Most tradespeople’s websites are built to look like a website. The ones that bring in work are built to answer the four questions every customer has before they pick up the phone: do you cover my area, do you do this job, roughly what will it cost, and can I trust you in my house.
The area you cover, by name
“Serving the North West” tells a customer in Heswall nothing. “Heswall, West Kirby, Neston and the rest of the Wirral” tells them yes.
People search with a place in the query: “boiler repair Wallasey”, “electrician Didsbury”. A site that names the towns it covers has something to match that search. A site that names a region leaves the customer to guess, and most will not.
List the towns on the homepage and on a page of their own. If one area brings most of your work, it can earn a page to itself, written about that place rather than the same text with the town name swapped in. Your Google Business Profile does the same job on the map: Google lets a business that visits customers set up to 20 service areas by town or postcode, and remove its address if customers do not come to it. How to get on Google Maps goes through it.
A page for each service
A plumber who fits boilers, fixes leaks and does bathrooms has three businesses with three different customers. One “Services” page with a bulleted list serves none of them well.
Give each main service its own page, and on each one say:
- what the job involves, in a sentence or two a customer would use;
- what is and is not included;
- how long it usually takes;
- roughly what it costs, or what the price depends on;
- a photo or two of that job, done by you.
A page about boiler servicing is what someone searching for boiler servicing can be shown. A list on a general page is not, or not as well.
Prices, or at least what drives them
Most trades say “every job is different” and give no figures. Every job is different, and customers know it. What they want is to find out whether you are in the right range before they spend twenty minutes on the phone.
Three ways to do it, in order of usefulness:
- Fixed prices for fixed jobs. A boiler service, an EICR, a callout. If the job is the same each time, the price can be too.
- “From” prices or typical ranges. “Bathroom refits typically run from…” with what pushes it up and down.
- What the price depends on. If you cannot give figures, list the factors: access, materials, size, whether old work has to come out first.
Any of the three filters out the enquiries that were never going to book, which saves you as much time as it saves them.
Registrations a customer can check
A customer letting you into their house wants to know you are qualified, and the quickest way to show it is to let them check.
Gas. “Anyone employed to work on gas appliances in domestic premises must be a Gas Safe registered engineer”, in the words of HSE’s domestic gas FAQ. Customers can check a registered business or engineer on gassaferegister.co.uk or by text. Put your business registration number on the site, in the footer and on the gas service pages, and link to the register. The engineer’s licence number is on their personal ID card, which customers can ask to see on the day.
Electrical. In England and Wales, notifiable electrical work in homes is usually certified through a competent person scheme. Gov.uk lists the authorised scheme operators for electrical work, among them NICEIC (operated by Certsure LLP), NAPIT, BESCA and Blue Flame Certification. The Registered Competent Person Electrical site lets a householder search for a registered electrician by postcode or check a company by name. Say which scheme you are with, give your membership number, and link to where it can be checked.
TrustMark. TrustMark describes itself as the Government Endorsed Quality Scheme for work in and around the home, and customers can search its register. If you are registered, say so and link to your listing.
A logo on its own proves nothing; anybody can paste one. A number and a link to the register prove the thing the logo only claims. Only display a registration you actually hold, and keep it current.
Insurance
Say what you carry. Public liability is the one householders ask about, and stating the level of cover answers the question before it is asked.
If you employ anyone, employers’ liability insurance is a legal requirement, with cover of at least £5 million, according to gov.uk. That one is for your staff rather than your customers, but a business that mentions it reads as one that has its paperwork in order.
Photos of your own jobs
Stock photos of a smiling plumber in clean overalls persuade nobody. A slightly blurry photo of a boiler you fitted last Tuesday, pipework neatly clipped, does.
Take before and after photos on every job as a habit. Ask the customer first, keep house numbers and faces out of shot, and put the best ones on the page for that service. A gallery page is fine; photos on the service pages work harder.
Reviews from real customers
Reviews do more than anything else you write about yourself, because somebody else wrote them.
Collect them on your Google Business Profile, where people see them in search, and show a selection on your site with the customer’s first name and town. How to get more Google reviews covers asking without it being awkward.
Write none of them yourself and pay for none of them. Since April 2025, fake reviews and concealed incentivised reviews are banned under consumer law, and the Competition and Markets Authority’s guidance for businesses applies to any trader publishing reviews, including on its own website.
Built for a phone, with one-tap contact
A customer with a leak is often standing in front of it with a phone in their hand. The site has to work there first.
- Click-to-call. The phone number as a tappable link, visible at the top of every page and again at the bottom.
- WhatsApp. A button that opens a chat with you, so customers can send a photo of the leak or the fuse board. For a lot of jobs that photo is the quote.
- A short quote form. Name, phone, postcode, what the job is, and an option to attach a photo. Each extra field is one more reason to give up. Make sure it arrives somewhere you check, and test it every month.
How fast you reply
Say it on the site: “We reply to every enquiry the same working day”, or within two hours, or by 9am the next morning. Whatever is true.
Then do it. A response time on a website is a promise, and a broken one costs more than not making it. If you are on tools all day, say when you return calls and stick to it.
What it can leave out
A trades site does not need a blog, a mission statement, an animated intro, a page about your values, or a newsletter sign-up. It needs to answer the four questions and make the next step one tap. Everything on this list is achievable in five to ten pages. What you are actually getting when you buy a website shows what a quote should state beyond the pages.
Examples
We build sites for trades, and our demos for plumbers, electricians, roofers, locksmiths, plasterers and others are on our work, each set in a real town. Each place we build in has its own page with the trade demos set there: the Wirral, Liverpool, Manchester, Chester and Warrington. Our plans are on pricing, and if you have a quote from somebody else, how to read a website quote goes through what to ask.
If you want someone to look at your own website, the free review tells you the three things we would change first.
