The Line is the single sentence of main message placed where it is the first thing seen when the homepage opens. It conveys what your company can offer (your value proposition) through facts. Its form is: "for which project, under which conditions, with which specifications."
When the work and the website message differ
For example, does this sound like any company you know?
• In the field, before delivery, the company hands the client's contact a Sheet recording the project's conditions and specifications.
• The contacts appreciate this.
• Yet the website says nothing but emotional claims like "We deliver with heartfelt care."
The reason the company keeps being chosen is not the photos or documents themselves. It is that the Sheet records which project the deliverable is for, what conditions it will be installed under, and what it is made of—and the contact can use it as-is when explaining to their boss. That is the reason. Yet on the website, "with heartfelt care" comes before those facts. The strengths of the company's work are not reaching its website.
The company is chosen in the field. Its annual plan runs at the same pace every month. When the peak month comes, rebuilding pages begins in a rush. What carries the work is a place to keep the preparation, and an order in which to prepare.
A Real Case
At a cosmetics manufacturer, we changed the Line on the homepage to a factual sentence based on a Sheet from their work. The only change was making the concept clear. Over the following two weeks, sales were about four times those of the same period before the change.
However, this is one company's result over one period. It also coincided with a peak month. Using the same method will not necessarily produce the same result.
What you'll learn in this chapter: What should you check on your homepage? Whether the first line says "for which project, under which conditions, with which specifications." How to judge it in 15 minutes.
This is the first chapter of the book. Here, before building anything, you check what your current website is missing. In a hospital, it would be the examination before any medicine is prescribed. If you start preparing without knowing what is missing, you'll drift back to "let's just rebuild it for now." What you find missing in this chapter becomes what you prepare from Chapter 2 onward.
In the flow of a stretch goal, this is the "diagnosis of the starting point" before you set an ambitious goal. In digital marketing terms, it is an analysis of your website's current state. In particular, you'll look at the words in the place that catches the eye first when the homepage opens (the first view).
Scene: "What Are Our Strengths, Anyway?"
At a company that makes equipment parts, the president was about to redo the homepage. When the web design firm said, "Please give us your company's strengths in one line," what came out was: "High quality and attentive service."
That same week, he had a chance to talk with a contact at a longtime client. "Why do you keep ordering from us?" he asked. The contact thought for a moment and said:
"Before delivery, you send us a photo taken to the site's dimensions. With that, I don't have to explain things to my boss."
That was the first time the president realized it. The reason his company was being chosen was not written anywhere on its homepage.
Does your company's homepage state the "reason" your clients give?
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