Great designers think like marketers
What if your homepage problem isn't a design problem?
I was on a call last month with a designer who was frustrated.
He'd been freelancing for a while, mostly designing landing pages for startups. The work was good, sites converted okay, clients were happy enough. But he was stuck doing execution work when what he really wanted was to get involved in the bigger strategic decisions. He wanted to work on cooler projects, charge more, be seen as more than just someone who makes things look pretty.
"I feel like I'm always brought in at the end," he said. "After all the important stuff has been figured out."
As we talked, I realized something. The questions he was asking weren't really design questions. They were marketing questions: Who's this actually for? What are we trying to get them to do? Why would they believe this? What's the real value here?
"You know what?" I told him. "You're thinking like a marketer. You just don't realize it yet."
You could see the lightbulb go on. He started talking about positioning himself differently, maybe leading with strategy instead of just visual design.
His situation reminded me of another designer I know, let's call her Sarah. A few years ago, she got hired by a SaaS company to redesign their homepage. Standard brief: make it look modern, improve conversion rates, the usual.
But when Sarah looked at the existing site, she realized something. The homepage was gorgeous, clean, professional, all the design boxes checked. The issue was that after reading the entire thing, she still had no idea what the product actually did.
The copy was a masterpiece of corporate speak: "We leverage cutting-edge AI to optimize synergistic solutions for enterprise workflows." Beautiful words that meant absolutely nothing.
So instead of opening Figma, Sarah opened a Google Doc. She spent two full days rewriting every single line on that homepage. She turned jargon into plain English. She cut the fluff. She made it crystal clear what the product did and who it was for.
The CEO was baffled. "We hired you to make it look better, not rewrite it."
But Sarah knew something most people miss: you can't design your way out of a messaging problem. All the beautiful layouts in the world won't save copy that nobody understands.
She was right. Six months later, conversions were up 340%. The visual design mattered, but the messaging transformation is what moved the needle.
The industry has it backwards
Here's what's wild about Sarah's approach: it's the exact opposite of how most design agencies work with clients.
In my experience, the standard process goes like this: design the brand and website first, then bring in messaging at the end. "Let's make it look amazing, then we'll figure out what to say." It feels logical, visual identity before verbal identity.
But I've watched this backwards process hurt companies over and over. By the time you're trying to retrofit messaging onto a finished design, you're constrained by decisions that were made without understanding what you're actually trying to communicate.
It's harder to start with story. Messaging feels fuzzy and subjective. Clients can't point at a mockup and say "make the logo bigger." But when you nail the story first, everything else falls into place. The design amplifies a clear message instead of trying to create one.
What great designers actually do
The designers who build homepages that actually convert (not just ones that look good in screenshots) spend half their time doing things that aren't technically "design."
Before they touch Figma, they're asking the uncomfortable questions:
Who is this actually for? (And "everyone" is not an answer.)
What are we really saying here?
What's the one thing we want someone to do next?
Why should they believe us?
They read copy and think, "What is this even trying to say?" Then they rewrite it. They cut the jargon. They turn "We leverage cutting-edge AI to optimize synergistic solutions" into "We help you hire faster."
They're basically doing marketing work and calling it design.
Why this actually costs you money
When you skip the messaging work, expensive things happen:
Your ad spend disappears into the void: You're driving traffic to a beautiful site that nobody understands.
Your CAC starts looking like a phone number: Takes 10x more visitors to get the same conversions when people can't figure out what you're selling.
Every prospect needs a demo: "Let me hop on a call to explain" usually means your homepage gave up explaining.
The real problem isn't homepages
Here's what Sarah's story actually reveals: we're terrible at solving invisible problems.
Think about it. The SaaS company could see their design was outdated—that's visible. They couldn't see that their messaging was broken—that's invisible. So they attacked the symptom instead of the cause.
This happens everywhere. We reorganize teams instead of fixing communication. We add features instead of improving onboarding. We hire more salespeople instead of clarifying our value proposition. We see what's broken on the surface and assume that's where the problem lives.
But the most expensive business problems are usually invisible ones. Sarah's client was about to spend months on a visual redesign that would have changed nothing. How many companies are doing exactly that right now?
When you start with "what are we actually trying to say here?" instead of "what should this look like?", something interesting happens. The design decisions get easier. The copy gets clearer. The whole thing just works better.
Next time your homepage isn't converting, maybe try Sarah's approach. Open a Google Doc before you open Figma. Figure out the message first. Then make it look good.
But more than that—next time something isn't working the way you want, ask yourself: am I solving the visible problem or the invisible one?
Because when you get the invisible stuff right first, everything else becomes this incredible amplifier that actually moves the needle. But try to design your way out of confusion? You're just polishing a turd with really good typography. 😇
Elan Miller runs Off-Menu, a brand consultancy that helps startups stop polishing turds and start making sense.