Redline guides · October 2026

Homepage headline: a slogan, or what you sell?

Your headline is where a stranger finds out what you do, or doesn’t. When Redline, an AI, read 265 business homepages, it noted on 103 of them a slogan, a greeting or a values line where the page should say what the business sells. Here are real lines it rewrote, and a simple way to write yours.

39%

of the homepages Redline read (103 of 265) had a slogan, greeting or values line where it should say what is sold, in its reading.

After a “Welcome to…” or a motto, a stranger may have to keep reading to learn what the business does. Where the numbers come from.

Real lines, and Redline’s rewrites

A real line Redline read (a line on the first screen), business not named

YOUR TRUSTED ROOFING CONTRACTOR

Redline’s rewrite

Roof replacement and repair from a locally owned roofer

A real line Redline read (a greeting; name and city replaced), business not named

Welcome to [practice name]

Redline’s rewrite

Eye exams, glasses and contacts for the whole family in [city]

A real line Redline read (a line on the page), business not named

Committed to providing you with a wide range of services.

Redline’s rewrite

SEO, paid ads, websites, social media and more, all from one local team.

How to write yours

Say what you sell, in your customer’s words. “Roof repair and replacement”, not “roofing solutions”.
Add who it’s for or where you work. For a local business, the town or area tells a visitor at once whether you serve them.
Add one true, specific reason, if it fits. Years in business, same-day visits, a stated price: only what you can back up, never “best” or “premier” on its own.
Move the slogan down. If you like your motto, keep it as a smaller line under the headline, not in place of it.
Check it with a stranger’s eyes. Cover everything but the headline. Would someone who has never heard of you know what you sell?

Example we wrote: an invented dental office

Where every smile tells a story

After

Family dentist in [your town]. New patients welcome; book online or call.

Questions

Should my homepage headline be my slogan?

Usually not on its own. A slogan only means something once a visitor knows what you do. Put what you sell, and for whom or where, in the headline, and keep the slogan for a smaller line if you like it.

What should a small business homepage headline say?

What you sell, who it’s for or where you work, and if there’s room one reason to pick you that is true and specific, like years in business or same-day service.

How long should a homepage headline be?

Short enough to read at a glance. The first-screen headlines Redline suggested for these homepages were a median of 9 words.

Is “Welcome to [business name]” a good headline?

It tells a visitor where they are, not what you do. Redline rewrote a “Welcome…” line on 16 of the 265 homepages it read, most often into a line that says what the business does.

Where the numbers come from

Who read the pages. Redline, an AI, read the text of 265 homepages once each, from October 2 to 9, 2026, and listed the top three problems it saw on each, and up to five lines it would rewrite. These are its readings of the words, not measurements of what visitors did.
Not a random sample. Most are small and local businesses we chose to email about Redline, many in the Tulsa area and some picked because their first screens looked weak; the rest were submitted on our site, through our ads, or by us. So the numbers don’t say how common each problem is among all businesses.
The counts likely miss some. A keyword program sorted Redline’s notes into problem types. Checked by reading 20 teardowns chosen at random, it was right on 43 of the 44 problems it flagged and caught 43 of the 61 we found by reading. So the counts more likely miss some than add to them.
“Welcome…” lines and lengths. The “Welcome…” count is of the lines Redline chose to rewrite, so there may be more. The headline length is the median of Redline’s own suggested headlines, not a rule.
What we left out. Redline reads a page’s text, not its images or anything a script loads. Notes our own claim checker flagged as saying more than a page’s text can show were removed before counting.
The examples. Lines marked real are from these homepages, with Redline’s rewrite; we don’t name the business, and we replace a name or city with words in brackets. Lines marked “Example we wrote” are ours.

See also what these problems looked like by industry: home service homepages, health practice homepages, and Tulsa business homepages.

Get the same read of your homepage

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