Website Messaging Checklist: Headline, Sub-Headline & Copy

Why messaging is worth checking separately

Everything else on a launch checklist — performance, SEO, accessibility — determines whether a visitor can use your page. Messaging determines whether they understand it in the five to ten seconds before they decide to leave. Most founders write their headline last, under launch-day time pressure, and it shows: it either describes the product internally (“the platform for X”) instead of the outcome, or it's clever instead of clear. Both cost the same thing — a visitor who bounces without ever reading your pricing.

The three things a headline actually needs to do

A working homepage headline states, in one sentence, what the product does and who it's for. The sub-headline immediately underneath answers the objection the headline raises — usually “how” or “why is this different.” A visitor who reads only those two lines should be able to tell a friend what your product does. If they can't, no amount of polish further down the page will save the visit.

Common mistakes we see

• Category-first headlines. “The all-in-one workspace for teams” describes a category, not this product. Every competitor's headline is a drop-in replacement for it.
• No sub-headline at all. The headline carries the entire pitch alone, so it either gets vague to cover everything or overloaded trying not to.
• Missing product proof. No screenshot, no product shot, no short demo — just text and a button. Visitors don't trust what they can't see.
• A title tag that doesn't match the headline. The browser tab and search-result title say something generic (“Home” or the company name alone) while the actual value proposition lives only in the page copy — a missed chance to repeat the pitch where Google shows it.
• Copy that's technically correct and practically unreadable. Long, jargon-dense paragraphs that would pass a proofread but lose a skimming visitor by the second sentence.

How to check it yourself

Cover everything below your headline and sub-headline and ask a person outside your team what the product does, in their own words. If they guess the category correctly but can't say what makes it different, the sub-headline isn't doing its job yet. Then check your browser tab: does the title describe the product, or just repeat the brand name? And run a readability pass on your main paragraph — if it takes real effort to parse on a first read, a skimming visitor won't make that effort at all.