Most small business websites are missing the same handful of things. Not clever things – basic ones, the sort that decide whether somebody rings you or goes back to the search results and picks the next name down.
This is the business website checklist we work through on every website we build. Go through your own site with it open. If you are missing more than three, that is very likely why the phone is not ringing.
1. A phone number in the header
Tappable on mobile, visible on every page, not hidden on a contact page two clicks away. Most people looking for a tradesperson are on a phone and want to call, not fill in a form. If they have to hunt for the number, a good proportion will not bother.
Put it top right on desktop and make it a proper tap-to-call link on mobile so one touch dials it.
2. The areas you cover
Name the towns. Not “the South East” or “a 30 mile radius” – the actual place names. It does two jobs at once: it tells a visitor straight away whether you will come out to them, and it gives you a chance of appearing when somebody searches for a plumber in that town.
People search locally. If your site never says Slough, you will not turn up for “electrician in Slough”.
3. Photographs of your own work
Real photos beat stock images every single time, even when yours are taken on a phone in bad light. Customers are trying to work out whether you are any good. A picture of a job you finished last week tells them. A stock photo of a smiling model in a hard hat tells them nothing, and most people recognise it instantly.
Ten decent photos of your own work is a better investment than any amount of design.
4. Reviews with a name attached
“Great service, highly recommended” from nobody is worth nothing. A first name and a town makes it real. Better still, pull your Google reviews through so people can see they are genuine and can go and check them.
Put them near the point where somebody decides to ring, not buried on a testimonials page nobody visits.
5. Some indication of price
Most businesses avoid this, which is exactly why the ones who do it get more enquiries. You do not need a full price list. A “from” figure, or a typical range for a common job, stops people assuming you are out of their league and filters out the ones who were never going to book.
Silence on price does not make you look premium. It makes people move on.
6. An enquiry form that actually works
Test it. Send yourself a message from your own site right now. A surprising number of business websites have forms that quietly go nowhere – the notification address is wrong, or the emails land in spam and nobody has checked.
Keep it short as well. Name, number, and what they need. Every extra field loses you enquiries.
7. Fast loading on a phone
Most of your visitors are on mobile data, sometimes on a patchy signal. If a page takes more than about three seconds, a good half of them have gone before they read a word.
The usual culprit is enormous photographs uploaded straight off a camera. Images should be resized and compressed before they go on the site. It is invisible to the visitor and it is the single biggest speed win on most small business sites.
8. A separate page for each service
One page listing everything you do ranks for nothing. A page each gives you a proper chance at each search. Somebody looking for bathroom fitting and somebody looking for boiler servicing are different searches, and they deserve different pages with different words on them.
This is probably the most commonly skipped item on the list, and one of the most valuable.
9. Something that proves you are real
Insurance, trade body membership, accreditations, how many years you have been going, a photograph of you and the van. People buy from people, and a site with no human being anywhere on it feels like a shell.
If you are Gas Safe or NICEIC registered, put the number on. Customers are told to check it, and making that easy builds trust before they have even spoken to you.
10. A privacy policy
Not exciting, but if you collect enquiries you are collecting personal data, and UK law expects you to say what you do with it. It also quietly signals that you run a proper business.
The short version
Make it obvious what you do, where you do it, what your work looks like, roughly what it costs and how to reach you. Everything else is decoration.
If you would rather not work through this yourself, that is fair enough – it is what we do. We write the words, sort the photos and build the whole thing for you. Have a look at what it costs, or tell us about your business and we will come back with a plan and a fixed price.