questions instantly:

1. What do you do? Not what your business is called. Not your tagline. What you actually do — in the clearest possible terms.

“We install and repair boilers across Birmingham and Solihull.” “Fixed-price website design for West Midlands small businesses.” “Private physiotherapy in Coventry — appointments usually available within 48 hours.”

One sentence. No jargon. No vague phrases like “solutions” or “services.”

2. Who do you do it for / where? Name your location explicitly. “Birmingham,” “West Midlands,” “Coventry and Solihull” — specific enough that a local visitor immediately knows you cover their area.

3. What should they do next? One clear call to action. Usually “Call us,” “Get a quote,” or “Book a free review.” Not three different buttons offering different options — one primary action.

What goes below the fold

Once a visitor has decided to stay, they’re looking for reasons to trust you and reasons to contact you. In rough order of importance:

Social proof. A handful of Google reviews, displayed prominently. Or a specific testimonial with a name and location: “They redesigned our website and within a month we were getting calls from Google. Highly recommend — James, Wolverhampton electrician.”

Your main services. Three to six services, each with a short description. Not a bulleted list — a brief sentence about what each service involves and who it’s for.

Trust signals. Relevant accreditations, memberships, or qualifications. For tradespeople: NICEIC, Gas Safe, NAPIT. For professionals: ICAEW, SRA, HCPC. For businesses generally: years trading, number of customers served.

A second call to action. By the time a visitor has read this far, they’ve decided they’re interested. Give them another opportunity to contact you — phone number, contact form, or booking link.

What to cut from your homepage

Your company history. Unless your story is genuinely distinctive, nobody reads “Established in 1987, we have been providing…” on a homepage. Put this on an About page.

A long mission statement. Values and vision statements are for internal strategy documents, not customer-facing websites. Cut it.

More than one hero message. Many homepages cycle through multiple messages in a rotating banner (“We offer quality,” “We offer reliability,” “We offer value”). Research consistently shows that rotating banners perform worse than a single, clear message. Pick the most important thing and say it once, well.

Stock photos of handshakes or generic offices. These communicate nothing and undermine authenticity. Photos of your real team, your real work, and your real environment build more trust even if they’re lower quality.

Too many menu items. A navigation menu with eight to ten items means a visitor has to read all of them to decide where to go. Five items maximum — home, services, about, contact, and one other if genuinely necessary.

The homepage test

After any changes to your homepage, do this test: show the homepage to someone who doesn’t know your business. Give them three seconds to look at it. Then cover the screen and ask:

1. What does this business do?
2. Where do they operate?
3. What would you do next if you needed this service?

If they can’t answer all three quickly and confidently, your homepage is not doing its job.

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At mybitness, we write and design every homepage with this test in mind — clear, fast, and built to generate the right enquiries for your business.

Get a free review of your current homepage →