With Teeth #5: The part under your headline

Hey again,

Open your homepage and look at the top of it.

Here are the names for the parts, since you will hear them. The big headline is the H1. The block of text right under it is what I call the H1 blurb.

The whole top of the page, headline, blurb and button together, is the hero section.

Here is why that top of the page matters so much. A visitor decides in a few seconds whether to stay or go back to search. Almost nobody reads the whole page first.

That is why the thing that makes you different belongs in the hero section, and in the first block of text right below it. Those are the only two places most people ever read.

Your customer is not the only one reading the top of the page. Google and the AI tools read it too, and they look at the same spots to work out what your page is about: the title that shows up in the search results, the H1, the first sentence or two, and the short line of text under your link in those results.

Those words are doing two jobs at once. They tell a customer why to call you, and they tell the search engines what the page is for.

One thing about the H1 itself. It should carry the service and the city. Boston plumber, not Welcome to Our Website.

Then we line it up with your Google Business Profile, so the same service and the same city show up in both places.

Google and AI systems reward assurance, and consistency is the cheapest way to give it. When the same words describe your business everywhere it looks, it can trust you are the business you claim to be.

The H1 blurb has one job. It answers two questions: why should I call this company, and why should I call them now?

Most pages answer neither. They say something every competitor could say just as easily.

“A+ service and support.” Picture a plumber using that line in his H1 blurb.

Is any plumber out there advertising average service and no support? Of course not.

So the words carry nothing by themselves.

Specifics are where the answer lives. How many repairs has he finished? How many customers called him again?

If a plumber told me most of his customers call him again years later, I would call today. Coming back a second time says more than any slogan.

Most owners describe what they do. Very few say why they are the right choice, which is the part a customer is actually weighing.

There is a name for the lines that do this. It is your unique selling proposition, your USP for short.

A USP is one thing you can say that the shop down the road cannot. Different trade, same idea, so picture a Boston plumber.

“We answer at 2am and a plumber picks up, not a call center.” Or, “flat price before the job starts, so the number does not move at the end.”

“We do not subcontract, so the plumber standing in your basement is one of ours.” Or, “we live in Boston, so you are not calling a franchise three states away.”

Those are USPs. A+ service is not one, because every competitor already says it.

One more thing about USPs, and it is the one most owners skip. Narrow down, and you get hired more often, not less.

Do not say Boston plumber. Say Boston plumber for antique houses in Beacon Hill. Now you are not one of twenty plumbers, you are the one to call for that.

Then give that phrase its own page. One page, one phrase, in the words a customer would type.

If you do not have a page about antique house plumbing in Beacon Hill, you are not in the running for that search. Build the page and you are far more likely to show up.

Being seen as the expert in one specific thing beats being an option in everything.

Then there is the first block of text below the hero section. Usually it is a history lesson. Two brothers, where the first shop stood, and the year they moved across town.

I get why it is there. They are proud of it, and they earned it. But nobody searching for a plumber is looking for the history of local plumbing companies.

Keeping the history is fine, and it belongs on the page. It just should not be the first thing a searcher reads.

Then, a few lines into that history, comes this. They keep the common parts on the truck, so most repairs are finished in one visit.

One of those lines is not history. It is the reason to call them, and it was sitting a few lines down in the family story instead of right where it belongs.

That line is what someone standing in water wants to know. Pull that line up into the hero section and leave the rest where it is.

The rule underneath all of it is simple. Work out what the person hiring you is trying to find out. What happens when they call, and who will they be talking to?

It is like a job interview. You get thirty seconds, and the interviewer does not want your life story. They want to know what you can do for them.

We make videos about this kind of thing, including walking through real pages and what to change:

👉 Norzer on YouTube

Here is the test. If someone landed on your site today, would they know why to call you instead of the shop down the road?

Know another business owner who would get something out of these tips? Forward them this email, or send them to https://norzer.me/with-teeth/ to get the next one.

Have a peaceful day,

Ryan
Norzer