Most homepages are written for the wrong reader

Read enough studio and startup homepages and you notice they are addressed to the wrong audience. The language is calibrated for people in the same industry — the ones who will judge the craft, recognise the references, and possibly hire you one day. The person actually reading it is trying to work out whether you can solve a specific problem before their next meeting.

Two readers, one page

The peer reader rewards nuance, restraint and ambition. The buying reader rewards specificity. They want to know what you do, who you have done it for, what it costs, and how long it takes. A homepage written for the first reader opens with a statement of philosophy. A homepage written for the second opens with a claim that can be checked.

You can serve both, but only in that order. Specificity first, position second. The reverse almost never survives contact with someone in a hurry.

The scroll is not the journey

Most visitors do not read down the page. They scan for the answer to one question and leave when they cannot find it. That is why sections written as a narrative arc so often underperform. Each block has to stand alone and pay for the space it occupies.

A useful exercise: take any section and ask what a reader would lose if it were deleted. If the answer is atmosphere, it is probably a paragraph in a section that should have been a sentence.

Write it for the sceptic

The most valuable reader is the one who half-believes you. They are close enough to buy and cautious enough to look for the gap. Write the page so that person finds proof where they expect it — a name, a number, a timeline, a piece of work — and the enthusiasts will be convinced anyway.