Trades & home services
Websites for trades and home services
Most trade work is decided within a few miles, on the Google map, by reviews, photographs and how quickly someone answers.
How customers search
The map decides, and the site finishes the job
Trade searches come in two kinds. The urgent kind is a burst pipe, a dead boiler or a fuse board that keeps tripping, and the customer rings the first reasonable name on the map who looks like they will answer. The planned kind is a loft conversion, a bathroom or a landlord needing a gas safety check, and the customer compares a few firms, reads their sites and asks for quotes.
Both begin with the three businesses Google puts on the map. Which three appear depends on how close you are, how well your profile matches the job, and your reviews and photographs. The website matters in a different way. It confirms you are who the profile says you are, and for planned work it is where the customer decides to ask for a quote.
That is why the site and the Google profile have to work as one thing. If the profile says you do rewires and the site never mentions them, you lose the click and the call.
What the site has to do
Small, quick and obviously real
A number you can tap
A call button that stays on screen on a phone, with hours and a plain promise about when you ring back. Someone with water through the ceiling will not read a paragraph about your values.
Your accreditations, shown properly
Gas Safe registration for gas work, NICEIC or NAPIT for electrical, and whatever your own trade body is. Customers check, and a registration they can see saves the call where they would have asked.
Real photographs of real jobs
Before and after, taken on your phone, with the customer's agreement. They beat stock images, and they give Google something that shows the work was actually done in the area.
A page for each service you want, and an honest service area
A page for each kind of job you really want: boiler servicing, rewires, extensions. Then a plain list of the places you really cover. We don't build a page for every village you might drive through on a good day.
A quote form that takes photos
Name, number, postcode, what is wrong and a photo or two. It saves a wasted visit and shows the customer you have understood the job.
It also has to load fast. Plenty of customers search on a phone with a weak signal, in a hallway or a garden, and a site that crawls loses the call to one that does not.
What it costs
Usually the smallest package
Most trades need Towpath, £2,400–£3,800, a sharp five-to-eight page site for one location with local SEO and the Google Business Profile set up properly. Reach, £4,500–£8,500, is for a firm with several vans and several towns to cover, where town pages across the valley earn their place.
Hosting, care and small changes from The Form start at from £95 a month. SEO retainers run from £650 a month, and many sole traders will not need one in the first year, because reviews, a corrected profile and a clear site do most of the early work. All prices are before VAT.
The track is Local SEO & Google Business Profile. Soundings has notes on Reviews that actually help local rankings and Ranking in more than one Thames Valley town without doorway pages.
Patches we know
Where the call goes
- Bourne EndMarinas, a sailing club and a village centre of trades and family services. Most work comes from within five miles, and the map decides who gets the call.
- WokinghamNew estates and young families, where a trade lives or dies on its reviews and how quickly it answers.
- SloughA huge trading estate and a dense mix of trade counters and commercial maintenance, mostly B2B and mostly under-served by good websites.
Questions
What tradespeople ask us
- Do I need a website if I get my work from the Google map?
- Yes, but a small one. Customers click through to check you, and Google uses the site to understand what you do and where. A short, fast, honest site paired with a good profile does the job better than a large one.
- Should I list every town I cover?
- Only the places you will really travel to. One honest list of the places you serve is more useful, to customers and to Google, than twenty near-identical pages.
- How do I get more reviews?
- Ask every customer, soon after the job, with a link to your profile that works on their phone, and reply to every review. Our Soundings note on reviews that help local rankings covers what Google allows and what it does not.
- Do I need a monthly SEO retainer?
- Often not at the start. A corrected profile, good reviews and a clear site do much of the early work. A bigger firm covering a wide area may want a retainer later, and we will tell you if it is not worth it yet.
- What does a trades website cost?
- Most trades fit Towpath at £2,400–£3,800, which includes local SEO and a properly set up Business Profile. Hosting and care from The Form start at from £95 a month. A multi-van firm across several towns is nearer Reach at £4,500–£8,500. All before VAT.
Start a project
Tell us what the website needs to do
A short note is plenty. Tell us what you sell, where, and what isn't working, and you'll get a straight answer within a working day, even when the answer is that you don't need us.