By Bianca Frank, Creative Director · Bianca Frank Design, Anchorage
Originally published October 2019. Fully rewritten and updated October 2026.
Someone in Eagle River just searched for an electrician. It’s 7:40 in the evening, the breaker won’t reset, and they’re holding a phone. They tap your site. What happens in the next ten seconds decides whether they call you or the next listing.
That’s the test every business website has to pass, and it has very little to do with how modern the design looks. Over nineteen years of building sites for Alaska clinics, contractors, tribal organizations and shops, the ones that bring in work all do the same nine things. Here they are, in the order a visitor meets them.
In short:
- In the first ten seconds a visitor needs three answers: what you do, where you do it, and how to reach you. If any of those takes a scroll, you’re losing people.
- In the first minute they’re checking whether you’re real and whether you’re right for them: real photos, real reviews, a service page that matches their problem.
- In the first five minutes they’re deciding whether to act: a form that works, prices or a clear path to one, and no reason to hesitate.
- Alaska adds its own requirements: service areas people recognize, hours that account for the season, and pages that load on a weak connection.
- The nine elements below cover all of that. Most sites we audit are missing three or four.
The first ten seconds
1. One sentence that says what you do and for whom
The top of your home page, before any scrolling, needs a plain sentence a stranger could repeat back. “Residential, commercial and industrial electrical work in the Mat-Su Valley” does the job. “Powering your tomorrow” does not. Taglines belong under the sentence, if anywhere.
For Pitcher Electric in Palmer, the rebuilt home page leads with exactly that: three kinds of electrical work, one service area, a button to request an estimate. Nobody reads further unless they want to.
2. Your service area, named the way locals say it
Alaska is big and people search locally. “Serving Alaska” tells an Anchorage homeowner nothing. “Anchorage, Eagle River and the Mat-Su Valley, with travel to the Kenai by arrangement” tells them you’ll show up. Name the communities you actually serve, in words residents use, and put it near the top. It also happens to be what Google reads when someone searches “[your service] Wasilla.”
3. A way to contact you that works on a phone with one thumb
A phone number that dials when tapped. A button that opens a short form. Both visible without scrolling, on every page. Most of your visitors are on a phone, often outside, often with gloves half off. A contact link buried in a menu is a lost call.
The first minute
4. A page for each service, written for the person who needs it
A single “Services” page with a bulleted list is where inquiries go to die. The homeowner with a tripped breaker and the general contractor bidding a warehouse are different people with different questions; they need different pages. Each service page should say what the work involves, who it’s for, what to expect, and how to start.
This is also how a site gets found in search. Google ranks pages, not businesses. A dedicated page for “commercial electrical contractor Mat-Su” can rank for that search; a line item on a list cannot.
5. Proof you’re real: photos of your actual people and work
Visitors can tell stock photography instantly, and it quietly tells them you had nothing of your own to show. A photo of your crew in front of your truck, your front desk, your finished projects, with Chugach peaks or a Fairbanks winter in the background, does more for trust than any amount of copy. One good half-day with a local photographer covers a site for years.
For Solara Skin + Laser, an Anchorage medspa, the old site had the opposite problem: it looked like a generic template for a business whose entire appeal is personal results. The rebuild gave it its own identity, from the site through to the cards and brochure in the lobby, so that a visitor comparing laser treatments at 10 pm sees one specific clinic with one specific look, not an interchangeable franchise. In a trust-based service, looking like everyone else is the same as looking like no one.
6. Reviews, in the visitor’s path, not hidden on a testimonials page
Nobody visits a testimonials page. Pull three or four real Google reviews onto the home page and onto the service pages they relate to, with names and dates. If a review mentions a specific job (“rewired our 1970s Spenard duplex”), put it on the residential page. Alaska is small; a visitor may recognize the reviewer’s business, and that is worth more than any badge.
The first five minutes
7. The answers people call to ask
Every business gets the same five questions by phone. Do you serve my area? Do you take my insurance? How soon can you come? What does it roughly cost? Do I need a permit? Put the answers on the site, on the page where the question comes up, in plain language. You’ll get fewer calls that go nowhere and more calls from people ready to book.
For a medical practice, this means insurance accepted, how referrals work, what the first visit looks like, telehealth options and new-patient forms. For a contractor: service area, emergency availability, licensing and insurance, how estimates work. For a tribal organization or nonprofit, who the programs are for and how to apply.
8. Hours and status that are actually true
An Alaska business’s hours change with the season, the weather and the Iditarod. A site that says “open” when you’re closed for freeze-up, or lists summer hours in January, costs you trust the moment someone drives over. Keep hours on the site and on your Google Business Profile in sync, mark seasonal closures, and make sure whoever answers the phone can change them in two minutes without calling a developer.
9. A site that loads on a weak connection
Your visitors are not all on fiber in midtown Anchorage. They’re on a cell signal on the Glenn Highway, lodge Wi-Fi in Talkeetna, or a satellite connection in a village. A page carrying a dozen uncompressed photos simply doesn’t open for them. Compressed images, no autoplay video at the top, and a host that’s set up properly are the difference between a visitor and a bounce. If you want a quick check, open your own site on your phone with Wi-Fi off, somewhere outside town.
What this looks like all together
A stranger lands on your home page and in one glance knows what you do, where, and how to reach you. They tap the service that matches their problem and find a page written for someone in their situation, with a photo of your actual work and a review from someone like them. Their question is already answered. The hours say you’re open. They tap the number. That’s the whole machine, and it’s the same machine whether you’re an electrician in Palmer, a clinic in midtown or a housing authority in Fairbanks.
Not one of the nine is about looking modern. Design matters because it carries these nine things clearly; it doesn’t replace them. If you’d like a second pair of eyes on your site against this list, our website audit does exactly that.
Frequently asked questions
What should be on a small business website home page? One sentence saying what you do and for whom, your service area, a tap-to-call number and contact button, a short path to each service, two or three real reviews, and real photos. Everything else is secondary.
Does a small business in Alaska still need a website if it has a Facebook page? Yes. Facebook decides who sees your posts and can change the rules overnight; your website is the one place you control, and it’s where Google sends people who search for what you do. Use both; depend on the one you own.
How many pages does a business website need? Usually six to twelve: home, about, one page per main service, contact, and a projects or reviews page. More services, more pages. A one-page site is fine as a placeholder; it can’t rank for more than one thing.
What makes a website look trustworthy? Real photos of real people, named reviews with dates, a physical address and phone number, a current copyright year, a secure connection (the padlock), and copy that answers questions instead of making claims.
Should my website have prices on it? Where you can, yes. Starting prices or ranges filter out people who were never going to hire you and reassure the ones who are. If pricing truly varies, explain what it depends on and how an estimate works.
Run your site against the list
Open your own site on your phone and count how many of the nine it does. Most Alaska business sites we look at manage five or six. If you’d like us to do the count with you and tell you which gaps are costing you calls, book a website audit and we’ll go through it page by page.
Bianca Frank is the founder and Creative Director of Bianca Frank Design, an Anchorage agency that has designed brands and websites for Alaska businesses since 2007. She holds a BFA in Graphic Design and leads a small in-house team covering branding, web design, SEO and content strategy, with recent work for clients including Nalaquq LLC, the Native Village of Barrow, Solstice Psychiatry and Alaska Geographic. BFD was named one of Anchorage’s best web designers by Three Best Rated (2025) and received UpCity’s Local Excellence and Best of Alaska awards (2022, 2023).
