BM—09 / WEB / EN The Foundation · work 03

Your page gets visitors. How many of them do anything?

HEADER · PROOF · THE THREE STEPS · PRICE · QUESTIONS · ONE SINGLE ACTION

Most sites are brochures: they look good, they say who you are, and they leave the visitor exactly where they found them. A page that converts does something else — it carries a stranger, in order, from “who are these people” to “I'm writing now”. That order can be drawn. Below is the drawing.

01 — Diagnosis BM—09.1 / WHY THEY DON'T CONVERT

Three reasons a beautiful page brings in no clients.

None of them is about design. All three get solved before anybody opens an editor.

It talks about you “We're a passionate team with over ten years of experience.” The visitor isn't looking for that. They're looking for an answer to their problem, and you have four seconds to show them you've understood it.

It asks for four things at once Subscribe, call us, download the guide, follow us on Instagram. Four actions on one page means, in practice, zero. Attention doesn't get divided, it gets lost.

It promises without demonstrating “Guaranteed results”, “tailored solutions”, “premium quality” — without a single number, a real name or a case anybody could check. Adjectives convince nobody who has money to hand over.

On a capture page, the hard part isn't the building, it's deciding what you say and in what order. That's where I spend the most time. The building comes last and is the short part.

The golden rule, from here on: every element on the page answers a question the visitor already has. If it answers none of them, it gets cut.

02 — The anatomy BM—09.2 / THE SIX PIECES

Six pieces, in the order the questions arrive.

It isn't a template to arrange on a page, it's a sequence. Skip one and the visitor is left with an unanswered question — and people with unanswered questions don't press buttons.

Seconds 1—5 The header What you do, for whom, what they gain from it. Three lines, above the fold, no metaphor. If they don't recognise themselves here, the rest of the page doesn't exist.

The silent objection The proof Results with numbers, real names, screenshots, one case carried all the way through. A single checkable thing beats ten superlatives.

Three steps How it works What concretely happens after they click. Fear of the unknown stops more people than price does.

Transparency The price The number, on the page. Whoever doesn't have the budget leaves on their own, and you stop burning calls to find that out at minute twenty.

Before they ask The questions The seven things you hear on the phone anyway, written down in black and white. Every written answer is a shorter call.

Only one The action One button, repeated as often as needed. Not five different buttons fighting each other over the same click.

03 — The sequence BM—09.3 / THE ROAD TO THE CLICK

Nobody presses the button in the first row. There are four steps, in order.

A button placed in the header, on a page that hasn't proven anything yet, asks for the fourth step from someone who is still at the first.

The order can't be skipped

Step 01 They like you The tone, the images, the way you write. It's decided in a few seconds and it isn't a rational decision. This is where the brand works, not the copy.

Step 02 They trust you Proof, names, checkable numbers, your face. Liking without trust goes nowhere — they like you and they leave.

Step 03 They've decided They've understood what they get, what it costs and what comes next. This is where the price, the three steps and the questions work.

Step 04 They click Only now does the button's label matter. Up to here, the words on it changed nothing.

That's why so little changes when you swap “Send” for “I want the offer”. The button is the last step, not the first. If the page doesn't climb the first three, the fourth row stays empty no matter what's written on it.

04 — How I work BM—09.4 / STEP BY STEP

Five steps, from the first question to the published page.

On every step: what happens, what comes out, what you decide and how long it takes. Your approvals are few, and they sit before the steps that are hard to redo.

Step 01You approve

What the page is for

1.1

What happensI ask where visitors come from today, not where you'd like them to come from. If the answer is “nowhere”, I tell you straight away: then the problem is distribution, not design. Then we set the single action of each page, whether the audience is only from Romania or from abroad too, and I write the texts in an interview with you.

1.2

What comes outOne sentence for each page — what the visitor does there and what comes next — plus the order of the sections and the written texts.

1.3

What you decideYou approve in writing the architecture of the pages and the action of each one, then the texts. Nothing has been designed up to this point.

1.4

How long it takesTogether with step 02: the first week and a half of the three.

Step 02You approve

The visual direction

2.1

What happensYou bring me references, not adjectives: “premium” isn't a reference, a few screenshots are. I turn them into values I can write in code — colours, proportions, typography, how the surface and the light look. Then I make several variants of the densest page, not an easy one, and show them to you all at once. I ask you for rejections, not approvals: what you reject describes you better than what you like.

2.2

What comes outThe written values, the variants side by side and a summary of what was rejected and why.

2.3

What you decideYou pick one variant, explicitly, and the list of rejections is closed. This is the most important “yes” of the whole project: without it, what follows is work at risk. If you stop in the middle of the session with “wait, I want something else here”, I write it down — that's usually the most valuable thing.

2.4

How long it takesWith step 01: the first week and a half of the three. If this “yes” is late, the whole project is late — I tell you this when you sign, not at handover.

Step 03No approval

The build

3.1

What happensI write the visual rules once — what counts as text and which colour it takes, how the light looks, the finish, the shadow — so I can change a material without rewriting the meaning. I apply them everywhere from the same place, not by hand, and compare before and after to see what moved without me meaning it to. Motion comes last, only where it helps, with the rule written beforehand: what may move and what may not. Anyone with “reduced motion” set on their phone gets a gentler version, and everything you can press with the keyboard has a visible focus.

3.2

What comes outThe page built on the approved variant, plus a short note with its visual rules.

3.3

What you decideNothing to approve formally. I work on what you've already approved, and everything I do here can be taken back.

3.4

How long it takesAbout a week for the rules and applying them; motion goes into the rest of the project.

Step 04No approval

The check

4.1

What happensBefore I publish, I check what you'll see: on a phone, the contrast, the speed and that the form actually reaches you. I measure the page at three widths, from a computer to a small phone, and look for anything that spills off the screen or can't be read any more. I measure the accent colour on every background it appears on, not “in general”. The automatic check isn't enough for me: I double it with photos of the page and by reading the colours directly.

4.2

What comes outA clear verdict: “ready to publish” or “fails”, with the reason. There is no “almost green”. Plus photos of the page on a computer and on a phone, which I look at myself before I publish.

4.3

What you decideNothing to approve here. If something fails, it's fixed before it goes any further.

4.4

How long it takesIt's part of the rest of the project, together with motion and publishing.

Step 05You approve

Publishing

5.1

What happensI publish only once the check is green and I've looked at the photos. The publishing procedure runs the checks once more and can't be skipped. After it has gone out, I don't assume it's live: I check on your real domain that exactly the version I sent is what shows, that the new version is the one that was uploaded and that no errors appear. If that isn't confirmed, the page isn't published.

5.2

What comes outThe published page, confirmed on the real domain. We do the handover with you on screen, so you can change on your own what needs changing afterwards.

5.3

What you decidePublishing needs a “yes” from you, said in words, before I touch the domain. A live site is production, not a sketch.

5.4

How long it takesThe rest of the three weeks, together with the check.

How I write the header

R — the result Concrete, not vague Something the reader can picture exactly. “More time” isn't a result; “Tuesday off” is. It doesn't have to be a number, but it has to be just as precise.

O — the objection What they think won't work The most common buying objection, taken from what the people who would buy from you say, not from my intuition.

T — the time How long it takes If you don't have a number you can stand behind, the title works without it. An invented time never goes in.

I write the title first, separately, in several variants. Only then do I order the rest of the page as an extension of it, each section resting on the belief the previous one has set.

The order test. If I can move a section and nothing breaks, the page is a catalogue, not an argument.
One buyer in mind, not a list of industries.
The price is placed, not justified. The figure appears after it has been explained why it matters, with no paragraph of apologies.
Missing proof is marked, not invented.

What I refuse to do

Six things I don't do, even if it would go faster.

I don't call it published on a server “ok”A good response doesn't prove the page is the right one: a server can answer “ok” on a wrong or empty page too. I open the page on your real domain and check that it's the version I sent.

I don't hide on the page what can't be readA “more discreet” text that doesn't pass the contrast threshold is, in practice, absent. I measure colours, I don't guess them. A label cut off with “…” makes the person guess: I give it a shorter name, I don't cut it.

I don't promise conversionI don't promise how many visitors will press the button, because that doesn't depend on me alone. I promise what I control: the order, the texts, the check. The title doesn't promise “more clients”.

I don't invent proofNo testimonials written by me, no figures you can't show, no names that don't exist. What's missing stays marked in the draft until it exists.

I don't design before you approve the structureA visual language over a text that is still changing gets applied twice. And I don't carry an unapproved idea across all the pages: I first demonstrate it on one.

I don't start from what you admireThe references you admire aren't necessarily the ones that fit: a psychotherapy practice that looks like an electronic sampler is a positioning mistake dressed up as design. The reference goes through whoever has to believe you.

05 — The work BM—09.5 / WHAT YOU GET

Site plus first campaign. The third work in the Foundation.

Not a brochure site. A capture page built on the structure above, with the form wired into the system and the source of every lead tracked from the post to the conversation.

Work 03 · Web Three weeks

€2,400 final price

The capture page, written on the six pieces — header, proof, the three steps, price, questions, one single action.
The form wired into the system, not a mailto. Every submission goes into the same list as the rest of the leads.
Source tracking: every post carries a code, and the code tells you which piece the person came from. The mechanics are described on the leads page.
I write the copy myself, in an interview with you. You don't get an empty document to fill in — that's the rule everywhere here.
Handover happens with you on the screen, so you can change afterwards whatever needs changing, on your own.

Structure and copy Interview, section order, every line written and approved before a single pixel exists.

Design and build The page built on the approved copy, phone first. Speed and accessibility checked, not assumed.

Campaign, tracking, handover The first campaign launched, source codes placed on the pieces, the form tested end to end, and the handover on screen.

Web makes sense after positioning. Otherwise I write a flawless header for a message that hasn't been decided yet, and two months later we rewrite it together. See the positioning and the identity or the complete Foundation, where the four taken together cost €5,900 instead of €7,500.

06 — To avoid BM—09.6 / FOUR MISTAKES

Four things that ruin an otherwise good page.

You see them on most service sites. None of them costs money to fix — it only costs a decision.

Too much text If the third sentence isn't read, the thirtieth won't be either. People skim, so you write for skimming: headings that say something on their own.

Buttons in conflict Every extra action splits attention. One page, one action — the rest are links, not buttons.

Stock images People recognise stock by reflex, and the reflex says “these people have nothing real to show”. A bad photo of you beats a perfect photo of somebody else.

A form with fifteen fields Ask for the name, the address and one sentence about what hurts. The rest comes out on the call, where you have to talk to the person anyway.

The guide, as a PDF

The complete structure, with copy examples for each of the six pieces.

To read offline or pass on to whoever builds your site. It starts immediately, not in three days.

One email, on request. I don't add you to any list and I don't pass the address on — see the privacy policy.

Your page gets visitors. Does it convert them too?

In a twenty-minute conversation we look at the page you have now and I tell you which of the six pieces is missing. If none is missing, I'll tell you that too.

Let's talk

I can't make you a suit until I know your measurements. The call is the fitting, not a sales pitch.

Or see all the pricing and how a lead gets tracked.