The science behind this template
Why an Aes site is built the way it is.
Alexander Ghavas
Contents
01
What this site is for
This template has one job. It makes the phone ring for one local business that lives on Google. A roofer, a fencer, a plumber. Someone with a Google Business Profile and a number a homeowner can call.
That decides everything else. Not a brochure, not a portfolio. Every page, every section and every sentence is there to move one visitor one step closer to pressing Call us. If a part of the site does not do that, it is not on the site.
People do not read
Nielsen Norman Group has measured how people read web pages since 1997. Most visitors scan. On an average page they read about 20 percent of the words, mostly at the top and down the left side.
In 2018 the same group tracked where the viewing time actually goes. 57 percent of it is spent on the first screen, before anyone scrolls. 74 percent is spent on the first two screens. Whatever sits below that is seen by a minority.
So this template is written for the scanner, not the reader. Short lines. Numbers instead of adjectives. One action on every page, and nothing that competes with it. The person who reads everything is welcome, and the site works for them too. But it is built for the person who does not.
The rule of one
One trade. One location. One offer. One action, the phone. One accent colour, used only where the visitor should act.
The rule sounds simple and it is hard to keep. Every second button, every extra headline and every clever label steals a little attention from the call. So each section had to earn its place by answering a question a customer actually asks on the phone.
02
The site map
The site has 21 pages. Nine are written by hand. Twelve come from two collections, one for services and one for towns, and they are the pages Google matches to searches like roof repair Round Rock.
Page
Should I call these people?
Do you do my job, what does it cost, how long does it take?
Do you come to my town, and have you worked here before?
The 25 questions homeowners ask before they call.
Who picks up, and what do you put in writing?
I do not want to call right now.
What happens with my number, and what is the deal?
You are lost. Here is the phone.
Every page ends the same way, with the phone. The top bar has five links and a Call us button, and the button is there on every page, at every screen size.
Six services and six towns is a deliberate number. Fewer looks thin. More and a one-crew business cannot back it up. The town pages matter more than most people expect. A homeowner searches for a roofer in their own suburb, not in the big city next door. A page written for that suburb is what shows up.
03
The home page
The home page is twelve sections in a fixed order. The order is the order of the questions in a customer’s head, from the first second to the moment they call.
Section
Is there a reason to call today?
Can I trust them?
Why you and not the other crew?
Do you do my job?
What happens after I call?
What do people like me say?
What exactly do I get?
How much, how long, when?
Have you worked near me?
Do you come to my town?
What would you tell me if I called?
How do I reach you?
The hero is the whole site
The first screen is the most important page on the site, because for most visitors it is the only page. They arrive from Google, they look at one screen, and they decide. Everything below it is for the minority who scroll.
That is why the hero is two lines and nothing else.
$250 off a new roof. In Austin this month.
An offer, a city and a time. No paragraph under it. No subtitle explaining the company. A subtitle would give the eye a second thing to do, and the eye only has one job here: read the offer, see the proof, find the button.
An offer opens the site because the visitor already knows what they need. Nobody searches for a roofer for fun. They are comparing three tabs, and every one of those tabs says free estimate. A number does what free estimate cannot. It gives a reason to call now, and a reason to call again if nobody answered. The offer is always something a real business can keep: an amount, or a named thing done at no cost, with the condition written next to it. Never a countdown, never a fake deadline. This month is true every month.
Next to the offer sits the Google panel: the business name, the rating, the number of reviews, and the Call button. It looks like the listing the visitor just came from, on purpose. They trusted that listing enough to click. The site shows them the same thing in the same shape, so nothing feels different from the profile they chose. 83 percent of people use Google to read reviews of a local business, so the rating is the proof they already believe.
Then the button. On a phone it is one tap and the call is placed. There is no form in the hero, no second button, no arrow asking them to scroll.
Authority without adjectives
The site never says trusted, reliable or professional. Those words cost nothing and every competitor uses them. Instead it shows the things that cannot be faked.
The rating and the review count from Google, repeated where a decision is being made: the hero, the trust section, the about page. Real quotes with a name and a town. The address, the hours and the phone number written the same way on every page, so they match the Google profile exactly. Google rewards that consistency, and so does a homeowner who checks.
The phone number itself is authority. A company that puts its number in twelve places is a company that answers it.
Why these twelve
Trust comes second because the offer raises a question: who are these people? A single review with a name answers it before the doubt grows.
Contrast comes third because the visitor is comparing. Two short lists, other crews against this one, put the difference in six lines. Price changes once they start, against price holds to the final invoice.
Process comes after services because the fear of calling is the fear of what happens next. Three steps, each with a time. Today. Within 48 hours. Same week.
Answers on the home page are the three questions every homeowner asks first. Cost, time, start date. Each with a one-line answer and a link to the other 22. A question answered before it is asked is an objection that never gets raised.
Work and areas come late because they only matter once the visitor is interested. Then they matter a lot. Three finished jobs in three named towns, and a map with the towns the crew drives to.
The last section before the footer is the phone, spelled out. Three things a customer might say, and what the company would answer. There is a brown stain on my ceiling. Call today, that is water already through the deck. It reads like the call they are about to make, so the call feels shorter.
04
The sections and the pages
The offer card
The offer appears twice on the home page and again on every service page. The card has a short title with the amount, one line with the condition, and the hook: the offer holds for thirty days from the first call. The visitor who got voicemail knows the offer is still there tomorrow, and calls again.
The same offer everywhere. Two different offers and the visitor trusts neither.
The call to action sections
Each section ends with a single button. It either takes the visitor deeper, to all services or every town, or to the phone. Never both: two buttons split the click and lower the total.
The buttons say what is behind them. All services. Every town we cover. Read all 25 questions. A button that names its destination gets pressed. Learn more does not.
The Answers page
Answers is the page built for Google: 25 questions in five topics, every one on the page and visible without a click.
Cost and payment, six questions. Timing and scheduling, five. Materials and options, five. Permits and warranty, five. Problems and repairs, four. The topics sit at the top with a count, so the visitor picks one and skips the rest.
The questions are written into the page itself, not into a collection, for two reasons. First, the page reads the same to a person and to Google. Nothing sits behind a tab or an accordion, so a search for what can move the price after the estimate lands on the exact sentence that answers it. Second, the two collections are spent on what genuinely repeats, services and towns. Twenty-five questions per trade are written once, by hand.
Every question is phrased the way a customer says it on the phone. Can I split the payment? Every answer is what the company would actually say, with a number where one exists. No question sells.
Answers, not FAQ
FAQ is a label. Answers is a promise.
A FAQ hides its questions in folded rows and asks the visitor to hunt. Answers opens the whole thing and groups it by what the visitor is worried about.
About, Book, Privacy and Terms
About answers who picks up: the same crew on every job, then three numbers on three cards, years in business, jobs finished, service radius. Then what we put in writing: a fixed price, one crew, a ten-year workmanship warranty, each with its number. Then the Google reviews block. Nothing about passion or values. Facts a homeowner can check.
Book is for the visitor who will not call at eleven at night: a short form next to the Google panel, with the phone still right there.
Privacy and Terms are written in plain language, because a homeowner does read the terms of a $9,000 job. Both pages open with a card called The short version: five lines that say the whole thing. The written estimate is the agreement. You pay when the work is finished. Below that, the full text in topics with a count, for the few who read to the end. The consent wording for calls and texts is built in, so the booking form and Google Ads pass review.
Adding a service or a town
Services and towns live in two collections. Add a row and a page appears with the same sections as the others. A town gets its drive time, jobs done there, the last job finished, the three jobs done most and a map. A service gets what it covers, the offer card, the three questions and the reviews.
The structure holds for any trade because the sections are questions, not roofing facts. A fencer’s customers ask the same things a roofer’s do.
05
Design and experience
The feeling
The site should feel like the company that answers the phone, not like the agency that built it. Calm, plain and a little quiet. A light background. One typeface in seven sizes. Seven colours, and one accent that appears only where the visitor is meant to act, the Call us button, never on a decoration. At most two accent surfaces in any section, so the eye is never asked to choose.
Text is left aligned, because that is where the eye starts. Sentences stay under twenty words. Numbers beat adjectives every time. There are no exclamation marks anywhere on the site, and no small labels floating above headings.
Photos are blocks, never backgrounds behind text. Each one has its alt text written for the trade, so the pictures rank too. There are no carousels, because a carousel hides most of what it holds and moves while you read.
Corners are large and soft, so the site reads as friendly on a phone without a single illustration.
The short version
The pattern repeats across the site. On the pages people fear, Privacy and Terms, and on the page people doubt, About, the first card gives the whole answer in a few lines. Five sentences. Three numbers. The rest of the page exists for the visitor who wants to read it, and most will not. The scanner leaves satisfied, the reader leaves informed, and neither had to hunt.
That is the idea behind every page here. Say the true thing first, say it short, and put the phone next to it.
Sources
Nielsen Norman Group, How Users Read on the Web, 1997.
Nielsen Norman Group, How Little Do Users Read?, 2008.
Nielsen Norman Group, Scrolling and Attention, 2018.
BrightLocal, Local Consumer Review Survey, 2025.
Google, Improve your local ranking on Google, help article.