The landing page hero checklist

Your hero — the headline, subhead and primary button above the fold — is the one thing every visitor reads. If it doesn't land in five seconds, they leave, and nothing else on the page gets a chance. Here's the exact checklist we use in paid teardowns.

The 12-point hero checklist

• A stranger can tell what it does in 5 secondsNo decoding. Name the concrete thing, not "a platform".
• It leads with an outcome, not a featurePeople buy the result. "Ship your MVP in a weekend" beats "powerful dev tooling".
• It's obvious who it's forIf it's for everyone, it's for no one. Call your buyer out.
• No buzzwordsCut leverage, seamless, next-gen, revolutionary, robust, empower. They read as filler.
• The subhead adds the "how" or "for whom"It shouldn't just repeat the headline — it should make the promise believable.
• There's one clear primary CTAOne button, and its label describes the value ("Generate my first week free"), not "Sign up".
• One trust signal is visible without scrollingA number, a name, a logo, or a guarantee. Especially if the product touches something risky.
• The scariest objection is answered near the topUnspoken fear kills more signups than price.
• It's concrete, not abstractA number or a specific noun beats "smart", "modern", "solution".
• Every claim is something you can back upNo invented stats. Discerning buyers smell it instantly.
• Your sharpest line isn't buried further down the pageIf your best, most differentiated sentence is in paragraph 20, move it up.
• Read aloud, it sounds humanNot a press release. If you wouldn't say it to a friend, rewrite it.

Prefer a human to just fix it? We do honest landing-page teardowns and full rewrites in 24 hours — see real examples in the roast gallery or get the 24h rewrite.