Most web-design advice aimed at tradespeople is pitched at the wrong tier. Agencies try to sell £5,000 "fully bespoke brand-led" sites to plumbers who need a credible online front in 10 days and a phone number people will tap.
Here's what a tradesperson's site actually needs to do, what it costs to get right, and why the over-designed option usually underperforms the simple one.
The jobs-website vs portfolio-website distinction
A portfolio website is for designers, photographers, architects, people who sell on visual quality.
A jobs website is for tradespeople, you sell on trust, availability, and being easy to call. The two have different rules.
If you're a plumber showing off your kitchen fit-out designs, you're optimising for the wrong thing. Your customers aren't browsing, they're searching "plumber near me" on a Tuesday afternoon because their boiler died. Every second between their search and tapping your phone number is a chance to lose them.
The 4–6 pages that actually work
Most tradesperson sites are over-engineered. Here's the minimum viable structure:
- Home, who you are, what you fix, phone number above the fold
- Services, list of the 5–10 things you do, with specific price ranges where you can
- Areas covered, plain list of towns/postcodes, the single biggest local SEO lever
- About, one paragraph, who you are, how long you've traded, what makes you different
- Reviews, pulled from Google Business Profile, not a "testimonials page"
- Contact, phone number at the top, email, form, map
That's it. No blog (unless you'll genuinely write monthly), no team page (unless you've got 5+ people), no resources section nobody clicks.
Phone number above the fold (non-negotiable)
The single most important conversion on a tradesperson's site is the phone tap.
What this means in practice:
- Header phone number visible on every page, without scrolling, on mobile and desktop
- Tap-to-call link,
tel:+44XXXXXXXXXX, so tapping on mobile auto-dials - Opening hours right next to the number, "Open now" or "Call back Monday 8am"
- Emergency line if you do emergency work, separate call-to-action
A contact form is fine as a secondary option. It's a disaster as the primary one. The kind of customer who searches at 9pm with a boiler failure is not going to fill out a form and wait.
Real photos of real jobs beat stock every time
The single easiest credibility upgrade: photos of your actual work.
What works:
- Before/after photos of recent jobs (get permission from the homeowner)
- Photos of your van with your logo
- Photo of you / your team in work clothes
- Phone photos are fine, they're honest, they look like you took them
What doesn't work:
- Stock photos of generic plumbers / electricians smiling in a catalog pose
- Manufacturer images of tools
- "Team" photos taken against a white studio backdrop (you don't have a studio)
The customer is checking whether you're real. A single phone photo of your van outside a real house does more than 20 stock images.
The MVP Web model at £1,800
Most tradespeople don't need a £6,500 Marketing site. They need something credible online in 10 days.
MVP Web at £1,800 / LKR 155,000 includes:
- Homepage with phone number above the fold
- Services page
- Contact page
- Mobile-responsive
- On-page SEO basics (title tags, schema, sitemap)
- Analytics + Search Console connected
- Deployed on your domain
It deliberately skips:
- Blog / CMS
- Multiple service pages (everything lives on one Services page)
- Complex integrations
For 90% of tradespeople starting from scratch or replacing a 2015 WordPress site, this is the right price point. Upgrade to the full Marketing tier later if the business demands it.
Local SEO, where tradespeople outrank bigger competitors
Local SEO is the cheapest acquisition channel in the trades. A solid local-SEO setup (covered in our local SEO guide) consistently outranks bigger competitors with worse local setups.
The five moves that matter most:
- Google Business Profile verified and active, post weekly, add photos monthly
- Consistent NAP across Yell, Checkatrade, Rated People, local industry directories
- 10+ Google reviews from recent genuine customers
- Dedicated service-area pages on your site ("plumber in Nottingham," "plumber in Derby", one page per town)
- Mention local landmarks and areas naturally in your page copy
Do these five things and you beat 80% of competing tradespeople within 6 months. Not hype, this is the empirical pattern across the tradesperson sites we've built since 2018.
Reviews, how to ask without being annoying
Ask at the moment of highest satisfaction. Right after the job's done, when the customer is relieved the problem is fixed.
Two methods that work:
Method 1, the QR card: print small cards with "Leave us a Google review, QR here" and a short URL to your review link. Hand one over at the end of the job. Don't email later, the moment passes.
Method 2, the same-day text: "Thanks for having us out today. If you've got 30 seconds, a Google review would mean a lot, here's the link: [short URL]." Send within 24 hours, not a week later.
Target: 1–2 new reviews per month, consistently. A profile with 2 recent reviews per month outranks a profile with 50 old reviews that stopped 18 months ago.
Common mistakes that kill tradesperson sites
- Hero image too big / too slow, you're losing visitors before the phone number loads
- Contact form in place of phone number, wrong channel for the customer type
- Stock images of smiling models, broadcasts "I don't have real photos", broadcasts "I'm new"
- No area-covered detail, Google can't rank you for towns you don't mention
- Slow-loading gallery, autoplay video, unoptimised photos, both kill mobile load speed
- Trying to rank for 20 towns with 20 thin pages, Google punishes this, pick 5 and do them properly
- No reviews or old reviews, customers scan for these before tapping the phone
Quick starter pack
If you're a tradesperson starting from nothing:
- Set up Google Business Profile (free, 30 minutes)
- Verify it (postcard arrives in 5–14 days)
- Add 10 recent job photos
- Ask your last 10 customers for Google reviews
- Get a simple site live, MVP Web £1,800 or a Wix template if budget is tight
- Post weekly to the Google Business Profile (photos, updates, offers)
Within 6 months, if you follow the above, you'll be ranking locally for your main services. Without spending on paid ads.
Want a website that brings in local jobs without wasting the budget?
Book a free 30-minute call, we'll look at your area, your services, and what kind of site will actually work for your specific trade. No pitch.
Or message on WhatsApp, most trades find WhatsApp easier anyway.