If you’ve ever worked on a B2B homepage, you know: it’s one of the most high-stakes, high-pressure parts of marketing.

It’s also one of the most political.

Every team has an opinion. Sales wants conversion. Product wants feature visibility. Leadership wants to see “the big vision.” And somewhere in the middle, marketing is trying to create something clear, compelling, and user-friendly.

So if your homepage project feels unusually complicated – it’s not just you. It’s one of the hardest pieces of marketing to get right.

But it’s also one of the most important. Your homepage is often the first impression you make with potential buyers, partners, candidates, and press. It needs to orient, guide, and resonate – often in just a few seconds.

We recently hosted a live “Roast of B2B Home Pages” with two expert marketers: messaging strategist Diane Wiredu and Fiverr’s VP of Product Marketing, Lee Reshef.

Together, they reviewed real homepages submitted by B2B marketers and surfaced some of the most useful advice we’ve heard on what actually works – and what doesn’t.

Here are six takeaways to help you build (or rebuild) a homepage that converts and connects.

The First Fold Does the Heaviest Lifting

Most homepage visitors won’t read beyond the first few lines – so what you say above the fold matters more than anything else.

That means your headline and subhead need to do more than sound good. They need to:

• Clearly explain what your company does
• Highlight the core value to your audience
• Create a reason to keep scrolling

Too often, this section gets watered down by vague messaging or internal compromise. If your headline reads more like a mission statement than a product proposition, it’s probably not doing its job.

A simple rule of thumb from the roast: your hero section should answer four questions quickly:

1. What do you do?
2. Who is it for?
3. Why should they care?
4. Can they trust you?

As Diane put it:

“If your homepage can’t clearly explain what you do – without fancy metaphors or slideshows – start there.”

If your homepage answers those four, you’re off to a strong start.

Lead with Clarity, Not Creativity

It’s tempting to aim for something clever or aspirational in your copy – but that only works once the basics are in place.

Without clarity, creativity falls flat.

One example from the roast was a homepage that led with the phrase: “Step into the future of sales.” It sounded ambitious, but didn’t actually communicate what the product did.

Was it sales enablement? Prospecting? Analytics? Hard to say.

Instead of starting with big-picture language, focus first on articulating the core value in terms your audience understands. Specificity builds trust. Clarity builds momentum.

Tip: Try the “So what?” test. After each line of copy, ask yourself, “So what?” If the answer isn’t immediately clear or compelling, keep refining.

Your Homepage Can’t (and Shouldn’t) Do Everything

One of the biggest challenges marketers face is trying to make the homepage serve everyone – every buyer, every use case, every feature.

But the most effective homepages take the opposite approach. They prioritize focus and help guide people to the next step.

Fiverr’s homepage is a great example. Over time, their team realized that one homepage couldn’t speak equally to both casual buyers and enterprise customers.

So they built Fiverr Pro as a distinct experience – with its own messaging, visuals, and structure – while keeping the core homepage optimized for broader traffic.

“If you’re trying to talk to everyone, your homepage ends up resonating with no one,” said Lee.

“Once we separated Fiverr Pro for business buyers, conversion went up – because now we could speak directly to their needs, not everyone’s.”

If you serve multiple personas or product lines, your homepage should act as a starting point, not a full explanation. It’s separate from a highly targeted landing page.

Make it easy for different visitors to self-select into more relevant pages, whether that’s via your nav, a solutions dropdown, or well-placed links throughout the page.

Design and Copy Work Together – or Not at All

Even the best copy can’t succeed if it’s buried in a cluttered layout. And great design won’t convert without a strong message.

Too often, pages get overloaded with features, animation, product screenshots, or pop-ups that distract from the core story. On the flip side, some homepages lean too heavily on visuals and don’t provide enough substance to engage.

What works best is alignment between message and design. Clean, intentional layouts that guide the reader, with just enough product imagery to support the story – not overwhelm it.

If you’re showing off your product, make sure those screenshots are relevant and help clarify the value. If you’re using video, avoid making people click to play – use autoplay where appropriate to create a seamless experience.

Test the Page as a Whole, Not in Pieces

A/B testing is a key part of homepage optimization – but it needs to be approached strategically.

Lee shared this reminder during the roast:

“If you optimize every section individually, you might win the headline test or the CTA test – but the page as a whole doesn’t hold together. Test it like a story, not a set of widgets.”

Instead of testing individual elements in isolation, evaluate full versions of the page. Think of the homepage as a narrative: the sequence, pacing, and flow all matter.

Also worth measuring:

• Bounce rate (Are you attracting the right traffic?)
• Scroll depth (Where are users losing interest?)
• Navigation patterns (What are they actually looking for?)

And don’t forget qualitative data. Simple on-page surveys or customer interviews can reveal what analytics alone can’t.

Make Every Word (and Visual) Earn Its Place

Good homepage content is often about what you remove, not just what you add.

A common issue among the pages reviewed in the roast was over-explaining. Multiple value props stacked on top of each other, lists of features without clear benefits, and paragraphs that could have been one sentence.

Instead of trying to say everything, focus on the essentials:

• A clear and specific headline
• A concise explanation of what you offer and why it matters
• Visuals that support (not distract from) the story
• Proof points (logos, quotes, data) to build trust
• Calls to action that are obvious and easy to act on

Then ruthlessly edit. Every line should either clarify, guide, or build confidence. If it doesn’t, cut it.

The Bottom Line

Building a great B2B homepage is part strategy, part storytelling, part negotiation.

It’s where your brand, your product, and your audience meet – often for the very first time. And while it will always be one of the most nuanced and debated projects in your marketing org, it’s also one of the most valuable.

So if you’re currently navigating a homepage refresh, here’s the good news: the complexity is normal. The friction is expected. And with a few smart frameworks and a lot of internal alignment, you can build a homepage that does what it’s supposed to do – welcome visitors, communicate your value, and guide people to the right place.

No need for perfection. Just clarity, focus, and a little empathy – for your users and for yourself.

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