The four questions every website has to answer in seconds

Most people don’t read a website. They scan it, looking for enough reassurance to take the next step — or enough doubt to go back and try someone else. Whatever else your site does, it has to survive that first scan.

We use four questions as the test. If a first-time visitor can’t answer all four within a few seconds, the site isn’t doing its job, however good it looks.

1. Who are you?

Not your mission statement — what you do, who you do it for and where. “Residential plumbing across the North Shore” beats “Excellence in every drop.” The first screen should make it impossible to land on the wrong website without realising it.

2. Why should I trust you?

A visitor comparing options is looking for proof, and they want it without digging. Reviews, credentials, photos of real work and the people behind the business all count — as long as they’re real and easy to find at the moment someone is deciding. Proof tucked away on a page nobody visits might as well not exist.

3. How do you solve my problem?

Describe your services the way your customers describe their problem. People search for “water heater leaking”, not “tank-type and tankless solutions”. When the language matches, a visitor recognises themselves in your page and keeps reading.

4. What should I do next?

Every page needs one obvious next step — call, book, request a quote — and a sensible alternative for people who aren’t ready yet. Too many equally weighted buttons is almost as bad as none. On a phone, that step should be a single, easy tap.

A test you can run today

• Open your homepage on your phone and give yourself five seconds.
• Write down the answer to each question using only what you saw.
• Ask someone who doesn’t know your business to do the same.
• Where your answers differ, you’ve found the first thing to fix.

Nothing here requires a redesign to check. It does require looking at your own site the way a stranger would — which is exactly what our free Website Snapshot is for.