Top Tips for Creating an Effective Website for a Trades-Based Business

Top Tips for Creating an Effective Website for a Trades-Based Business

Whether you’re a plumber, electrician, painter, concreter, bricklayer, builder, or other trades worker, you likely get many of your new customers from referrals from other clients or a franchise head office. You might also advertise in local publications or do letterbox drops.

However, these days it’s vital to have a solid online presence, too. Most people head straight to Google or another search engine to discover or read up on potential trade services and won’t make an inquiry or booking without seeing a website first.

As such, you must have a well-designed, updated, and user-friendly website that expands your marketing efforts and improves the rate at which you convert leads into bookings. Thanks to tech tools and website specialists, you no longer need to learn all the design ins and outs to develop an excellent website. You do need to understand what it takes to create an effective platform, though. Read on for tips you can follow as you go about putting together a website that gets results.

Effective Design

Your website needs a professional design that’s effective because it’s easy for people to use, across all devices, including smartphones. You want potential clients who come to the site to understand that you operate a trustworthy, reliable business and that you are who you say you are. Your digital presence should look consistent, with branding that matches what you showcase elsewhere.

Make the navigation of the website straightforward. Browsers should easily see how to move from one section to another so that they can find the details they’re looking for quickly. Anything confusing and poorly laid out will have people clicking away, instead. Your site must load quickly, too, as consumers won’t wait around. Avoid having lots of large files that take time to load, and use an appropriate website hosting company that handles a decent amount of traffic.

Add quality graphics to every page of your website to make it look appealing but don’t make anything look too cluttered. Also, avoid great reams of text with no white space anywhere. Break up text so it’s easy to read. Choose a simple, clear font in a decent size to ensure people don’t have to squint to read the information, either. 

Happily, it’s not necessary to know a stack of code to build a website that gets results. Utilize a popular website builder or hire a specialist to build a custom product for you. Choose a company with experience creating the type of site you need, such as websites for franchises, solopreneurs, or small businesses. 

Clear Message

Your website should portray a clear message, too. There’s no point having this online space if users can’t quickly tell what you do, the areas you specialize in, the locations you service, and, importantly, that you’re open for new business. You want people to come away from the website understanding your place in the market.

Make it obvious how you can help potential customers. For instance, explain how you’re different from other tradespeople in your area. What can you offer that they don’t? What do you do better, perhaps have some innovative or cost-effective technique for? Provide details about your expertise, qualifications, and the licenses you possess.

People will want to get an idea of your work’s quality and the exact types of projects you’ve done in the past. It pays to include photographs or videos of previous jobs, as well as client testimonials. Prove to people that you can do what you say you can.

Call to Action

Your website, to get people further into the sales pipeline and closer to hiring you, must spell out what step people should take next. The site requires a call-to-action, such as a prompt urging people to get in touch for more information or to engage you to come and quote. If you provide a highly-specialized and expensive service, you may want to encourage users to sign up for your newsletters or read your blog to learn more about you and your skillset.

Always include contact details, so interested parties can quickly see how to get in touch. List your phone number and an email address or webform for those who prefer to send an inquiry in writing. Place your contact information in a prominent spot on your website, above the fold (the spot where people have to scroll down to see more). For example, a good position is on the top right of each page.

As a tradesperson, you may not have much experience creating websites or feel particularly comfortable working on these kinds of marketing tasks. However, having a website is a vital part of doing business these days and can be achieved step by step.