Hiring a homepage copywriter: what to expect

Key takeaways

A homepage copywriter turns what you know about your customers into words that make visitors act. To get good work, give them customer reviews, common questions, sales call notes, your best customers' profiles and your main action. Expect research, a draft hero and sections, and revisions; judge drafts with the plain-text test, not by whether you like the tone.

• Give them reviews, questions, call notes and your goal.
• Expect research, a structured draft and revisions.
• Judge drafts with strangers, not by taste.
• Ask how they will measure success.

When is a homepage copywriter worth hiring?

A homepage copywriter is worth hiring when the plain-text test shows strangers cannot say what you do, when you find it hard to describe your business simply, or when nobody has time to research and write properly. Copy is often the cheapest homepage fix with the biggest effect.

• Why your homepage is not converting visitors into customers
• Fix the words or the design? Where homepage problems sit

What does a copywriter need from you?

Good copy depends on good inputs.

• 20 to 50 customer reviews and testimonials.
• The questions customers ask before buying.
• Notes or recordings of sales calls, with consent.
• Your best customers' profiles and why they chose you.
• Your homepage goal and main action.
• Any rules on claims for your sector.

• Use your customers' own words on your homepage
• Give your homepage one conversion goal

What should they deliver?

Expect a short research summary, a message hierarchy, then a draft of the hero, trust line, services, process, proof and calls to action, laid out in the order they will appear. One or two rounds of revisions are normal. Ask for the copy in a document, not only inside a design.

• Homepage message hierarchy: one main point, three supports
• Homepage copywriting: a word budget for each section

How do you judge a draft?

Use the plain-text test with someone outside the business and ask what you do, for whom, where and what to do next. Check every claim can be backed up. Resist judging on whether it sounds like you would say it; it should sound like your customers would.

• Homepage conversion checklist: 20 checks
• How to give website design feedback that gets results

What questions should you ask before hiring?

Ask for homepage examples with the brief and result, how they research, what they need from you, how many revisions are included, who owns the copy afterwards and how they suggest measuring success. Be cautious of anyone who writes without asking about your customers.

• Fix your homepage yourself or hire help?

What does this look like in practice?

A pattern we see: a copywriter is hired with only a link to the website, writes polished generic copy and the owner is disappointed. The same writer, given reviews and three sales call recordings, produces a homepage that sounds like the customers and gets more clicks.

• See client work
• Website Design & Development for UK businesses

Copywriter hiring checklist

• Gather reviews, questions and call notes first.
• Write down your homepage goal.
• Ask for examples with briefs and results.
• Agree revisions and ownership in writing.
• Judge drafts with the plain-text test.
• Measure results over four to eight weeks.

• Fix your homepage yourself or hire help?
• Brief a designer to fix your homepage

Next step

Before contacting any copywriter, collect your last 30 reviews and the ten questions customers ask most. That pack is worth more than any brief template.