None of this is new

Most websites that aren't selling as well as they could aren't broken in some clever, hidden way. They're missing the basics. These six come up again and again in the conversion work we do today, whether it's a Shopify store, a SaaS product or a B2B firm.

Some sites sell well without getting all six right. Most would sell more if they did.

Every one of them is easy to say. Doing it is another thing.

These are where every conversation starts, not where the work ends. Which ones are costing you most, and what the fix looks like for your buyers, is a different question for every business. That's where the experience comes in.

1. Make your value proposition obvious

Sell me this pen!

Saying what you do isn't enough. Tell people why they should buy from you and what they get out of it, and do it quickly. That's your value proposition, and if it isn't obvious at the top of the page, you're missing a trick.

I've lost count of the times I've seen "Welcome to our store." "Quality you can trust." "Premium products." "Innovation, delivered." "Solutions for every business." Some of them might even be true. But do they give you a reason to buy, or tell you what you get out of it? No. They could sit on any website.

You get a very short window. It's the scene that closes The Wolf of Wall Street: Jordan Belfort hands a pen around a room and says, "Sell me this pen." One after another, people say something obvious or generic, and he quickly moves on.

Your visitors were never going to buy in two seconds, not on a first visit. But if the top of your page isn't clear and convincing, they'll sure as hell bounce.

2. Stop using inside baseball terms

The worst thing you can do is assume people know as much about your product as you do. They don't. Every visitor is fresh eyes, and that's who you're selling to.

Every business has its inside baseball: the terminology, the shorthand, the features the team is proud of, written as if the reader already knows why they matter. It all makes perfect sense in the office. To a newcomer it's confusing, overwhelming, or reads like the manual for something they haven't decided to buy.

Your website isn't an echo chamber. It's for the people outside the business.

Product names are a common example. Bikes, dive gear, roll bars. Series names, model numbers that read like serial numbers, and the whole website organized the same way. Fine for the enthusiast who has read every review. Hopeless for someone who's just landed and wants to know which one does the job.

You don't have to lose the names. That's what we do on a lot of projects: keep the product names and the technical detail, then group products by what they solve or what they help people do. The expert still finds the model number. The first-timer finds the answer to their problem. Nobody loses out.

3. Nobody reads your whole page

Attention is the currency now. Ads before the YouTube video. Reels. TikToks. Short-form is king of the hill, and I can't see anything knocking it off any time soon.

Every one of those videos is built around a hook that has to grab you in the first couple of seconds. So will an audience used to swiping past anything that doesn't grab them read every word of your website? No.

Psychologists call it System 1 and System 2 thinking, an idea made famous by Daniel Kahneman. System 1 is fast, intuitive and emotional. System 2 is slower and analytical. System 1 gets there first.

When someone lands on your page, System 1 does the judging. It skims the layout, the headings and the images, and decides in a fraction of a second whether this is worth its time. Pass that check and System 2 kicks in: people slow down, read, weigh things up. Fail it and they're gone before System 2 ever arrives.

So build for the brainrot that lives inside all of us.

This article included. If you've read every word so far without scanning or skipping, give yourself a gold star. It's why even long reads like this have chapter links, so you can jump to the part you need. I've tried to keep it as short and useful as I can. It's harder than it sounds.

Some people will read every word, and that detail still matters. That's System 2. Keep it. Just don't force everyone else through it to understand the page.

Build it for the scanner. Tell the story in the order a buyer needs it: the problem, why you, the proof, the next step. Put the things that sell where the eye actually lands. Give each section one job. Don't make people work harder than they need to.

4. Put proof where the doubt is

I spend my days on the selling side of websites. But every now and then I become a normal human and want to buy something cool on the internet.

I want the thing. The new TV is in the basket. The subscription is one click from signed up. I'm almost there. And then it creeps in. Is this company legit? What if it doesn't turn up? What if I can't cancel?

Knowing how the sale works doesn't make you immune. The doubt gets all of us.

It has to be answered, and answered right there. Not on a page three clicks away. Right there.

So put reassurance in the doubt zones. Near the price. Next to the button. Under the claim they're not sure they believe. What it looks like depends on your business: results you've achieved, a guarantee, clear promises on delivery, returns and cancelling, who you are and how long you've been at it, customer reviews in more than one format.

No reviews yet? Don't wait for them. Gather testimonials from the customers you already have and make the most of them until independent reviews start coming in. Some honest proof is better than a blank space.

See it in practice: how we rebuilt Beuta's store around the way its buyers decide. Read the Beuta case study

5. Make it work on a phone

A confession. I spend most of my time looking at websites on a desktop. If you run a Shopify store, a SaaS company or a B2B firm, you probably do too: in the office, on a big screen.

Chances are most of your customers don't. They're on their phones.

None of this is news. "Responsive design" has been an industry buzzword for over 15 years. Everybody knows it. And yet most teams still review their own website on a desktop.

Get out of that habit. Your website needs to be living and breathing on a phone, not dying on one.

Picture someone on a busy subway, one hand on the rail, the other on their phone. Can they find your product, zoom in on the photos, add a couple of things to the cart and check out, one-handed, with life going on around them? Are the buttons where a thumb can reach? Or does it fall apart and leave them frustrated?

That's how a lot of people shop. Not in a quiet bubble at a desk.

It needs to work on a phone, and it needs to work hard.

6. Treat design as part of the pitch

Of course design matters. I've written about why at length, but the short version is this.

If a website frustrates people, or looks like it was put together without care, it's harder to believe in the brand, the company or the product behind it. People feel it without knowing it. And trust is not something you want to gamble with when you're asking a stranger for their money.

A six-out-of-ten website is easy to get these days. Plenty of businesses have one or will have with AI. Aim higher, so a customer flicking between you and a competitor who gets this right doesn't feel the gap.

But I'll be honest about the limits, because they matter.

No amount of great design will fix your conversion rate if the other five aren't in place.

What to do next

Easy to say. Doing it is another thing. Start here:

• Read your headline as a stranger would, and rewrite anything a competitor could also say.

• Open your site on your phone and try to buy something, start to finish.

• Move your best proof next to the point where people hesitate.