4 min read#headlines#website-copy#homepage

Headlines That Say What You Do

Plain formulas and before-and-after examples for homepage and page headlines that tell visitors what you offer, where, and for whom, without hype.

Field note: your headline is the first sentence a stranger reads, and it has about as long as a glance. If it does not say what you do, most readers will not scroll to find out. The good news is that a plain headline is easier to write than a clever one, and it works better.

What a headline has to do

A headline has one job: to tell the right person they are in the right place. That means saying what you offer, and ideally where and for whom. Everything else, the personality, the story, the humor, can live in the lines beneath it.

A useful test is to cover everything except the headline and ask a friend what the business does. If they cannot tell, rewrite.

Three simple formulas

Formula one: what you do plus where. “Family bakery in Example Town.” Formula two: what you do plus for whom. “Bookkeeping for small restaurants.” Formula three: what you do plus the main benefit, stated plainly. “Plumbing repairs, usually the same day.” Notice that none of them uses a superlative or a slogan.

Pick the formula that fits your business best. For a local shop, the first is usually enough. For a service that serves a particular kind of customer, the second does more.

Avoid the empty words

Words like quality, solutions, passion and excellence appear on thousands of sites and tell the reader nothing. They are not wrong, they are just invisible. Replace them with something you could prove: a service, a neighborhood, a specific type of customer, a clear promise you can keep.

Be careful with promises, too. A headline that states a result you cannot control creates a problem. Say what you do, not what will definitely happen.

Sub-headings and page headlines

The same idea applies to every page. A services page headline should name the services. A contact page should say how to reach you. Each page headline should tell a visitor, in a few words, what they will find below it.

An example

This is an invented before and after, shown only as wording. Example Accounting rewrites its headline.

Before: “Excellence in every number, solutions for your future.”

After: “Bookkeeping and tax help for small businesses in Example Town.”

The second headline tells a visitor immediately whether this firm is for them.

Testing a headline on real people

Once you have a draft, test it on three people who do not know your business. Show it for a few seconds, then ask what they think you sell and whether they would keep reading. Listen for words they use, because those are often better than yours. If two of the three describe your work correctly, the headline is doing its job. If they guess wrong, the fix is nearly always to be more specific, not more creative.

Headlines on your other pages

Carry the same plainness through the rest of the site. A page about repairs should be headed “Repairs”, not “How we keep you moving”. Visitors who arrive from a search result expect the heading to match what they typed, and a match reassures them they clicked the right link.

Common mistakes

  • Opening with a slogan that could belong to any company.
  • Filling the headline with adjectives instead of facts.
  • Promising results you cannot control.
  • Making the headline so long it turns into a paragraph.
  • Using the same headline on every page.

Try this today

  1. Cover everything except your homepage headline and ask someone what you do.
  2. Rewrite it using one of the three formulas above.
  3. Check that each of your other pages has a headline naming its subject.

Field notes

  • A headline tells the right person they have arrived at the right place.
  • Say what you do, plus where or for whom.
  • Replace empty adjectives with facts you could prove.
  • Do not promise results you cannot control.
  • Every page needs its own plain headline.

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