The 5 things every tradesperson's website needs (and 3 things that ruin it)

Most tradespeople’s websites are fine. They exist. They have your name on them. They show your phone number somewhere.

But “fine” doesn’t win the job. The customer comparing you to two other plumbers makes a decision in under 8 seconds, and they’re not reading paragraphs — they’re scanning for signals. Get the five signals right and they call you. Miss them and they call the next one.

Here’s exactly what those signals are, what to put on each, and the three classic mistakes that send people straight to your competitor.

The 5 things every tradesperson’s website needs

1. A headline that says what you do, where, and why you

The biggest writing on your site — the bit at the top of the homepage — should say in plain English: trade, area, one credible reason to choose you.

Bad: “Welcome to Smith Plumbing — your local plumbing solutions provider.”

Good: “Brighton’s no-nonsense plumber. Same-day callouts, Gas Safe registered, 15 years on the patch.”

The first version says nothing. The second says four things a customer cares about. Eight seconds, four pieces of information — they’re sold.

This is the single biggest lever on your website. Most sites get it wrong.

2. Your phone number, big, top-right, on every page

For a trades business, the phone call is the conversion event. Forms are second-best; emails are a distant third. Most customers who want to call you decided to call you the moment they hit your site — make them work to find the number and they give up.

The rule: phone number visible in the header on every page, big enough to read on a phone screen without zooming, with a tel: link so tapping it on mobile dials immediately. Bonus points for showing it as a sticky bar at the top.

Industry benchmark: customers tap-to-call within 30 seconds of landing on your site, or they don’t.

3. Real photos of real work — not stock images

Nothing destroys credibility faster than the same stock photo of a generic plumber-pretending-to-fix-a-pipe that 4,000 other tradespeople use.

What works:

• Your van with your branding
• Photos of finished jobs (before / after if you have them)
• A photo of you, ideally on a job site
• Your tools, your shop, your office

Doesn’t have to be professional photography. Phone photos in decent light look more authentic than stock. Customers want to see a real person — not a brochure model.

4. Visible Google reviews on the homepage

Reviews are the single most-trusted form of social proof on the internet. If you’ve got them (and you should — here’s how to get more), put them on your homepage. Not buried on a “Testimonials” page nobody clicks. Homepage.

A trio of recent five-star Google reviews with the reviewer’s name and town does more for conversion than any amount of “About Us” copy. Customers see real people in their area who hired you and were glad they did.

If you only have a couple of reviews so far, show what you’ve got — even three real reviews beats none. And keep collecting.

5. A clear “what to do next” — a call to action

Every page should have one obvious next action. For most trades that’s call or request a quote — not both, not three. One.

The CTA should appear at the top of the page (so the people who decided in 3 seconds can act immediately), in the middle (so the people who scrolled through the content can act after reading), and at the bottom (so the people who read the whole thing have an obvious next step).

Same wording each time. Same colour each time. Don’t make customers think about which button to press.

The 3 things that ruin it

1. “We’re a friendly family-run business” copy

Every trades website on Earth says this. It’s the equivalent of saying nothing. Customers don’t care that you’re a “friendly family-run business” — they care that you turn up when you say you will and don’t leave a mess.

Replace generic claims with specific facts:

• “On time or it’s free” (if true)
• “Same-day callouts in BN1, BN2, BN3” (if true)
• “All work guaranteed 24 months” (if true)
• “Member of the [actual trade body]” (if true)

Specifics beat adjectives every time. If your copy could be lifted from your site to a competitor’s and nobody would notice, your copy is doing nothing.

2. A contact form that asks for 12 fields

If your “contact us” form has 12 fields — name, phone, email, address, postcode, service required, urgency, preferred contact method, preferred date, message, hear about us — almost everyone bounces.

The maths is brutal: every field on a form reduces submission rate by about 5–8%. Twelve fields means roughly 70% fewer enquiries than a four-field form (name, phone, postcode, message). A trades business doesn’t need to interview the customer — you need to know how to call them back.

Three fields max. Phone number, name, what’s the problem. Everything else you can ask when you ring them.

3. A site that takes 8 seconds to load on a phone

Mobile-speed is the silent killer. Customers searching “plumber near me” at 9pm on a Friday with a leaking pipe will not wait for your hero image to load. Google measures it too — slow sites rank lower in search.

Common causes:

• Massive hero images uploaded straight off a phone without compression
• Auto-playing background videos that nobody asked for
• Five different JavaScript trackers loading before the page renders
• A theme template loaded with features you don’t use

How to check: paste your URL into our free analyser — it runs a real Lighthouse audit and tells you exactly what’s slowing it down.

If your mobile load time is over 3 seconds, you’re losing roughly half your traffic before they see anything.

The honest test

Open your own website on your phone right now. Imagine you’re a customer who’s never seen it. Time yourself.

• 0 to 3 seconds: did the headline load? Can you tell what they do and where?
• 3 to 8 seconds: did you find the phone number? Is there a one-tap call button?
• 8 to 30 seconds: did you see any reviews? Any real photos? A clear “what to do next”?

If your site doesn’t pass the 30-second test on your own phone, it’s leaking customers. The fix isn’t a redesign — it’s getting those five things right.

Or — let us build one for you

We build a complete tradesperson website — phone number prominent, real photos, Google reviews on the homepage, three-field enquiry form, mobile-fast — and we email it to you within 30 minutes of a quick chat. £29.99/month, 30 days free, no card needed.

See what we’d build for your trade business →

— webfascia