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Give your homepage one question per section

A homepage built as one heading per section lets visitors who only scan follow the argument: who it is for, why it matters, why you over the alternative, why trust you, what to do next. Scanners fixate mostly on headings, and 71.6% of surveyed screen reader users turn to them first to find information. Plausible's reordered homepage coincided with an 84% rise in trial signups, without an A/B test.

Evidence C, limited evidenceStrong when it fits

Stage
Stage 2. Users, no retention signalDo the first users get value, and do they come back?
Category
Positioning
Time
1 to 2 daysAwiser's estimate of the active work
Cash
No cash
Live calls
Live calls optional
First result
Within weeks
Risk
LowA day or two of rewriting. The risk is judging the change on a few days of signup numbers.
Needs
Your one-liner and the alternatives your buyers use todayProof you can show: a customer, a number, a demoThree to five people from your target audience to read the page

When does it fit?

  • Visitors arrive without knowing your brand: Nielsen Norman Group says not to assume they do, and to state what the company does in the tagline.[1]
  • Your page is long prose: Nielsen Norman Group found most users read very little of a wall of text and scan headings and subheadings instead.[2]

When should you skip it?

  • You want an SEO gain from heading order: Google says it does not matter for Search, only for screen readers.[8]

How do you run it?

  1. Write the argument as headings

    Who it is for, why it matters, why this over what they use today, why trust you, what to do next. One heading per section.

  2. One H1, then H2s

    One H1 for the page and an H2 for each section, without skipping levels.

  3. Say what you do at the top

    A tagline that states plainly what the product does, for visitors who do not know you.

  4. Move scannable content up

    Examples, features and proof before long prose.

  5. Name buttons and menu items plainly

    Buttons say what happens, such as "Start free trial"; menu items name destinations with the key word first.

  6. Read the headings alone

    If the headings do not make the case on their own, rewrite them.

  7. Test with your audience

    Ask three to five target users what the product is, who it is for and what they would do next. Add one outsider to catch jargon.

What usually happens?

  • Headings carry the scan: in Nielsen Norman Group's eyetracking, the layer-cake pattern of fixations on headings was by far the most effective way to scan, short of reading every word.[2]
  • Screen reader users rely on them: in WebAIM's survey of 1,539 screen reader users, 71.6% turn to the headings first to find information on a long page, and 88.8% find heading levels useful.[5]
  • The first seconds decide: Nielsen Norman Group's reading of dwell-time data calls the first 10 seconds critical, with the leave curve flattening after about 30 seconds.[4]

Who has done it, and what happened?

Each case is one team's own report: what happened to them, not a typical result.

  • Plausible Analytics, an established web analytics company2026, Positive result

    Moved the feature grid right after the hero, cut the prose from six sections to three, and renamed buttons, with no visual redesign.

    Plausible reports that trial signups from non-logged-in visitors rose 84% from January to April, while traffic rose about 2%.[10]

    No A/B test, and the company says it cannot prove the whole lift came from the homepage. An established brand, not an early startup.

  • Matt Mazur, founder of Preceden2021, Mixed result

    Redesigned the homepage so every visitor sees the kind of timelines the product makes before signing up.

    Matt Mazur reports that the homepage-to-signup rate dropped while signups became higher quality.[11]

    No numbers for either change, and a signup spike the next day turned out to be largely bots.

What does the evidence say against it?

  • No controlled test of homepage structure with published numbers was found; the cases are before-and-after comparisons.
  • Testing only on outsiders misleads: Lyssna, which sells such tests, calls recruiting from the target audience critical for landing pages.[9]

How do you read the result?

What to count
What target readers name as the user and the next step, then the visitor-to-signup rate and signup quality
When to read it
Right after the reader tests, then after a month of traffic
How to decide
Keep the structure if target readers name the user and the next step without help. Judge it on signup quality as well as rate: after the Preceden redesign, the rate fell while quality rose.[11]

What goes wrong?

  • Questions as menu labels: Nielsen Norman Group advises plain terms with the key words first.[3]
  • Vague buttons: Nielsen Norman Group wants calls to action specific, and Plausible changed "Get started" to "Start free trial".[1][10]
  • Skipping heading levels: the Web Accessibility Initiative's tutorial says it can be confusing and should be avoided where possible, and MDN recommends a single top-level heading.[6][7]
  • Trusting the first days' numbers: Matt Mazur found that a signup spike after the redesign was largely bots.[11]

How was it graded?

Evidence
C. Limited evidenceThe heading mechanics are well supported by web accessibility guidance, MDN, a large screen reader survey and eyetracking, but evidence that this structure improves conversion rests on one case without an A/B test and one mixed case without numbers.
Verdict
Strong when it fitsWorth a day when visitors arrive cold and your page is long prose. Test it with target readers, and judge it on signup quality as well as rate.

How the grades and verdicts are decided

Sources

  1. 1
    Homepage Design: 5 Fundamental Principles (opens in a new tab)Nielsen Norman Group, Huei-Hsin Wang. March 15, 2024. Method.
    Do not assume visitors to your site know your brand.
    Include a tagline that explicitly conveys what your site or company does.
    Link labels and calls to action should be specific and have high information scent
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  2. 2
    Text Scanning Patterns: Eyetracking Evidence (opens in a new tab)Nielsen Norman Group, Kara Pernice. August 25, 2019. Analysis.
    Know that most users will read very little from a wall of text; support them by chunking your content into sections and bulleted lists, by using meaningful subheadings, and by special visual styling for keywords.
    The layer-cake scanning pattern consists of fixations placed mostly on the page's headings and subheadings.
    Aside from reading almost every word, the layer-cake pattern is by far the most effective way in which users can scan pages.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  3. 3
    Menu-Design Checklist: 17 UX Guidelines (opens in a new tab)Nielsen Norman Group, Page Laubheimer. June 7, 2024. Method.
    Stick to terminology that clearly describes your content, features, or resources.
    You can reduce the amount of time users need to spend reading menus by left-justifying vertical menus and by front-loading key terms
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  4. 4
    How Long Do Users Stay on Web Pages? (opens in a new tab)Nielsen Norman Group, Jakob Nielsen. September 11, 2011. Analysis.
    It's clear from the chart that the first 10 seconds of the page visit are critical for users' decision to stay or leave.
    Only after people have stayed on a page for about 30 seconds does the curve become relatively flat.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  5. 5
    Screen Reader User Survey #10 Results (opens in a new tab)WebAIM. February 22, 2024. Study.
    In December 2023 and January 2024, WebAIM surveyed preferences of screen reader users. ... We received 1539 valid responses.
    Navigate through the headings on the page 1082 71.6%
    The reported usefulness of heading levels for navigation has increased over time, and 88.8% of respondents find them very or somewhat useful.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  6. 6
    Headings (W3C WAI Page Structure tutorial, source file) (opens in a new tab)W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. Undated. Platform rules.
    Skipping heading ranks can be confusing and should be avoided where possible
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  7. 7
    <h1>-<h6>: The HTML Section Heading elements (opens in a new tab)MDN Web Docs. Undated. Platform rules.
    Prefer using only one <h1> per page and nest headings without skipping levels.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  8. 8
    Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Starter Guide (opens in a new tab)Google Search Central. Undated. Platform rules.
    Having your headings in semantic order is fantastic for screen readers, but from Google Search perspective, it doesn't matter if you're using them out of order.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  9. 9
    Five second testing guide: Definition & key considerations (opens in a new tab)Lyssna. August 28, 2023. Method, from a seller of what it measures.
    Pro tip: For landing pages and marketing materials, recruiting from your target audience is critical.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  10. 10
    How simplifying our homepage helped increase trial signups by 84% (opens in a new tab)Plausible Analytics, Marko Saric. May 12, 2026. Founder report.
    "Get started" became "Start free trial." "Live demo" became "View live demo."
    Looking only at non-logged-in visitors, trial signups increased 84% from January to April, while traffic increased by only about 2%.
    Read on October 20, 2026.
  11. 11
    Friday Updates: New Homepage, Focusing on Professionals, Data Intake Form, Acquisitions Anonymous, Startup (opens in a new tab)mattmazur.com, Matt Mazur. August 13, 2021. Founder report.
    The tradeoff is that the homepage to sign up conversion rate winds up dropping, but I'm alright with that because new sign ups are a lot higher quality now and I'm not wasting the time of people that Preceden isn't a good fit for.
    after digging in it turned out that a large % of the sign ups were bots.
    Read on October 20, 2026.

Sources last checked on October 20, 2026. First published on October 20, 2026.

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