How to find out whether anybody understands your website

You cannot judge your own message, because you already know the answer. These four tests borrow somebody else's eyes for ten minutes and tell you more than a month of guessing.

Have the agents build my site

Test message clarity with people who do not know your business: a five second glance test, a read-it-back test, a stranger-on-the-phone test, and a competitor mix-up test. If a stranger cannot say what you do and who for, or if your description would fit three competitors equally well, the message is the problem, not the traffic.

Why you are the worst judge of your own message

You know what your business does. That knowledge cannot be switched off, so when you read your own homepage, the missing pieces are filled in automatically by your own head. The page reads as clear because you are not really reading it.

This is why owners are so often surprised. The message was obvious to everybody in the room where it was written, and to nobody outside it. The only way to find out is to hand the page to somebody who has none of your context.

Test one: the five second glance

Show somebody the top of your page on a phone for five seconds, then hide it. Ask what the business does, who it serves, and whether it would be relevant to them.

A pass means they answer without hedging. A fail is any of the following: a long pause, a question back to you, or an answer so general it could describe half your industry. Run it with three or four people, because one confused person might simply be distracted.

Test two: read it back in your own words

Let somebody read the whole page at their own pace, then ask them to describe your business as if recommending it to a friend. What you are listening for is whether your actual wording survived, or whether they replaced it with something simpler.

If they simplify your language, use their version. They have just done your copywriting for free, and their words are the ones your customers use when searching, which matters for being found as well as for being understood.

Test three: the competitor mix-up

Take your description of yourself and put it next to two competitors' descriptions with the names removed. Ask somebody which one is which, or simply whether they can tell them apart at all.

Most businesses fail this badly, and it is the most useful failure on this page. If your positioning would fit your competitors equally well, then from the visitor's point of view you are interchangeable, and interchangeable businesses compete only on price.

  • Remove the names and logos before showing them.
  • Use your real competitors, not the ones you wish you competed with.
  • Ask which sounds most relevant to a specific situation, not which sounds best.
  • If nobody can tell them apart, the fix is specificity, not better adjectives.

Test four: explain it to somebody on the phone

Call somebody who does not know your work and describe the business out loud in two sentences. Notice what you actually say when you cannot hide behind design or layout.

The spoken version is almost always clearer than the written one. People explain themselves plainly when speaking and formally when typing. Write down what you said and compare it with your homepage. The homepage usually loses.

What to do with a failed test

Resist the temptation to add. A failed clarity test almost never means the page needs more words. It means the important words are buried under general ones.

Write a single sentence naming what you do, who for, and where. Put it at the very top. Then remove whatever it replaced, and anything that repeats it in fancier language. Retest with new people. Two rounds of this is usually enough.

  • Lead with the plain sentence, not the slogan.
  • Use the words your customers used in the read-back test.
  • Cut any sentence that would still be true if a competitor published it.
  • Retest with people who have not seen the earlier version.

How Licheo approaches the message

The copywriter agent starts from the question a customer would actually type or ask aloud, then writes the answer in the same register, so the page sounds like the spoken explanation rather than the formal one.

Specificity is the point of it. A page that could describe any competitor gives a reader nothing to choose between, and gives an AI assistant nothing concrete to quote when somebody asks for a recommendation.

Part of a larger guide

This page is one part of Websites that make money. The other parts:

Questions people ask

How do I know if my website message is clear?
Ask somebody who does not know your business to look at the top of the page for five seconds, then say what you do and who for. If they hesitate, or answer so generally it could fit your competitors, the message is the problem.
How many people do I need to test with?
Three or four is enough to see a pattern. Clarity problems are not subtle: when a message fails, it fails with nearly everybody, and you will hear the same hesitation repeated.
What if my business genuinely does many things?
Lead with the thing you most want more of, then link to the rest. A page trying to introduce everything at once introduces nothing. Visitors arriving from search usually land on a specific service page anyway.
Should I use my industry's terminology?
Use the words your customers use, which are often not the words your industry uses. If the read-back test shows people translating your terminology into something simpler, adopt their version, since that is also what they type into a search box.
My message tests fine but I still get no enquiries. What now?
Then the weak link is elsewhere: usually missing proof, an awkward contact path, or slow replies once an enquiry arrives. Work through the chain in order rather than rewriting a message that has already passed.

Say what you do, plainly

The agents write in the words your customers actually use, then place them where a stranger will see them within seconds.

Have the agents build my site Read the full revenue guide