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Homepage clarity checklist

This is a checklist for the words on your homepage — not the design, not the code. Go through it with your actual page open. Be strict: "sort of" is a no.

The ten checks

1. The first screen says what you do in plain words. If someone read only the largest text on the page, would they know whether you fix furnaces, file taxes, or sell software? A slogan ("Comfort you can trust") doesn't count.
2. It says who you serve. A city, a region, an industry, a kind of person. "Serving the greater Portland area since 1998" does more work than a paragraph of adjectives.
3. There is exactly one primary next step. Call, book, get a quote — one of them should be visually and verbally the main event. Four equal buttons means no decision gets made.
4. A stranger could repeat your offer back. The test isn't whether the copy sounds good — it's whether it transfers. If they can't paraphrase it, it didn't.
5. No unexplained jargon. Industry words are fine if your buyers use them; they're a wall if only your competitors do. "Hydro jetting" is fine for property managers, confusing for homeowners.
6. The words are for the visitor, not the mirror. Count sentences that start with "We" versus "You." A page that's all "We are proud to..." is a speech, not a conversation.
7. Prices, or at least price shape, are findable. You don't need a price list — but "free estimates" or "flat-rate pricing" answers the question every visitor silently asks.
8. Proof is specific. "4.9 stars across 850 reviews" beats "customer-focused excellence" every time, because one is checkable and one is noise.
9. Hours and coverage are stated somewhere obvious. Most after-hours visitors are checking exactly two things: are you open, and do you cover my area. Make both findable in seconds.
10. The page still makes sense out loud. Read it to someone. Anywhere you cringe or add "well, what that means is..." — that's the part a stranger couldn't parse either.

Scoring honestly

Eight or more: your words are doing their job — your growth problems live elsewhere. Five to seven: fixable in an afternoon, and the fixes are word changes, not a redesign. Under five: your marketing is paying to send people to a page that doesn't convert them, and fixing the page is cheaper than buying more traffic.