Web Copywriting
How Long Should a Homepage Be?
There is no correct homepage word count. The right length is whatever it takes to answer the questions a first-time visitor arrives with.
Homepage length is one of the most commonly asked questions in web design, and one of the least useful to answer with a number. A homepage for a plumber and a homepage for enterprise software have almost nothing in common, and a word count that suits one will fail the other.
Length Follows the Decision, Not a Rule
The useful question is not how many words your homepage should have. It is how much a first-time visitor needs to know before they will take the next step, and how much of that they can reasonably be expected to already understand.
A local service most people already understand needs very little explanation. The visitor knows what a plumber does; they need to know you cover their area, you can come this week, and you are not going to disappear with a deposit. That is a short page.
A product nobody has heard of needs more. If the visitor cannot picture what your software actually does, no amount of trust-building will help — you have to explain the thing first, which takes length.
A page is too long when it repeats itself, not when it passes a word count.
What Every Homepage Has to Answer
Whatever the length, the same questions come up. If a visitor cannot answer these from your homepage, the page is too short regardless of how many words it has.
- What is this: What the business does, in language someone outside the industry would use.
- Is it for me: Who it is for, and by implication who it is not for.
- Why you: What is different about this option compared to the obvious alternatives.
- Can I trust it: Evidence rather than adjectives — work, results, names, or specifics.
- What now: One clear next step, and a way to reach a person if they are not ready for it.
Why Scrolling Is Not the Enemy
The instinct to keep everything above the fold comes from a time when scrolling was less natural than it is now. People scroll readily when the first screen gives them a reason to.
What actually loses visitors is a first screen that says nothing. A headline like "Solutions That Drive Results" tells a reader nothing about whether they are in the right place, and no amount of content below will rescue a page they have already left.
Earn the scroll with a specific opening line, then take the space you need.
A Practical Way to Decide
- Write down every question a prospect has asked you in the last month before they bought.
- Mark which of those a homepage can reasonably answer and which belong on a deeper page.
- Write the answers plainly, without worrying about length.
- Cut anything that repeats a point already made, and anything that could be said about any competitor.
- What is left is roughly the right length for your homepage.
A homepage that tries to answer everything ends up being read by no one. When a question needs three paragraphs, it belongs on its own page — link to it and keep the homepage moving.
The Short Answer
Most homepages that work fall somewhere between 300 and 1,200 words, but that range is a description of what tends to happen rather than a target to aim for. Write what the visitor needs, cut what repeats, and let the number land where it lands.
If you would rather hand that decision to someone else, our web copywriting service starts from the questions your buyers actually ask and works out the length from there.