Your homepage is carrying too much. What belongs on a service page?
Use the homepage to explain the organisation’s overall offer and help people choose a relevant route. Use a service page to answer the detailed suitability, scope, process and evidence questions for one service. The two pages should connect, with enough context at each stage for someone arriving directly from search.
Put the advice into practice
Give your next major prospect a clearer reason to choose you
Plan the content, design and enquiry pathways around the work you want to win.
Discuss your website projectGive the homepage a clear routing job
A homepage often becomes a negotiation between service teams. Each wants its complete offer included, so the page grows while the central message becomes harder to recognise. Deciding the job of the page first makes those content decisions more manageable.
The homepage should quickly establish what the organisation does, who the work suits and why a visitor should investigate further. It can introduce the main service groups, offer a credible piece of supporting evidence and make the next routes visible. It does not need to settle every technical or procurement question.
Think of the homepage as an informed introduction. A useful summary gives someone enough understanding to choose a service, project or contact route. A list of unexplained service names is too little; a full service specification for every team is usually too much.
Allocate the content before shortening it
| Content | Homepage role | Service page role |
|---|---|---|
| Overall proposition | Explain the organisation’s core offer | Connect the particular service to the relevant need |
| Scope and exclusions | Summarise major service groups | Describe inclusions, limits and prerequisites |
| Process | Show the broad way the team works | Explain the engagement stages and required inputs |
| Evidence | Feature selected, varied proof | Use evidence relevant to this service and buyer |
| Next step | Offer clear routes to investigate or enquire | Help a suitable prospect discuss a specific brief |
This is an allocation exercise, rather than a rule against repeating anything. The organisation’s name, service context and a short relevant proof point may belong on both pages. Repeating whole sections adds length without giving either page a distinct purpose.
Plan headings around these jobs. W3C’s page structure guidance explains how headings organise content. A visitor should be able to scan the service page’s headings and understand the questions it answers.
Apply the distinction to a multi-service firm
Imagine a hypothetical advisory firm offering risk reviews, governance support and executive training. Its homepage could introduce the firm’s role, identify the organisations it works with and provide three short service summaries. A relevant project and a concise explanation of its approach can support that introduction.
The risk-review service page then answers a more specific set of questions: what circumstances prompt a review, what the assessment covers, who contributes, what the client receives and how recommendations are discussed. Governance support and training receive their own treatment because they involve different decisions.
A visitor who arrives directly at the risk-review page should still understand which organisation provides it and how to navigate to related work. Do not require them to return to the homepage to discover basic context. Conversely, the homepage need not reproduce the review methodology just to demonstrate that it exists.
Match proof and enquiry questions to the page
A homepage may use a selection of work to demonstrate the breadth of the organisation. A service page needs relevance. An approved example showing the same kind of problem, delivered scope or collaboration is more useful there than an unrelated testimonial chosen only for enthusiastic wording.
The enquiry route should reflect how much the visitor has decided. A general contact option can suit a homepage. A service page can invite the reader to describe the specific requirement, timeframe and constraints. Avoid asking for details the team will not use to assess or route the enquiry.
If your sales team regularly explains the same service distinctions in meetings, capture those explanations in the service page brief. They can reveal missing information that homepage summaries cannot reasonably carry.
Review an overloaded homepage in three passes
First, label each section by purpose: introduction, route, evidence, detailed service answer or next action. Second, move detailed service answers to the appropriate page while retaining a useful summary and descriptive link. Third, check the remaining homepage as a complete story. It should still explain the offer, rather than become a collection of isolated links.
Ask a colleague to describe the organisation after reading only the homepage, then ask them to assess a specific service using its page. If either task depends on a separate verbal explanation, record the missing information. The aim is an appropriate level of detail at each point in the decision, with a connected route between them.
Use this allocation table when planning website content and design. It helps define the pages, copy and approval responsibilities before layouts are developed.
