I’ve reviewed a lot of homepages over the years, and one thing I’ve learned is that they’re surprisingly easy to get wrong.
Not necessarily because they’re badly designed.
Sometimes they’re beautiful.
Big hero image. Nice animation. Clever headline. Awards everywhere. A few impressive statistics. Maybe a video playing in the background.
Then I look at the page from an SEO perspective and think:
What does this company actually do?
That’s usually not a great sign.
A homepage has a difficult job.
It has to introduce the brand, help people navigate the website, communicate what the business offers, establish trust, and, in many cases, support some of the website’s most important search terms.
For multi-location businesses, it also has to help users and search engines understand that there is a much bigger network sitting underneath it.
So when I review a homepage, I’m not working through a checklist looking for a magical SEO score.
I’m trying to answer a more basic question:
Does this page make the business, its offering and the rest of the website easy to understand?
That’s where most of my homepage SEO best practices start.
I Usually Start With the Title Tag
This is one of the first things I’ll look at.
What does the title say?
Does it describe the business?
Does it align with what people actually search for?
Does it include the brand?
Or is it something like:
Home | Company Name
That tells me almost nothing.
I generally want the homepage title to communicate the primary thing the business wants to be known for.
For a hypothetical home care company, for example, something along the lines of:
Home Care & Caregiver Services | Brand Name
immediately gives Google and the searcher useful context.
That doesn’t mean stuffing every service into the title.
Home Care | Senior Care | Elderly Care | Caregivers | Personal Care | Respite Care | Brand
isn’t better because it contains more keywords.
The goal is clarity.
What is the main thing this website represents?
That’s the question I’m trying to answer.
Then I Look at the H1
This is where branding and SEO sometimes have an interesting argument.
Marketing might want:
Live Life Your Way.
It sounds nice.
The problem is that it could belong to a retirement community, gym, travel company, financial adviser or clothing brand.
There may be absolutely nothing wrong with using creative messaging.
I just don’t want creativity to come at the expense of understanding.
If the hero says:
Live Life Your Way.
I’d like something nearby that explains:
Personalised Home Care That Helps You Stay Independent
Now I have context.
When I’m reviewing a homepage H1, I’m asking whether someone landing on the website for the first time could reasonably understand what the company does.
Not after scrolling for two minutes.
Not after opening the About page.
From the homepage.
I Don’t Obsess Over Whether the H1 Exactly Matches the Primary Keyword
This is where homepage SEO can become too mechanical.
Primary keyword:
home care services
Therefore H1:
Home Care Services
Done.
Maybe.
But I don’t think SEO needs to be that robotic.
The H1 needs to support the subject of the page, but it also needs to communicate with humans.
I’m comfortable with natural variations when the overall page makes the topic obvious.
I’m much more concerned when the H1 and surrounding content give me no indication of what the business actually does.
Clarity matters more to me than exact-match keyword obsession.
Next, I Ask Whether There Is Enough Actual Content
Some homepages barely contain any text.
Hero.
Three icons.
Testimonials.
Form.
Footer.
That might look clean.
But it doesn’t give me much information about the business.
At the opposite extreme, I’ve seen homepages that appear to be attempting to rank for every keyword the company has ever discovered.
You scroll.
And scroll.
And scroll.
Every service has 400 words.
There are 25 FAQs.
Every city is listed.
There’s a company history.
An essay about the industry.
Three calls to action between every section.
Neither extreme is particularly appealing to me.
I want enough content to answer the obvious questions:
Who are you?
What do you do?
Who do you help?
What are your main services or products?
Where do you operate?
Why should someone choose you?
Where should they go next?
That’s usually a much better starting point than asking:
“How many words should a homepage have?”
There isn’t a word count I automatically aim for.
The homepage needs enough information to do its job.
I Look at How the Main Services Are Introduced
This is a big one.
If a business offers six major services, I expect the homepage to help me discover them.
That doesn’t mean each service needs its own mini blog post.
A heading.
A short explanation.
A link.
That’s often enough.
Something like:
Personal Care
Support with everyday activities that helps older adults remain comfortable and independent at home.
Learn about Personal Care →
Now the homepage is doing two useful things.
It’s helping the visitor understand what’s available.
And it’s creating a clear path to the deeper service page.
This is where homepage SEO starts connecting to site architecture.
The homepage shouldn’t try to rank for every service.
It should help distribute people and authority toward the pages that are supposed to.
Internal Linking Is One of the Biggest Things I Look At
A homepage is usually one of the strongest pages on a website.
It tends to attract links.
It sits at the top of the architecture.
It gets crawled frequently.
So I care a lot about where it links.
Are the important service pages accessible?
What about major category pages?
Locations?
Resources?
Conversion pages?
Or are some of the most commercially important pages buried several clicks into the site?
Navigation plays a role here, but I also like contextual internal links within the homepage content.
If you’re talking about respite care, link to the respite care page.
If you’re talking about franchise opportunities, link to the franchise page.
If you’re talking about available locations, help people find them.
This sounds incredibly basic.
But basic things done consistently are often what make large websites work.
For Multi-Location Brands, I Pay Particular Attention to Location Discovery
This is probably where my own experience biases how I review homepages.
I work with a lot of local and multi-location websites.
So one question comes up almost immediately:
How does someone get from the national homepage to their local business?
Imagine a brand has 300 locations.
I land on the homepage.
Now what?
Can I search by postcode or ZIP code?
Can I enter my city?
Is there a location finder?
Can I browse states or regions?
Is there a clear “Find a Location” CTA?
How many clicks does it take to reach an individual location?
This isn’t just an SEO question.
It’s a customer-experience question.
If someone searches for the national brand and lands on the homepage, one of their most likely next steps may be finding the nearest location.
Don’t make that difficult.
Then I Look at How the Location Architecture Connects
The location finder itself isn’t enough.
I want to understand the structure underneath it.
For example:
Homepage → Locations → State/Region → Individual Location
Or whatever architecture makes sense for the business.
I want search engines to be able to discover those pages through normal crawlable links.
And I want the hierarchy to make sense.
This becomes especially important when you’re dealing with hundreds of locations.
A technically impressive JavaScript location finder isn’t very helpful to SEO if the underlying location architecture is a mess.
The homepage doesn’t need links to 500 individual locations.
But it should provide a sensible gateway into the location ecosystem.
I Check Whether the Homepage Competes With Other Pages
This one can get interesting.
Sometimes a homepage is trying to rank for:
home care;
respite care;
dementia care;
24-hour care;
companion care;
personal care;
Alzheimer’s care;
and every other service the business provides.
Meanwhile, dedicated pages exist for all of those services.
Now we have a question:
Which page is actually supposed to rank for each topic?
I generally want the homepage to represent the broader business or primary offering while dedicated pages go deeper into individual services.
That gives the site clearer keyword-to-page alignment.
The homepage introduces.
The service page specialises.
The location page localises.
For multi-location SEO, that distinction becomes even more important.
I Check Whether the Brand Is Obvious
SEO isn’t just about non-branded keywords.
I want the homepage to make the brand unmistakable.
Company name.
What the company does.
Where it operates.
Important trust signals.
Connections to other relevant parts of the organisation.
Consistent information.
This has become even more interesting as search evolves with AI.
Search engines aren’t simply matching strings of keywords.
They’re trying to understand businesses, organisations, people, services, locations and the relationships between them.
Your homepage is one of the clearest opportunities you have to explain your business on your own website.
Don’t waste it on vague marketing language.
I Look for Evidence That I Should Trust the Business
Imagine landing on two websites.
Both claim:
“We’re the leading provider of…”
Of course they do.
Everybody is apparently leading something.
I want evidence.
That might include:
Years in business.
Number of locations.
Accreditations.
Awards.
Industry memberships.
Customer reviews.
Testimonials.
Relevant statistics.
Recognisable partnerships.
Media coverage.
Real people.
Case studies.
Anything that gives the claims substance.
And I want those claims to be accurate.
This is especially important on franchise and multi-location websites where numbers can change frequently.
If one section says the company has 450 locations and another says 500, that’s not ideal.
If your homepage says you operate in 25 states and your locations page says 24, which one should I believe?
Small inconsistencies can make a large brand look strangely careless.
Reviews Matter Even More for Local Businesses
If I’m reviewing a local or multi-location homepage, I’ll also think about reputation.
Does the brand have strong customer feedback?
Is there an appropriate way to surface some of that trust on the homepage?
I’m not suggesting dumping hundreds of Google reviews onto the page.
But reviews can help reinforce that real customers have actually interacted with the business.
For multi-location brands, I also distinguish between national brand reputation and individual location reputation.
A national homepage can establish overall trust.
The individual Google Business Profiles and location pages need to establish local trust.
Those pieces should support each other.
I Check the Calls to Action
This sounds like CRO rather than SEO.
I don’t really care what department claims it.
If organic traffic arrives and nobody knows what to do next, we have a problem.
The appropriate CTA depends on the business.
Find a Location
Book an Appointment
Request a Consultation
Get a Quote
Call Now
Explore Our Services
Find Your Local Office
Whatever it is, I want the next step to be obvious.
And I usually want the CTA to match the user’s stage in the journey.
Not everyone landing on the homepage is ready to complete a form immediately.
Some people need to explore services.
Others need a location.
Some want pricing.
Some need reassurance.
A good homepage gives people paths rather than one giant CONTACT US NOW button repeated twelve times.
I Check the Mobile Experience
This one shouldn’t need explaining anymore.
But I still check it.
What happens to the hero on mobile?
Can I read the H1?
Does a huge image push everything down?
Can I use the navigation?
Is the location finder usable?
Can I tap the phone number?
Are forms painful?
Do pop-ups cover the screen?
Do elements jump around while loading?
Does the page take forever because someone uploaded a beautiful 14 MB hero video?
SEO isn’t happening in a desktop screenshot from the design team’s presentation.
People actually have to use the website.
Then I Look at Performance
This is where tools such as PageSpeed Insights can help.
I want to understand whether there are obvious performance problems.
Large images.
Render-blocking resources.
JavaScript.
Layout shifts.
Slow server responses.
Third-party scripts.
Fonts.
Video.
But I try not to turn homepage SEO into chasing a perfect performance score.
The question isn’t:
“How do we make this number green?”
It’s:
“What is making this experience slower than it needs to be, and can we reasonably improve it?”
Sometimes those are related.
Sometimes teams destroy perfectly useful functionality chasing a score.
Context matters.
I Check Indexability and Canonicals
Now we’re getting into the boring technical checks.
Which means they’re important.
Is the homepage indexable?
Does it return a 200 status code?
Does it have a self-referencing canonical where appropriate?
Are HTTP versions redirecting correctly?
What about www versus non-www?
Trailing slash variations?
Is there one clear preferred homepage URL?
I’ve seen websites where several versions of the homepage are accessible.
I’ve seen staging versions.
I’ve seen strange redirects.
I’ve seen homepages canonicalised somewhere unexpected.
I’ve seen noindex.
Technical SEO has taught me never to assume something is configured correctly just because it seems obvious.
Check it.
I Look at Structured Data, but I Don’t Start There
Schema is useful.
Depending on the business and implementation, organisation-related structured data and other appropriate markup can help search engines understand information about the entity.
But schema isn’t where I start my homepage review.
If the homepage doesn’t clearly explain what the company does, I’m not going to celebrate because the schema validator is green.
Structured data supports the information on the page.
It doesn’t rescue a confusing website.
I want the visible content and underlying markup telling a consistent story.
I Check the Images Too
Images can quietly cause several homepage problems.
Huge file sizes.
Missing alt attributes where alt text is appropriate.
Generic filenames.
Broken images.
Stock photography everywhere.
Poor mobile cropping.
Layout shifts.
But beyond technical optimisation, I’m increasingly interested in whether the images actually belong to the business.
For local and multi-location brands, real photography can be incredibly valuable.
Real locations.
Real teams.
Real facilities.
Real work.
There are situations where stock photography makes sense.
But if every competitor uses the same smiling caregiver stock photo, nobody is communicating much about their actual business.
I Look at the Footer
Yes, the footer.
It’s not the glamorous part of homepage SEO.
But it tells me quite a lot about the architecture.
Can I reach important pages?
Services?
Locations?
About information?
Contact information?
Legal pages?
Useful resources?
Social profiles where appropriate?
Is the business information consistent?
Or has the footer become a dumping ground containing 300 keyword-stuffed links?
I want useful navigation.
Not an SEO landfill.
I Check What the Homepage Ranks For
After reviewing what’s actually on the page, I want data.
Search Console.
What queries trigger the homepage?
Which are branded?
Which are non-branded?
How many impressions?
What CTR?
Has visibility changed?
Are there unexpected queries?
Are searches that should be going to a service page landing on the homepage instead?
That last one can reveal interesting problems.
If Google consistently ranks your homepage for a specific service despite you having a dedicated service page, I want to understand why.
Maybe the service page is weak.
Maybe internal linking is poor.
Maybe the homepage is over-optimised for the term.
Maybe Google doesn’t understand the architecture.
The ranking itself is only the beginning of the investigation.
Then I Look at Competitors
Not because I want to copy them.
I want context.
What are the businesses ranking for the primary terms doing differently?
How do they describe themselves?
How is their navigation structured?
How do they surface services?
How do they handle locations?
What trust signals appear?
What information do they include that we don’t?
What do we have that they don’t?
That last question matters.
Competitive research shouldn’t end with:
“Competitor has FAQs, so we need FAQs.”
I want to understand the search landscape, then build the strongest version of our own homepage.
What I Don’t Do Is Optimise Every Element in Isolation
This is probably the biggest thing I’ve learned about homepage SEO.
You can have:
A perfectly optimised title.
One H1.
Great schema.
Fast load time.
Internal links.
Alt text.
Keywords.
And still have a bad homepage.
Because a homepage isn’t a collection of SEO elements.
It’s the front door to the website.
Everything has to work together.
The search result creates the expectation.
The hero confirms where you’ve arrived.
The content explains the business.
The services show what’s available.
The trust signals give you confidence.
The internal links take you deeper.
The locations connect you to somewhere relevant.
The CTA tells you what to do next.
Technical SEO makes sure search engines and users can actually access all of it.
That’s homepage SEO.
My Homepage SEO Best Practices Are Mostly About Clarity
If I had to reduce my homepage review to a few questions, they’d be these:
Can I immediately understand what this business does?
Does Google have enough information to understand the same thing?
Does the page naturally target the right primary topic without trying to rank for everything?
Can I easily find the main services?
Can I find a local location if the business has multiple locations?
Are important pages receiving appropriate internal links?
Does the page demonstrate why the business should be trusted?
Is there an obvious next step for the visitor?
Does everything work properly on mobile?
Is the homepage technically accessible, indexable and reasonably fast?
And does the data suggest Google is interpreting the page the way we intended?
If the answer to those questions is yes, we’re probably in a good place.
A Homepage Should Tell Me Where I Am and Where to Go Next
That’s probably the simplest way I can explain how I review one.
When someone lands on a homepage, I don’t want them wondering:
“What does this company actually do?”
And when Google crawls it, I don’t want the architecture creating the same confusion.
The best homepage SEO isn’t necessarily the homepage with the most copy, the most keywords, the most schema or the highest tool score.
It’s the homepage that makes the business easy to understand and the rest of the website easy to discover.
For multi-location brands, I’d add one more requirement:
It should make the jump from the national brand to the local business feel obvious.
Because after reviewing enough large websites, I’ve become convinced that many SEO problems aren’t caused by a missing keyword.
They’re caused by unclear relationships.
Between the brand and its services.
Between services and their pages.
Between the national website and its locations.
Between what the company says it does and what Google can actually understand.
That’s why when I review a homepage, I still check the title tag, H1, content and all the traditional homepage SEO best practices.
But I’m really looking for something bigger:
Does this homepage make sense?
To people.
To search engines.
And increasingly, to the AI systems trying to understand the business too.
