Website design focus: Tradespeople
Posted on 21st January 2025
This is the first in a new blog series focused on various industry sectors. This article takes a deep dive into a specific approach that tradespeople can use for web design and development. Our hints and tips will help you attract the right customers and types of work you’re looking for, so you can promote your business successfully online. Let’s get started!
1. Identify the types of work you’re really looking for
As a busy tradesperson, the last thing you want is to waste time quoting for work you don’t really want. So, it makes sense to structure your website to attract customer with needs and budgets that match the type(s) of business that suit your preferences and skill set.
For example, if you’re a plumbing and heating engineer, you might be looking for regular, guaranteed income from work such as annual boiler services and maintenance plans, or you could prefer larger projects such as complete kitchens and bathrooms. Similarly for builders, you might want to take a handyman-style approach of ‘no job too small,’ or concentrate your efforts on bigger, long-term projects like extensions and new builds.
Or if, like most tradespeople, you’d like to offer a range of services, put these in priority order, with your ‘favourite’ jobs at the top of the list. You could also have a think about your ideal customer and even create a persona or avatar for them if you have time.
Once you’ve all nailed this down, you’re in a great position to start planning your website.

2. Structure your website accordingly
Your next task is to structure your website navigation so your target customers can find your prioritised services quickly and easily. It’s a good idea to put brief information and links to your most important services on the Home page – perhaps in a rotating banner at the top – as well as creating individual pages and sub-pages for each service.
To give an example, a basic site map for a roofer wishing to prioritise new commercial work over domestic work and repairs might look like this:
1. Home
2. About
3. Roofing services
a. New commercial roofs
b. New domestic roofs
c. Roof repairs
4. Case studies
5. Contact
Taking this approach, rather than just putting details of all your services on a single page, helps massively with search engine optimisation (SEO). This is because each page will have its own title that’s unique to that service, with key pages ultimately displaying underneath your Home page on the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs), as in the example below:

From a marketing and conversion viewpoint, splitting out your services into different pages and sub-pages is very helpful, as potential customers can go straight to the information they want without having to wade through a lot of details that aren’t of interest.

5. Consider the customer process for booking the work
There are generally two types of decision-making process when it comes to booking a tradesperson: emergency call-outs and non-urgent repairs/projects. Naturally, the process is quite different for each of these, with customers making much faster decisions when it’s an urgent job.
If you do emergency call-outs, you’ll need to take a specific approach to get your business towards the top of the Google SERPs listings. A dedicated web page is a ‘must’, including features and benefits such as turnaround times, transparent information about quotes and fees, and precise information about the services available in an emergency.
Another must-have is a call to action right at the top of the page, as well as a call-out contact button on the Home page, so people can quickly and easily get in touch. It’s also a good idea to talk about prioritising call-outs to households with elderly or vulnerable people, if you offer this.
Given 90% of people now use the internet on their mobile phones, optimising your website to display properly on mobile is essential. ‘Call us’ buttons should link straight to your phone number, so customers can ring you straightaway without having to find the Contact page.
The customer journey will be very different for other types of work such as non-urgent repairs and projects. Most people will take the time to shop around and compare different tradespeople and what they have to offer. For larger projects, customers will want much more in-depth information such as details of the design process, styles and products on offer, timescales and pricing structure.
Whilst the process can vary, a typical Google search might start with ‘Builder near me’ or similar, which will bring up a list of local firms. The customer might look at your website first to check out your services, case studies and gallery as relevant, but is also highly likely to visit multiple touchpoints such as reading reviews on Checkatrade.com and similar, and looking at your social media pages. They may then take a while to consider their options, potentially returning to your website several times, before getting in touch for a quote.
With this in mind, your web pages covering these services need to present the right information to get the customer’s attention straightaway, with the most important details at the top. You’ll then need to clearly explain how you work and price up jobs, and point the reader towards testimonials and case studies of successful projects to help them convert.

6. Think about adding geographic landing pages to your site
A useful tactic for businesses targeting local and regional trade – as is usually the case with smaller trades businesses – is to create targeted geographical landing pages for each town, city or area you want to target. These can be standalone, but often integrate seamlessly into the main website so, except for the landing page itself, all customers will access the same content.
Landing pages work well for both emergency call-outs and other types of trade business. They typically have a slightly different structure and focus from main website pages. As you’d expect, each page features specific geographical keywords relating to the area you’re targeting, such as ‘Nottingham,’ ‘Derby,’ ‘Leicester’ and so on, but without keyword stuffing.
We’ll explain more about landing pages and how they work in a future blog .

7. Put a robust contact / enquiry process in place
A big mistake that’s all too commonly made is not including a contact or enquiry form on a website. Yes, some people do prefer to call or email you directly, but a contact form is a useful way to quickly and simply tell you what they’re looking for and ask you to get in touch. You should include a form on the Contact page as a minimum, but it’s a good tactic to have one on every page – either at the bottom or side of the page, or a ‘floating’ form that moves with the reader as they scroll down.
As well as collecting contact details, use your form to identify what the customer wants using tick boxes, a drop-down menu and a Comments field. You could also take the opportunity to subscribe them to your email list if you have one, by adding an extra tick box for this (make sure you follow the double opt-in process, though).
Once the customer has filled in the form, make sure a ‘Thank you’ page is displayed to reassure them you’ve got their message and will be in touch. You can also include links to relevant information such as case studies, testimonials, design information or your gallery page, to keep them on the site and engaged with your business and its services.
In addition, it’s a good idea to explain the next steps in the process for larger projects and suggest information they could have to hand or have a think about (such as colours and styles), before you call or visit them - you could use a "Thank You" Page for this - read more here

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Contact us today to discuss your website requirements, or ask us for a FREE audit of your current site to see what’s working well and what could be improved.
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