Shared Rules

Every page starts with a visitor who may know nothing. Before introducing the product, before making a claim, before showing a feature: earn the recognition that you know who they are and why they are here.

Visitor temperature runs from cold (no awareness, no intent) to hot (aware, ready to act). Match the page's pressure to the visitor's temperature. A cold visitor given a high-pressure CTA will leave. A hot visitor given a long educational page will leave.

Every page earns its way through the same sequence, covering as much of it as the visitor temperature requires. A cold visitor needs all five steps. A hot visitor may need only two or three. Never skip to the ask before earning it.

What must be present above the fold: a headline that tells the visitor they are in the right place, and a clear signal of what the page is about. The visitor must not have to scroll to understand what this page is and whether it is for them.

What must not be present above the fold on off-nav pages: full site navigation that competes with the page's primary job, multiple CTAs, or visual complexity that buries the headline. Above the fold is prime real estate. One message. One clear signal.

Social proof earns trust when it is specific and matched to the visitor's vertical, use case, and the claim it is meant to support. A quote from an interior designer about a moodboarding workflow is worth ten times a generic quote from an unspecified user.

Placement: after the claim, before the CTA. A logo wall without attribution is decoration, not proof. If a logo appears, attach a specific outcome to it.

Length must match visitor temperature. A hot visitor on a special offer page should be able to convert in under 60 seconds. A cold visitor on a category page may spend five minutes. Do not add length to seem thorough. Do not cut length to seem minimal. The page is exactly as long as it needs to be to earn the ask from this visitor at this temperature.

The test: at each paragraph, ask whether removing it would cost a conversion. If the answer is no, remove it.

The ICP lives on their phone: between client meetings, on a jobsite, in a showroom. Every page must be fully functional and fully persuasive on a 390px screen: headlines that land in two lines, CTAs that are thumb-reachable, proof sections that read without horizontal scroll, and no layouts that depend on hover states.

If a design decision only works on desktop, it is not a design decision: it is a constraint. Build for mobile first. Treat desktop as an enhancement.

Pages built for search need: one clear H1 that matches or closely mirrors the target keyword, a logical H2 hierarchy that breaks content into named sections, meta title and description aligned to the target keyword, internal links to related pages, and copy that uses the target keyword naturally.

SEO pages must still convert. A page that ranks but does not convert is an audience-building exercise. The SEO structure and the conversion structure must coexist.

Answer Engine Optimization targets AI-powered search: ChatGPT, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews. These systems extract structured, factual, answer-first content from pages and cite it in their answers. To be cited, pages must be structured for extraction.

AEO requires: answer-first paragraphs (the answer appears in the first sentence, not at the end), clear named sections with H2 headers that mirror the question being answered, factual specificity (named tools, specific outcomes, verifiable claims), and consistent structure across comparable sections.

This chapter covers page mechanics only. For all product truth, brand voice, visual identity, ICP definition, and positioning, the relevant source files must be loaded before execution. Do not rely on memory or inference.