Ask most tradespeople why they have not got a website and you will hear one of three answers: word of mouth is enough, it is too expensive, or they would not know where to start. All three are understandable. All three are costing money.
Here is what a website actually does for a small business, what it needs to have on it, and how long before it starts earning its keep.
People check you out before they call
When somebody gets your name from a neighbour, the next thing they do is look you up. If nothing comes up, or the only thing that comes up is a Facebook page that has not been touched since 2019, doubt creeps in. It is not that they think you are bad at your job. It is that they have no way of knowing.
A website answers the questions people are too polite to ask: how long have you been doing this, what does your work look like, do you cover my area, are you insured, roughly what will it cost.
Word of mouth has a ceiling
Recommendations are the best leads you will ever get. Nobody is arguing with that. But they only reach as far as the people who already know somebody who knows you.
A website works while you are on site, asleep, or on holiday. It reaches the person three streets over who has never heard your name, and the one who has just moved into the area and has nobody to ask.
It brings in work you would never have got
Every month, people within a few miles of you type exactly what you do into Google. If you are not there, that work goes to whoever is. These are not customers you could have reached by word of mouth, because they were never in your circle to begin with.
That is the part most people underestimate. It is not that a website wins you the jobs you were already quoting for. It is that it puts you in front of a completely separate group of people.
It filters out the wrong jobs
This one is underrated and it is often the first benefit people notice.
If your site says plainly what you do, which towns you cover and roughly what things cost, the people who ring you are already the right people. You stop driving forty minutes to quote for a job you were never going to take, and you stop having the same awkward conversation about budget.
Fewer, better enquiries beats more enquiries every time.
It saves you repeating yourself
How long does it take. Do you clear up afterwards. Are you insured. Do you do free quotes. Can you work weekends.
You answer these several times a week, usually on the phone while you are trying to do something else. Put them on the site once and let it do the talking. Most people will have read the answers before they ring, which makes the call shorter and the customer better prepared.
What a good small business website actually needs
Not much, honestly. The sites that work are rarely the fanciest ones.
- Photographs of your own work. Not stock images of somebody else’s kitchen. Phone photos of a job you finished last week beat professional stock every time.
- The areas you cover. Name the towns. People search that way, and it tells a visitor immediately whether you will come out to them.
- A phone number that is tappable on a mobile, on every page, not buried on a contact page.
- Clear pricing, or at least a range. Even a rough guide beats silence. Silence makes people assume the worst and move on.
- Reviews from real customers with a first name and a town attached, so they read as genuine.
- Speed. If it takes more than about three seconds to load on a phone, half your visitors have already gone.
- One obvious next step on every page. Usually: ring us, or get a quote.
If you want the full version, we keep a business website checklist covering everything we build into a site.
How long before it works
Be realistic about this, because plenty of people will tell you otherwise.
Two things happen on different timescales. Immediately, anybody who already has your name can look you up and find something that makes them confident enough to call. That effect starts the day the site goes live, and for most small businesses it is the bigger of the two.
Appearing in search results for people who have never heard of you takes longer, typically a few months, and it depends on how competitive your trade and area are. Claiming your Google Business Profile is the fastest way to speed that part up, and it costs nothing.
Anyone guaranteeing you first place on Google within a fortnight is either guessing or lying.
The cost of not having one
Think about the last three jobs you quoted for and did not win. If even one of those went to a competitor because they looked more established online, the website has already paid for itself.
A small business site in the UK typically runs to between £500 and £1,500. Set against one decent job, that is not really a marketing expense at all.
Where to start
You do not need anything fancy. You need something that loads fast on a phone, says what you do, shows your work and makes it easy to ring you.
That is exactly what our website design for tradesmen is built to do. We write the words, sort your photos and launch the whole thing – you do not touch a keyboard. 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, free of charge.