A home page has ten seconds. Maybe twelve on a good day. In that window a visitor decides whether you are the person they came to find, whether your work belongs in the same room as the work they are trying to put it next to, and whether they are willing to click one more time. Everything else on the site, every gallery and biography and shop page, sits behind that decision.

The work behind most home pages is strong; the page loses the visitor by staying quiet about it. The work is usually fine. The page loses the visitor because it is doing the wrong job.

The two failure modes.

The first failure mode is the hidden offer. The page opens with a slide show of pretty pictures, a poetic tagline, and a logo. The page leaves the visitor guessing what is for sale, who it is for, and what to do next. The artist has assumed that the work speaks for itself. The work does speak. It speaks to people who already know the artist. To a stranger arriving cold, the page is a beautiful locked door.

The second failure mode is forced exploration. The page shows the visitor a menu of twelve things and asks them to choose. Series, classes, commissions, prints, shipping policy, blog, about, contact. Each of those pages probably needs to exist. None of them belongs on the first screen as an equal option. A menu of twelve choices reads like silence; one clear choice reads like an invitation. The visitor leaves.

The first-screen rule.

Here is the test. Open your home page on a phone. Take a screenshot of what fits on the screen before any scrolling. Now hand that screenshot to a friend meeting your work for the first time and ask three questions. What does this person do. Who is it for. What does the page want me to do next.

If your friend can answer all three in under ten seconds, the page is doing its one job. If your friend hesitates on any one of them, the page is failing the only test that matters.

A home page’s job is to orient; done well, it impresses along the way.

An artist’s portfolio site.

Imagine a watercolor painter. The current home page opens with a rotating slideshow of recent paintings, the artist’s name in a serif font, and a tagline that reads something like “Capturing the soul of Texas.” It is lovely. It also fails the three-question test. A visitor is left to wonder whether the paintings are for sale, whether the painter takes commissions, or whether this is a gallery archive of a deceased artist.

The fixed version is small. The first screen now says the painter’s name, one sentence about what she paints and where, one hero image of the strongest piece, and two clear destinations. “See the original paintings.” “Shop the prints and goods.” That is the whole first screen. The slideshow can live on the gallery page. The biography can live on the about page. The home page has done its one job.

A small attorney’s site.

Now imagine a solo criminal-defense attorney in San Antonio. The current home page opens with a courthouse photo, the firm name in capitals, and a paragraph about being “dedicated to aggressive representation.” A visitor in trouble is left to wonder whether the attorney handles their kind of case, whether they take calls, or what to do next at one in the morning.

The fixed version, again, is small. The first screen now says the attorney’s name, one sentence about what kinds of cases the firm handles in plain language (“criminal defense in Bexar County, focused on DWI and felony charges”), one phone number that is also a tap-to-call link on mobile, and one short form for people who would rather type. The courthouse photo can stay. The “aggressive representation” paragraph can leave entirely.

What to fix first.

If your home page fails the three-question test, the fix is one page, and the rest of the site can wait. Fix the first screen. Replace the slideshow with one strong image. Replace the tagline with a sentence a stranger can understand. Replace the menu of twelve choices with two destinations and a phone number. Then watch what changes in the analytics over the next month.

The rest of the site can stay exactly as it is for now. A home page that does its one job will carry a site that needs other work. A home page that answers them, at any level of beauty, keeps the visitor for everything the rest of the site has to say.