Viper Drain Cleaning: Compare & Measure
Build vs. the modeled comp (Anderson HVAC, tournament champion, composited-vehicle hero pattern). Anderson's public capture is hero-only, so below-the-fold sections are judged against the other tournament finalists where evidence exists, and marked Uncontested where no comp shows an equivalent section (per the Straightline scorecard convention). Captured 2026-07-06.
Desktop hero, head to head
Mobile fold, head to head
Full pages
Section-by-section scorecard
| Section | Judged vs | Verdict | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hero (pattern) | Anderson | TIE | Same winning pattern executed: composited branded van in a real neighborhood, letter-spaced two-line display headline, dual-color action pills (gold call / green request), review line directly under CTAs. Anderson's professionally shot composite has cleaner photo polish; Viper counters with a far more distinctive brand device (real mascot logo faithfully reproduced on the wrap) and a richer trust row (BBB A+, licensed, 8 years chips Anderson lacks). Honest call: even. |
| Utility bar | Anderson / Dormar | TIE | Both have one. Viper's adds a live offer (10% senior/vet + free estimates) on the right, Dormar-style promo use, and swaps to a short non-wrapping variant on mobile. |
| Header + nav | Anderson | TIE | Same anatomy: logo, serving-area line, phone with 24/7 sub-label, solid CTA, service-grouped hover dropdowns. Matches the champion; nothing extra claimed. |
| Credential strip | - | UNCONTESTED | 4-item dark band under the hero (24/7, licensed/bonded/insured, free estimates, senior/vet discount). No comp capture shows an equivalent full-width strip. |
| Services grid | Smock | TIE | 6 icon cards with hover lift + blunt copy + horizontal-scroll strip on phones (no orphaned row). Comparable card treatment to Smock's; no claim to beat it. |
| Why-us split | Smock | WIN | Uses a REAL jobsite photo (sewer trench) with an honesty tag, against comps' stock/staged imagery. Every bullet is a verified fact (24/7, free estimates, BBB A+, 8 years), no invented guarantees. |
| Real-jobs proof strip | - | WIN | Six real crew photos straight off the current site's gallery, honestly captioned ("not stock"). No comp in the tournament pool shows real job photography as a homepage band, and it's the exact proof a drain company needs. |
| Process steps | - | UNCONTESTED | 3-step "call → free estimate → fixed" band. No comp equivalent captured. |
| Stat band | - | UNCONTESTED | Count-up band of verified numbers only (337 reviews, 8 years, 26 towns, 24/7). Added in improvement round 1; no comp equivalent captured. |
| Reviews | Smock / ChillyBens | WIN | Named review carousel with five REAL Google quotes (verified via Birdeye 2026-07-06), a 4.7★/337 summary pill linking to the live profile, and reviewer avatars. Smock shows a count chip; ChillyBens shows badge rows; neither surfaces actual named quotes. |
| Comparison table | - | UNCONTESTED | 7-row "Viper vs typical outfit", every Viper-column claim verified (24/7, free estimates, BBB A+, 337 reviews, address, discount). |
| Offer band | Dormar / Coastal | TIE | Full-width gold band for the real 10% senior/vet offer. Comps use utility-bar promos; this is a heavier treatment of the same idea. |
| Lead form section | - | WIN | Off-hero two-column request form (per the anti-pattern rule: no form crowding the hero) with problem-type select and an emergency call-out. None of the three modeled comps have a full lead-capture section on the homepage. |
| Service area + city pages | - | WIN | 26 real towns as pills split IA/NE, plus two BUILT city pages (Council Bluffs, Omaha) with localized copy, FAQs, and schema, the brief's explicit ask. No comp capture shows working city pages. |
| FAQ (+ schema) | - | WIN | 6 selling FAQs with FAQPage JSON-LD; answers reinforce free-estimate/24-7 positioning. No comp equivalent captured. |
| Footer | all | WIN | Trust-badge strip, 4-column grid, full 26-town coverage block (local-SEO signal), exit CTA band ("Still scrolling? The drain's still clogged."), back-to-top, legal row. Comp footers (where captured) are standard link columns. |
| Mobile UX | Anderson / ChillyBens | WIN | Sticky 3-way bar (Call / Text / Book, ChillyBens' winning pattern, which Anderson lacks), premium full-screen flyout drawer with one-at-a-time accordions + in-drawer conversion footer (exercised programmatically: open/close, accordion exclusivity, scroll-lock all pass), compact non-wrapping header. |
Tally: 7 wins · 5 ties · 5 uncontested · 0 losses (after improvement rounds 1-2: lighter hero scrim, stat band, mascot CTA watermark, calmer mobile hero art direction, ARIA states, breadcrumb schema)
Alignment measurement (not eyeballed)
Left/right edges of every section's .container measured via getBoundingClientRect():
| Breakpoint | Sections measured | Container edges | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Desktop 1440px | header, hero, cred, services, why, proof, reviews, area, faq, footer | left 100.00 / right 1340.00 on all (footer grid = container + 24px gutter, as designed) | ONE shared edge ✓ |
| Mobile 375px | same 10 | left 0 / right 375 on all; single 20px gutter inside | ONE shared edge ✓ · no horizontal scroll (scrollWidth 375) |
Honestly flagged gaps
1. The hero van is AI-composited, flagged mockup-only. Anderson's is a professional photo composite. Ours reproduces Viper's real logo faithfully on a generated van in a generated golden-hour street, it reads real at a glance, but a real branded-truck photo from the client should replace it before anything ships. This was agreed upfront (no public truck photos exist).
2. No human faces anywhere. Smock's hero (tech at the door, homeowner smiling) carries emotional warmth this build can't match yet, Viper has zero public crew photos. The fix is one photo session (or even phone shots of John Bott, the tech customers name in reviews). Until then, the real-jobs proof strip carries authenticity, but people beat pipes.
2. No human faces anywhere. Smock's hero (tech at the door, homeowner smiling) carries emotional warmth this build can't match yet, Viper has zero public crew photos. The fix is one photo session (or even phone shots of John Bott, the tech customers name in reviews). Until then, the real-jobs proof strip carries authenticity, but people beat pipes.