Most tradie websites fail the same way: they're built like brochures when they should be built like answer sheets. A customer with a leaking tap or a dead power point arrives with four or five questions, and the site either answers them in seconds or loses the job to the next result.
Here's what belongs on the page, what doesn't, and why.
Above the fold: who, where, and the number
Before anyone scrolls, three things should be obvious: what trade you are, where you work, and how to call you, with the phone number tappable and visible on every page. That's the whole first screen. Postcode-level clarity matters more than a clever headline: "Electrician in the Sutherland Shire" beats "Powering Your Tomorrow" every single time.
One page per service, not one long list
People don't search "plumber" when the hot water dies. They search "hot water system replacement". A separate page for each major job you do means you show up for each of those searches, and the page they land on talks about their exact problem. We go deeper on this pattern for specific trades in our guides for plumbers and electricians, but it holds for every trade: the job gets the page, not the trade.
The proof customers actually check
In rough order of how often customers look for them:
- Reviews: real ones, with enough volume to be believable, placed near the phone number
- Licence number: stated, not hinted at. It's the fastest separator from the cash-job operators
- Insurance: one line is enough, but it has to be there
- Photos of real jobs: your work, your van, you. Stock photos are worse than no photos; everyone recognises them
- Years and area: "15 years across the Shire" is proof of survival, and survival is proof of quality
None of this requires fancy design. It requires honesty, arranged where people look.
A quote form that qualifies the job
The form should ask three or four questions: the job, rough details, photos if they've got them, suburb. Photos are the big one. A picture of the switchboard or the leaking join lets you quote from the ute instead of driving out for a look. And every job captured by a form at 9pm is a job your voicemail would have lost.
What to leave off
The things that make websites worse, in rough order of how common they are:
- Stock photos: the smiling model in a hard hat has never wired anything
- Sliders and carousels: nobody waits for slide three; they bury your best message
- Jargon: "switchboard compliance upgrades" is fine; "end-to-end electrical solutions" is wallpaper
- Chatbots: a tradie site needs a phone number, not a robot asking "how can I help?"
- Your life story above your services: the about section earns its place, but below the answers, not above them
- Autoplaying anything: instant credibility tax
The pattern: anything that makes the site feel like marketing gets skimmed past. Everything that answers a question gets read.
The one-page website myth
A single long page feels tidy, but it can only rank for one search and it forces every visitor through the same scroll. Five short pages (home, two or three services, about, contact) beat one long one for both Google and humans. This is most of the difference between a site that brings in work and one that just exists; it's also why the cost of doing it properly is lower than most tradies expect.
Keep it current, or it works against you
An outdated site quietly tells customers the business might be too. Prices from two years ago, a dead Instagram link, "fully booked until March" in July: each one plants doubt. Whatever you build, make sure updating it is someone's actual job: yours, your freelancer's, or ours. Keeping sites current is half of what a managed service is for.
Get the answers right, put the proof where people look, and leave the clever stuff off. That's the whole playbook. A tradie website has one job, and it's to make picking up the phone feel safe.