When you’re creating your website, there’s a lot that goes into it. But, the first thing you absolutely have to nail is your home page headline, and here’s why. People today are spending 2.6 seconds deciding whether or not to stay on a website online. This means, in that time they have to be able to see very clearly what you do, who you do it for, and how you can help them in order to keep them on your site. 

There are three parts to creating an impactful header 1) Who are you serving 2) What is the problem you’re solving and 3) Why should they hire you? If these things aren’t clearly stated on your site, people won’t stay and you could be losing out on so much revenue simply because your message isn’t clear. You could be the absolute perfect fit for them, but if they don’t know it, they’ll be gone.

Who is your ideal client?

Let’s break these down a little bit more, and address them one by one. First of all, who are the primary clientele you serve? If you know who they are, that’s the first step! If you are still struggling to discover who you want to serve, spend a little bit of time coming up with an ideal client avatar for your business. Let’s say you’re a financial planner who helps women who are retiring or close to retiring, but don’t know how to invest money, or what to do with their finances from here on out. This will be a very specific age range – somewhere in the 55-65 range, and will help narrow down the rest of the process. Obviously there is much more to age range with an ideal client, but it gives us a starting point here!

What problem are you solving?

Using the example above, we have a few things that stand out. 1) The client is about to retire 2) They feel out of control with their finances 3) They don’t know what step they should take. This is a really great example of how this client is feeling, and the emotional problem we can help them with – they feel out of control. When coming up with your client’s problem think beyond just “they don’t have a car” or “they need a haircut”, but why do they need a car, and what will happen if they don’t get it. We want to be speaking to their emotional needs, rather than JUST their physical. People buy based on emotion (even if they don’t like to admit it!) 

Why should they hire you?

Now onto step three. This is where it can all come together for your headline. What will happen in their life if you take that pain point they are feeling and walk them through the process to solve it? Their lives will be better – so much better, in fact, that they’re willing to hire you! Again, using the example above with the financial planner, we know that the client would feel in control, know what to do, and be able to enjoy her retirement knowing she’ll be taken care of. This is where we bring it together in an impactful way, so they feel a sigh of relief reading your site, and saying “I need that!”

So how do we tie this all together? Let’s take these three steps now, and come up with something that we could put on a site to speak to this client. First of all, we know it’s women, we know they feel out of control, and we want to empower them to take control. We could do something like this “Empowering women to take control of their finances”. If we have room, we could add a tagline underneath that speaks to the retirement piece, and it could be something like this “Enjoy your retirement with financial peace of mind”. This way we’re letting them know they’ll be in control, they’ll have peace, and enjoy their retirement! That sounds like an amazing life right there!

Like I mentioned at the beginning of the article, crafting an impactful headliner is so critical to the success of your online presence! Not only does it give people the information they need as soon as they visit, but then you use that headliner to create so many marketing pieces to speak specifically to that client and how you solve their problems. If you don’t have clear messaging, you’ll be spinning your wheels trying to get clients, but when your message is clear, you’ll know what to say and when to say it so you can attract your ideal clients and make more money now.

-Susie

If you’d like me to help you out with crafting an impactful headliner for your website, click here to book a call!