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 fixing a website, the first thing to look at is neither the design nor the number of articles. It is whether the Line at the very top of the homepage states facts from your work. That is the starting point.
Imagine a contact at a new prospect opening your company's website for the first time. The first thing they read is the Line at the very top of the homepage. From it, in just a few seconds, they judge whether you seem like a fit for their project. If that Line is the kind of thing that could be written on any company's page, the contact can't see any difference. No matter how often you are chosen in the field, if it hasn't been put into the Line, then to a new prospect it might as well not exist.
What is missing is not the amount of information. The facts are already there in your work. They just haven't been put into the form of a Line. That's all it is.
Judge the Line
When you finish this chapter, set aside just 15 minutes. All you will do is check.
How to judge it: Read the Line aloud, and see whether an employee who wasn't there can say which project, which conditions, and which specifications it is talking about.
If they can, that Line is a "sentence from the field"—one that conveys facts even to someone who has never seen the work. If they can't, it isn't one yet. Look only at the Line at the very top of the homepage. There's no need to read to the bottom of the page.
Example: A Line That Doesn't Get Through, and One That Does
A Line that doesn't get through: "We deliver high-quality products with heartfelt care."
A Line that gets through: "Before delivery, we hand the client's contact a Sheet recorded under the conditions of that project, along with the materials and dimensions."
An employee who hears the first one cannot say which project, which conditions, or what it is about, because it is a sentence that could be placed on any company's page. With the second, they can say exactly what is handed over before delivery. That is a "sentence from the field." How to construct this Line is covered in detail in Chapter 6.
Three Scenes from Your Work
The facts of your work are usually hidden in the following three kinds of scenes. Leaf through your sales notebooks and daily reports, and write these three down.
• A scene in which a client's contact thanked you.
• A scene in which the ordered specifications and the actual site didn't match.
• A scene in which you were able to hand over a replacement Sheet the same day.
If none of these three appears anywhere on your website, your strengths have been left behind in the field. If you go into the peak month like that, then regardless of the size of the peak month (the multiplier in Chapter 2), the work of hunting for things will come back in the end.
Three Places to Fix, Starting with the Line
There are three places to put in order on your website. To use the shop analogy: the Line on the homepage, which is the sign; the CTA (the Closing), which is the word at the register; and the order-acceptance conditions (the Entrance), which are the notice on the door. But the Closing and the Entrance can wait until the Line is written. If you try to fix all three at once, you'll end up with another month consumed by tasks.
Treat the Number of Inquiries as an Outcome
AQ GROW | AI Search Structure