A trade website does one job: turn a stranger who is standing in front of a problem into a phone call. Everything on the page either helps that or gets in the way. Here is the list we run before we put any site live, and the things we deliberately leave off.
The name, exactly as you trade
One version of your business name, spelled the same way everywhere: the website, your Google profile, your van, your invoices. If Google sees three versions it is less sure you are one business. If a customer sees three versions they wonder which one they paid.
A tappable phone number, above the fold
Not an image of a number. Not a number only inside a form. A real tel link, at the top of every page, repeated at the bottom, and in the mobile bar so it follows the reader down the page. Say when you answer it. If you do not take calls after six, write that, because an honest line beats a ring out.
The areas you cover, named
Towns and villages by name, not "the local area". This is what a customer scans for first, and it is how they decide in two seconds whether to ring you or go back to the results.
Your services, in the words customers use
Write what people type, not what the trade calls it. Blocked drain, not high pressure jetting solutions. Flat roof leak, not single ply membrane systems. One short page per service you actually want more of, and be as clear about what you do not do. A line saying you do not touch asbestos or take on small patch repairs saves you a dozen wasted calls a month.
Photos of your own jobs
Your camera roll is the most valuable marketing asset you own and it is sat in your pocket doing nothing. Before and after pairs, the town named, the work named. Ten real photos beat forty stock images of someone else's house every time, and the stock ones actively hurt because everybody has seen them.
Proof that you are real
Reviews with real first names and the town. A link to your Google profile so people can check them. Your company number if you are a limited company, and your registered name. Years in the trade. Anything you can back up.
Insurance and accreditations you actually hold
Public liability, with the cover level, and the accreditations you genuinely carry. Only what is true and current. Putting up a badge you have let lapse is the sort of thing that comes out at exactly the wrong moment.
A way to ask for a quote that filters
Do not launch on a name and message box. Before it goes live, send yourself an enquiry through your own form, on your own phone, and see what arrives. If what lands does not tell you enough to ring back and talk about the job, the form is not finished. Fix that before launch day, not after the first wasted week.
A privacy page
The moment your site collects a name, an email or a photo, you are handling personal data and UK data protection law applies. You need a plain page saying what you collect, why, how long you keep it and how someone asks for it back. The Information Commissioner's Office publishes free guidance for small organisations. It is a twenty minute job and it is not optional.
A link to your Google Business Profile
For a local trade the profile is often what people find before the website. Link to it, keep the name, number and address identical on both, and set it up free at business.google.com if you have not already.
Before it goes live
The ten minute final pass, on your phone
- Tap the phone number from the top of the homepage. Does it dial?
- Read the first screen. Does it say what you do and where?
- Every photo on the page is a job you did, not a supplier picture.
- Send yourself a test enquiry. Does it arrive, and does it tell you enough to quote?
- Check every page for the old designer name or a leftover placeholder.
- Open the privacy page and the Google profile link. Both load?
What to leave off
A stock photo of a smiling call centre. A slider that moves on its own, because people photograph what they need help with and a moving hero throws it away. Music or a video that plays by itself. A live chat box nobody is watching, which is worse than no chat at all.
Leave off the long paragraph about your passion for quality. Every trade site says it and nobody reads it. Leave off certifications you have not got, prices you cannot honour and a blog with one post from three years ago, which makes the whole firm look shut.
Leave off the contact form that asks for a phone number, an email, a postcode and a message before it will send anything. Every extra box loses people.
If you can only do three
Tappable number, your towns named in the heading, and ten photos of your own work. Those three carry most of the weight, and the rest of the list can follow in the week after you launch.