Your visitor decides whether to trust your page in about two seconds — before they've read a single word. That decision runs on nine mental shortcuts Daniel Kahneman mapped in Thinking, Fast and Slow, the same research that won him a Nobel Prize in Economics. Every one of them is either working for you right now, or leaking leads.
How to use this: Open your homepage or landing page in another tab. Score each principle 0, 1, or 2 against the test below it, and write down the fix a low score points to. Ten minutes. Eighteen points possible.
Visitors decide with the fast, automatic brain first. If your page forces the slow, effortful brain to work before trust is earned, they leave before you get a fair hearing.
Test: Can a first-time visitor say what you do and who it's for within 5 seconds, without reading a full paragraph?
☐ 0 — They'd have to read to find out ☐ 1 — Mostly clear, some digging required ☐ 2 — Obvious at a glance
Things that feel simple and familiar also feel more trustworthy. Clutter and jargon read as risk, even when the product behind them is solid.
Test: Look at your hero section only. Short sentences, real white space, no jargon wall?
☐ 0 — Dense or jargon-heavy ☐ 1 — Some clutter ☐ 2 — Clean and simple
One strong impression colors judgment of everything else on the page: a logo, a testimonial. Good or bad, it spreads.
Test: Does the first thing a visitor sees build trust, or does anything nearby look outdated, broken, or generic stock?
☐ 0 — First impression hurts trust ☐ 1 — Neutral ☐ 2 — First impression actively builds trust
Every extra field, click, or decision costs willpower before trust is earned. People quit the moment the effort outweighs the payoff.
Test: Count the fields or steps between "interested" and "converted": demo request, signup, trial.
☐ 0 — Six or more fields or steps, unclear next move ☐ 1 — Three to five ☐ 2 — One or two, one obvious next action
The first number or claim a visitor sees becomes the yardstick for everything after it: price, value, even how good the product seems.
Test: Is there a clear anchor set early (a price, a stat, a comparison), and does it stay the same as they move through your pages?
☐ 0 — No anchor, or it contradicts itself page to page ☐ 1 — An anchor exists but it's weak or inconsistent ☐ 2 — Strong anchor, consistent everywhere
Losing something feels close to twice as painful as gaining the same thing feels good. People move faster to avoid a loss than to chase a gain.
Test: Does your copy name the cost of staying stuck — not just the benefit of switching?
☐ 0 — Gain-framed only ☐ 1 — Some loss framing, buried ☐ 2 — Loss framed clearly as the reason to act now
People judge how likely or true something is by how easily an example comes to mind. Specific, vivid proof feels real. Vague claims don't.
Test: Are your proof points specific (a named client, a real number) or generic, like "trusted by many"?
☐ 0 — Vague claims only ☐ 1 — Some specifics ☐ 2 — Vivid, specific, recent proof throughout
The same fact lands differently depending on the words around it. "95% success rate" beats "5% failure rate": same number, different decision.
Test: Re-read your headline, pricing, and CTA copy. Is each one framed around what the visitor gains or avoids, or around your product's features?
☐ 0 — Feature-framed, company-centric ☐ 1 — Mixed ☐ 2 — Consistently framed around the reader
People judge a whole experience mostly by its most intense moment and how it ends, not by the average of every step along the way.
Test: What happens right after someone converts — thank-you page, confirmation email? A real peak moment, or a blank "Thanks!"?
☐ 0 — No peak moment, weak or missing end step ☐ 1 — Adequate but forgettable ☐ 2 — A genuine, memorable peak at the end
___ / 18
15–18 — Tight funnel. Small leaks, and you probably already know where they are.
9–14 — Real leaks. Somewhere on this list, your funnel is arguing your visitor out of converting. Traffic isn't the problem.
0–8 — Structural leak. More traffic makes the math worse, not better. Fix the leak before you spend another dollar sending people to it.
One real leak, for scale: a SaaS pricing page showed the right number on the product page. One click later, on the pricing page itself, the price vanished. Nobody on the team caught it for weeks. Visitors did — and left.
This snapshot shows you where the leak lives. It doesn't show you why, or hand you the fix.
That's the Funnel Leak Report: your whole funnel, home to thank-you page, scored and fixed page by page. The exact principle. The exact sentence or field. The paste-ready rewrite.
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