Homepage Mistakes That Are Quietly Repelling Your Best Clients

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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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Episode Transcript

Carrie Saunders (00:00):
Your homepage is often the first impression
your business makes.
Most homepages are quietlyrepelling the people you want to
work with.
In today's episode, I'm walkingyou through the most common
homepage mistakes I see, even onbeautiful modern websites, and
how to fix them.
We'll cover design, copy, andstrategy because it's not about

(00:21):
looking good.
It's about getting action onyour website.
And at the end, I'll give you asimple task you can run today
to see if your homepage ishelping or hurting your
conversions.
So stick with me to the end.
You might think your problem isnot enough traffic, and that's
very common.
But if your homepage isn'tconverting the traffic you
already have, you're missing thereal fix on your website.

(00:44):
So let's dive in.
Struggling to turn websitetraffic into real sales, you're
not alone and you don't have tofigure it out all yourself.
Welcome to Smarter OnlineBusiness, the podcast for course
creators, coaches, ande-commerce entrepreneurs who
want their websites to convertvisitors into buyers without the
tech overwhelm.
I'm your host, Carrie Saunders,a website strategist and

(01:05):
conversion expert with over 20years of experience.
Each episode delivers simple,proven strategies to help you
generate more revenue and makeyour website your smartest sales
tool.
Welcome back to the show.
Today we're talking about howdo we fix that homepage, what
could be wrong, and what do wedo about it?
And your website homepage hasabout three to five seconds to

(01:26):
work.
That's it.
Sometimes people argue it's athree or less, really.
And think about it.
When someone lands on yourwebsite, they're deciding within
seconds if you are for them.
Their brain is asking themsubconsciously, am I in the
right place?
Do they solve my problem?
What's next?
Where do I go next?

(01:46):
If your homepage doesn't answerthese three things fast, you're
going to lose them, especiallyif you don't answer at least two
of these three.
And that leads us to mistakenumber one, which is what I find
very often.
Big, clever, or confusingheadlines and language.
Cute copy isn't clear.

(02:08):
It isn't great copy.
If your main headline couldapply to 100 over their
businesses, it's not helpingyou.
It's hurting you.
It's making you sound toogeneric.
So I'll give you an easyheadline fix in just a bit, but
first let's talk about mistakenumber two, because it's a
design trap that I find a lot ofpeople fall into.
And that is overwhelming layoutor no clear to call to action.

(02:32):
Visitors should instantly knowwhere to go next, whether it's
to book a call, to get yourfreebie, 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 becausethey're confused.
It's like walking through amall and you are looking at the

(02:54):
windows.
And if things look reallycluttered and crazy inside,
you're probably not going tocome in.
But if it's one of thosestorefronts that has clear who
they're about, you can tell bythe style of clothes.
Let's say they're clothingstores, you can tell by the
style of clothes if they're foryou and if they're your style,

(03:14):
versus having everything in it,you're probably going to be more
likely to stop when it's veryclear what they sell versus if
they have all kinds of clothesand toys and like all the
things.
Then you're not gonna be sureexactly what it's for.
So keep this in mind.
Your home page isn't foreverything.
This is a really easy trap tofall on.
It's for directing action.

(03:36):
So think about that.
What do they want to do next?
What do you want them to donext?
So one of the easy fixes thatyou can do is a headline fix.
So use this simple formula.
I help who do what so they canget a specific result.
So for example, helping coursecreators build high converting

(03:58):
websites without tech overwhelm.
That could be a really greatheadline for my course creator
stack of my business.
For e-commerce, I could dohelping e-commerce owners build
high converting websites withouttech overwhelm.
I could do the same thing, justswitch out e-commerce in there.
I could change the flavor atthe end as well if I'd like, but
that's kind of a quick and easyway to do it.

(04:20):
So let me repeat again.
And Mac wanted to talk on thepodcast, but you probably can
hear.
So the formula is I help who dowhat so they can, and then
what's the result?
What are they going to get fromthat?
So then the next mistake I wantto talk about is trust signals
are missing or are buried.
They're hard to find.

(04:41):
So even if your copy is solidand they know exactly what you
do, who you serve, and what youwill, what the results they will
get.
And let's say this design isclean too.
But if you're not showingsomeone why they should trust
you, they're going to hesitate.
We are in a trust void rightnow in the world, and we likely

(05:03):
will be in that for a while, ifnot for eternity.
And this is, you know, you'renot seeing somebody in person.
This is your website.
So you need to do an even moreeffort to build trust here.
So some missing elements I seemany times are testimonials.
Sometimes I see missing clientlogos when those are appropriate
to have as seen on or pressmentions are also great for

(05:27):
trust, building trust.
Um, trust badges or securecheckout.
These are all pretty easythings that you can sprinkle in.
And I would have a variety ofthings in there.
And whenever you're doingtestimonials too, have a variety
of testimonial styles.
So from different types ofpeople, kind of people who word
things a bit differently, sothat you can hopefully grab one

(05:49):
of those that will resonate witha person currently reading,
because we don't always allrelate to everybody that we're
reading their words from.
So make sure you mix up thestyle of writing to that you're
presenting in your testimonials.
In the bonus tip coming up, I'mgoing to share a smart way to
borrow trust, even if you'renewer or you don't have a ton of

(06:10):
testimonials yet.
So if you're in that boat,please don't worry.
We can figure out other ways tobuild trust, even if you don't
have too many testimonials yet.
So then if you're realizing, ohdear, my homepage may be
costing me leads, that's allright.
We're going to be able to fixthis.
So most websites look fine, butdon't actually convert.
And that's unfortunately prettynormal.

(06:32):
And that's why I created theconverting website course.
It's a step-by-step course tohelp you design a homepage and a
full site that leads visitorsto take action with clarity and
confidence.
And it actually also helpsthose who already have an
established website who haven'tdone the foundations and the
thought whenever they wereputting it together or giving

(06:54):
the information to a webdeveloper to put it together for
them.
So it helps those who are brandnew to creating a website as
well as those who already havean established website.
We walk through structure,copy, trust elements, and more
so you can build a great websitethat finally converts and
brings in your leads for you.
So you can check that out atsmarteronlinebusiness.com

(07:17):
forward slash TCW if you'reinterested in that.
Again, that's SmarterOnlineBusiness.com forward slash TCW.
So let's now jump into thatbonus that I promised you in the
beginning of this episode.
It was a three-minute home testyou can run today.
This is going to help youassess whether you need to make
some changes to your website.

(07:39):
So I want you to pull up yourhomepage on your phone.
And without scrolling, can youanswer these questions?
Who is this website for?
What problem do they solve?
What problem does your websitesolve?
And then what's the next step?
What's the next action thatyou're supposed to take on the
website?
So if you can't answer allthree, your clients probably

(08:01):
can't either.
And what you can also do is ifthis is hard for you to do on
your own, have a friend, have abusiness friend do the same
thing and have them answer thosequestions to you and see if
they tell you what you expect.
So when they or you can'tanswer all three, that is a hint
that we need to be adjustingyour website and making sure it
can convert better.

(08:22):
And then that last tip that Ipromise, even if you don't have
a long track record yet, sayyou're newer, say you're brand
new, you can borrow trust withsimple things like showcasing
partnerships, certifications, oreven a warm founder photo with
a personal message.
That is a great ethical way toborrow trust when you don't have

(08:42):
a whole lot of testimonialsyet.
That's all we have for thisweek's episode, a Smarter Online
Business Podcast.
I hope you thoroughly enjoyedit and I hope you have some
great action items now to takeon your homepage and on your
website to make it convertbetter so that you can turn
those leads you already haveinto potential buyers and warmer
leads.

(09:03):
And we love it if you'd rateand review us on Apple Podcasts.
That really helps get our showname out there even more to help
more business owners just likeyou.
And we will see you next week.