What's your first impression saying?

Did you know George Lucas originally planned to open Star Wars with a deleted scene of Luke at the Tosche Station on Tatooine? The scene shows Luke watching a space battle through his binoculars and chatting with his friends about joining the rebellion.

He even included it in his first rough cut, which he screened for several filmmaker friends, including Steven Spielberg.

Picture the movie beginning with that scene instead of what became the iconic black screen with yellow text describing the Death Star's threat, followed by stormtroopers boarding Leia's ship...

Now, that's not the only thing George Lucas changed about the first movie — his filmmaking friends, editors and actors had quite a lot of feedback, which he fortunately implemented.

But for the moment, I only want to focus on that awful opening scene.

Why?

Because we're dealing with the most competitive landscape we've ever had.

If getting people's attention was hard back in 1977 when Star Wars: A New Hope came out, just imagine what it's like now.

I bet you've fired up a Netflix show, only to quit watching after five minutes. You've probably picked up and put down several books at the library after reading just the first line. And most importantly for the purposes of this newsletter, you've probably landed more than once on a business' website, only to decide you're not working with said company after scrolling for just a few seconds

Sounds brutal, but that's life these days. We're all juggling a million things, and we can't give everyone our attention and money.

As someone who loves digging into storytelling, I've found businesses and stories tend to have a common fatal flaw in their very first introduction.

They try to tell everything at once.

Think about that scene I shared with you. It's trying to establish SIX pieces of information: 1. Who Luke is, 2. there's a space battle happening above Tatooine, 3. Luke's inner conflict, 4. there's a rebellion going on, 5. Luke's friend is fighting with the rebels, 6. Luke wants to join them...

It's funny, because the intro we got is literally a wall text, yet it fundamentally only gives us this piece of information: there's a civil war in the galaxy, and in order to win, rebels need to destroy a Death Star built by the Empire. Period.

And that's engaging because you want to know more. It's simple enough for you to digest it, and exciting enough to spark your interest.

The exact same thing applies to your homepage's headline.

Here's a random example:

Be honest now: do you even remember one piece of information from that headline?

I'm almost sure you don't. They're trying to cram about 9 different things into their headline — that's way too much to take in within seconds.

We often stuff our website headlines because, deep down, we know how crucial they are. So we throw in everything, worried that people won't scroll down to see all the cool stuff we offer.

But that's the wrong way to think about it. Instead of letting that worry drive your headline, write one that's so interesting that people actually want to keep reading.

Okay, and how do you do that?

By choosing the single most important and unique value proposition your business has to offer.

Take CXL, for example. They sell marketing courses (that's where I learned marketing when I switched careers).

Their headline is super simple:

"Learn Marketing From the Top 1%"

That's all they need to say — you immediately know you'll be learning from the best marketers out there. Sure, CXL has tons of other cool stuff like mini-degrees, roadmaps, team plans, etc. But I don't need to know all that right away to seriously consider buying their courses.

Another example, this time with one of our clients, is Third Rock Geomatics. Here's the headline we wrote for them:

"Professional Land Surveyors in Calgary, AB. We deliver Real Property Reports in 3-5 business days!"

They do way more than just Real Property Reports, but they're the only surveyors in their area who can deliver them that fast — and that speaks directly to their customers who want to get their building paperwork done ASAP. That's what grabs attention.

There's plenty of time to introduce all the other stuff — Darth Vader, Leia, Luke, the Force, lightsabers, you name it. But first, you need that one central thread that makes people want to keep watching.

It's the same for your website.

Don't overwhelm your headline. Trust that visitors will discover your impressive features, certifications, case studies, service range, and company story.

But cramming all that information into your headline only creates confusion.

Present your key strength (ensuring it addresses your customers' pain points and desires), then let visitors naturally uncover everything else.