The eight-second test

You have eight seconds. A merchant lands on your site, and within eight seconds they should know what you sell, who it's for, and whether it's worth staying. If they don't get it, they leave.

Most homepages fail this test. Not because the copy is bad, but because the copy is trying to do too much. The hero explains features, competes with three CTAs, drops a video, quotes a customer, and then finally says what the product actually does — in the third scroll.

The fix is embarrassingly simple: cut everything until the hero can be read out loud in one breath. Then rebuild from there.

Try it on your own site right now. Read the hero out loud, stopwatch running. If you're still talking at eight seconds, the copy is doing too much.