Websites for tradies

A good website for tradies does one thing before anything else: it lets a stranger with a problem reach you in a single tap. They're usually on a phone, often standing in the mess, and they'll give a site about one screen to show what you do and where you work. The call button should already be under their thumb. Everything else on the site backs that first screen up.

The trades differ, but the customers share a mood. They've got a job that needs doing, they don't know you, and they're comparing you against a name a mate gave them. Real photos of your ute, your crew and finished work settle that doubt faster than any paragraph. Then a plain list of jobs, the area you cover and a form short enough to finish between jobs.

What the site carries

• A call button that stays on screen as the page scrolls, on every page.
• Your trade and your patch in the first line, in the words customers use, like plumber, chippy or concreter plus the area.
• A page for each trade or main job you offer, so someone looking for a tiler isn't shown a deck builder's page.
• Where your state licenses this work, the number in full, beside the trade it covers.
• Photos of your own ute, your own crew and finished jobs, with the suburb or town in the caption.
• A quote form with a photo upload and very few fields, so it works with the customer standing next to the problem.
• When the phone is answered, and what happens when you're on a job and can't pick up.
• The areas you travel to, and which kinds of work you take on, whether houses, shopfronts or farms.
• A plain line on insurance, guarantees and the paperwork the customer gets afterwards, only where it's true.
• Your Google Business Profile matching the site exactly: name, number, hours and service areas.

The work your customers look for

• plumbing repairs
• electrical fault finding
• carpentry and decks
• roof repairs
• painting inside and out
• concrete driveways
• tiling and waterproofing
• fencing and gates
• gutters and downpipes
• small renovations

What they type

• "tradie near me"
• "handyman"
• "plumber"
• "painter"
• "concreter"
• "tiler"
• "roof repairs"
• "tradies"

Where your state licenses this work, show the number in full beside that trade, and never present a licence for one trade as covering another.

Say fully insured or guaranteed only if you hold the cover and can show it, since Australian Consumer Law treats those words as promises.

A price on the page has to include compulsory charges in the total, and the total can't be less prominent than any part price.

Reviews on the site have to come from real customers, because fake or paid-for reviews are misleading conduct under Australian Consumer Law.

Rules change. Have your licence and wording checked against your regulator before the site goes live.

• A stock photo of a smiling worker in spotless hi-vis, which no customer believes.
• A phone number set in an image, or in text that won't dial when tapped.
• One long page covering every trade you've ever done, so nobody can tell what to call you for.
• A contact form with a dozen required fields and a puzzle to prove they're human.
• A site still showing last winter's special, a dead phone line or a bloke who left the crew.