Homepage Mistakes That Are Quietly Repelling Your Best Clients

Your homepage is often the first impression your business makes. 

But here’s the truth: most homepages are quietly repelling the very people you want to work with. 

In today’s episode, I’m walking you through the most common homepage mistakes I see (even on beautiful, modern websites)... and how to fix them. 

We’ll cover design, copy, and strategy—because it's not about looking good, it's about guiding action. 

And at the end, I’ll give you a simple test you can run today to see if your homepage is helping or hurting your conversions—so stick with me. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Why Homepages Fail
• 1:27 Show Intro And Host Credibility
• 1:58 The 3–5 Second Rule
• 2:38 Mistake 1: Vague Headlines
• 3:00 Mistake 2: Weak Layout And CTAs
• 4:11 The Homepage’s Real Job
• 4:23 A Simple Headline Formula
• 5:09 Mistake 3: Missing Trust Signals
• 7:01 Feeling Stuck And The Course
• 8:07 The Three-Minute Phone Test
• 9:05 Borrowing Trust When You’re New
• 9:26 Wrap Up And Reviews

Transcript

Carrie Saunders: 0:43

Your homepage is often the first impression your business makes. Most homepages are quietly repelling the people you want to work with. In today's episode, I'm walking you through the most common homepage mistakes I see, even on beautiful modern websites, and how to fix them. We'll cover design, copy, and strategy because it's not about looking good. It's about getting action on your website. And at the end, I'll give you a simple task you can run today to see if your homepage is helping or hurting your conversions. So stick with me to the end. You might think your problem is not enough traffic, and that's very common. But if your homepage isn't converting the traffic you already have, you're missing the real fix on your website. So let's dive in. Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. Today we're talking about how do we fix that homepage, what could be wrong, and what do we do about it? And your website homepage has about three to five seconds to work. That's it. Sometimes people argue it's a three or less, really. And think about it. When someone lands on your website, they're deciding within seconds if you are for them. Their brain is asking them subconsciously, am I in the right place? Do they solve my problem? What's next? Where do I go next? If your homepage doesn't answer these three things fast, you're going to lose them, especially if you don't answer at least two of these three. And that leads us to mistake number one, which is what I find very often. Big, clever, or confusing headlines and language. Cute copy isn't clear. It isn't great copy. If your main headline could apply to 100 over their businesses, it's not helping you. It's hurting you. It's making you sound too generic. So I'll give you an easy headline fix in just a bit, but first let's talk about mistake number two, because it's a design trap that I find a lot of people fall into. And that is overwhelming layout or no clear to call to action. Visitors should instantly know where to go next, whether it's to book a call, to get your freebie, or to shop on your website. If there's no button, no path, or too many distractions, people freeze and leave. They leave really fast because they're confused. It's like walking through a mall and you are looking at the windows. And if things look really cluttered and crazy inside, you're probably not going to come in. But if it's one of those storefronts that has clear who they're about, you can tell by the style of clothes. Let's say they're clothing stores, you can tell by the style of clothes if they're for you and if they're your style, versus having everything in it, you're probably going to be more likely to stop when it's very clear what they sell versus if they have all kinds of clothes and toys and like all the things. Then you're not gonna be sure exactly what it's for. So keep this in mind. Your home page isn't for everything. This is a really easy trap to fall on. It's for directing action. So think about that. What do they want to do next? What do you want them to do next? So one of the easy fixes that you can do is a headline fix. So use this simple formula. I help who do what so they can get a specific result. So for example, helping course creators build high converting websites without tech overwhelm. That could be a really great headline for my course creator stack of my business. For e-commerce, I could do helping e-commerce owners build high converting websites without tech overwhelm. I could do the same thing, just switch out e-commerce in there. I could change the flavor at the end as well if I'd like, but that's kind of a quick and easy way to do it. So let me repeat again. And Mac wanted to talk on the podcast, but you probably can hear. So the formula is I help who do what so they can, and then what's the result? What are they going to get from that? So then the next mistake I want to talk about is trust signals are missing or are buried. They're hard to find. So even if your copy is solid and they know exactly what you do, who you serve, and what you will, what the results they will get. And let's say this design is clean too. But if you're not showing someone why they should trust you, they're going to hesitate. We are in a trust void right now in the world, and we likely will be in that for a while, if not for eternity. And this is, you know, you're not seeing somebody in person. This is your website. So you need to do an even more effort to build trust here. So some missing elements I see many times are testimonials. Sometimes I see missing client logos when those are appropriate to have as seen on or press mentions are also great for trust, building trust. Um, trust badges or secure checkout. These are all pretty easy things that you can sprinkle in. And I would have a variety of things in there. And whenever you're doing testimonials too, have a variety of testimonial styles. So from different types of people, kind of people who word things a bit differently, so that you can hopefully grab one of those that will resonate with a person currently reading, because we don't always all relate to everybody that we're reading their words from. So make sure you mix up the style of writing to that you're presenting in your testimonials. In the bonus tip coming up, I'm going to share a smart way to borrow trust, even if you're newer or you don't have a ton of testimonials yet. So if you're in that boat, please don't worry. We can figure out other ways to build trust, even if you don't have too many testimonials yet. So then if you're realizing, oh dear, my homepage may be costing me leads, that's all right. We're going to be able to fix this. So most websites look fine, but don't actually convert. And that's unfortunately pretty normal. And that's why I created the converting website course. It's a step-by-step course to help you design a homepage and a full site that leads visitors to take action with clarity and confidence. And it actually also helps those who already have an established website who haven't done the foundations and the thought whenever they were putting it together or giving the information to a web developer to put it together for them. So it helps those who are brand new to creating a website as well as those who already have an established website. We walk through structure, copy, trust elements, and more so you can build a great website that finally converts and brings in your leads for you. So you can check that out at smarteronlinebusiness.com forward slash TCW if you're interested in that. Again, that's SmarterOnline Business.com forward slash TCW. So let's now jump into that bonus that I promised you in the beginning of this episode. It was a three-minute home test you can run today. This is going to help you assess whether you need to make some changes to your website. So I want you to pull up your homepage on your phone. And without scrolling, can you answer these questions? Who is this website for? What problem do they solve? What problem does your website solve? And then what's the next step? What's the next action that you're supposed to take on the website? So if you can't answer all three, your clients probably can't either. And what you can also do is if this is hard for you to do on your own, have a friend, have a business friend do the same thing and have them answer those questions to you and see if they tell you what you expect. So when they or you can't answer all three, that is a hint that we need to be adjusting your website and making sure it can convert better. And then that last tip that I promise, even if you don't have a long track record yet, say you're newer, say you're brand new, you can borrow trust with simple things like showcasing partnerships, certifications, or even a warm founder photo with a personal message. That is a great ethical way to borrow trust when you don't have a whole lot of testimonials yet. That's all we have for this week's episode, a Smarter Online Business Podcast. I hope you thoroughly enjoyed it and I hope you have some great action items now to take on your homepage and on your website to make it convert better so that you can turn those leads you already have into potential buyers and warmer leads. And we love it if you'd rate and review us on Apple Podcasts. That really helps get our show name out there even more to help more business owners just like you. And we will see you next week.