A skip hire website needs to answer four things fast: what size skip the customer needs, what they are allowed to put in it, whether they need a permit to put it on the road, and whether you deliver to their postcode. Get those four on the page in plain language, with a price next to each size and a phone number that works on a mobile, and the site is doing its job.
Everything else, the gallery, the about page, the reviews, matters less than those four. Skip hire is bought by people who are mid job, slightly stressed and comparing three firms on their phone in a hallway full of rubble.
What should a skip hire website include?
Think about the order the customer asks questions in, because that is the order the pages should come in. They want a skip. They are not sure which one. They do not know if it goes on the drive or the road. They want a number.
A workable structure for a small or mid sized operator looks like this:
- A home page with sizes, prices and a phone number above the fold
- A page for each skip size, or one strong sizes page with a section each
- A what can and cannot go in a skip page
- A permits page explaining road placement
- An areas covered page with a map and a postcode list
- Pages for the jobs you want more of: house clearance, builders waste, garden waste, grab hire or wait and load if you offer it
- A contact page with yard address, opening hours and collection cut off times
That is comfortably inside ten pages, which is the shape most skip firms end up with. If you add a page per town you serve, it grows. Our price up your website tool lets you add pages and see the difference before you talk to anyone.
Explaining skip sizes without the guesswork
Most customers have never hired a skip. "Six yard" means nothing to them. They know roughly how much junk is in the garage and whether a lorry can get down their street.
So give every size three things: the dimensions in feet and metres, a rough capacity in bin bags or wheelbarrow loads using your own figures, and two or three real examples of the jobs it suits. A mini skip for a bathroom strip out. A builders skip for a kitchen rip out. A roll on roll off for a full house clearance or a site.
Add the practical bits that nobody else bothers with. Whether it has a drop down door for barrowing in. Roughly how much of your driveway it takes up. Whether a 12 yard is too heavy for a block paved drive. Those details are what make someone ring you rather than the firm with the prettier photos.
Photos of each size help more than you think
A photo of each skip sat on a normal driveway, with a car or a wheelie bin next to it for scale, answers the size question better than any paragraph. Take them on a phone when you are out on deliveries. On our packages you can use your own photos or AI generated images, and for skips your own are worth far more, because they show your actual kit and your actual colours.
What can and cannot go in a skip
This page saves you money, not just phone calls. Every contaminated load is a cost, and a customer who claims nobody told them is a customer you argue with.
Set it out as two plain lists. What is fine, and what is not accepted or needs separate arrangements. Typically that second list covers things like:
- Asbestos in any form
- Plasterboard, which usually has to be separated or skipped on its own
- Fridges, freezers and air conditioning units
- Tyres
- Paint, solvents, oils and other liquids
- Batteries, gas bottles and anything pressurised
- TVs, monitors and other electricals
- Mattresses, where many operators charge extra
- Food waste and clinical waste
Your rules are your rules, so write the page from your own permits and your own transfer station, not from a competitor's site. Then say what happens if someone gets it wrong: a surcharge, a refusal to tip, a return trip. Put that in writing on the site and link to it from the booking enquiry form so it is hard to miss.
Also state the fill level rule clearly. Level load only, nothing above the rim, because the lorry cannot legally carry it. A single sentence and a photo of a correctly filled skip does the whole job.
Permits for skips on the road
This is the part customers find most confusing, and the part where a clear page makes you look like the grown up operator.
Cover the basics in your own words: a skip on a public highway needs a permit from the council, a skip entirely on private land does not. Say whether you apply on the customer's behalf, which most operators do, and what you need from them to do it. Say that councils charge different amounts and take different lengths of time, and that the lead time means last minute road placements are not always possible.
Then add the bits that cause arguments on the day:
- Lights and markings on the skip, and who fits them
- Permit duration and what happens if the job overruns
- Whether parking bays need suspending separately
- Resident parking zones and red routes
- Who is responsible if the council issues a fine
If you serve several councils, list them with their own notes. That is genuinely useful content and it tends to be the kind of page people search for by name, which helps when you are trying to be found in a specific town. There is more on that in our post on getting found on Google when you only work locally.
Delivery areas, properly drawn
Skip hire lives and dies on the drive time. Someone twenty five miles away is not a customer, they are a loss, and you do not want that call at eight in the morning.
Every RentAWeb package includes a service area map, so you can show the radius you actually work in rather than a vague "and surrounding areas". Back the map with a written list of towns and postcode districts, because that is what people type and what search engines read. If you charge differently for outlying areas, say so with a rough band rather than leaving it to the phone call.
If you want individual pages for your main towns, keep each one real. Local tips, typical street types, the council that issues permits there, a job you have done nearby. Thin pages that swap one town name for another are not worth the ten pounds a month plus VAT that an extra page costs.
Prices, and whether to publish them
Skip hire is price sensitive and most buyers are ringing round. If your prices are not on the site, a good number of them will not ring at all.
Publishing a from price per size, with VAT stated, and a clear note on what is included (delivery, collection, hire period, tipping) usually serves you better than hiding it. If permits, overweight loads or extended hire are extra, list them as extras rather than burying them. Customers are far less annoyed by a known extra than a surprise one.
If you genuinely cannot publish, because every job is quoted on volume or access, then say why in one sentence and make the enquiry form short. Name, postcode, what the waste is, when they need it. Nothing else. For help with the tone of those pages, writing the words for your own website covers it properly.
Speed, phones and the booking rush
Most skip enquiries come from a phone, often outdoors, often on a poor signal. A heavy site with a big slider and a dozen stock photos is a liability. Ours include a floating call bar so the number stays on screen while they scroll, and there is a fuller explanation of why this matters in why a slow website costs you work.
Think about your hours too. Put your cut off time for next day delivery on the home page. If you take Saturday morning deliveries, say so. If you do not answer the phone after five, say that as well and let the form catch the evening enquiries. Honest opening hours lose you nothing and save you the missed call guilt.
Builders are a different customer to householders
A builder wants an account, a price list, reliable collection and someone who answers at seven in the morning. A householder wants hand holding. Write separately for both, with a trade page and a domestic page, rather than one page that tries to speak to everyone. Our guide to what a trade business website actually needs goes into that split in more detail, and if you also do groundworks or muck away, construction website design covers the site side.
What a skip hire website design costs with us
Our packages are sold by page count. Starter is up to 5 pages at £49 a month, Essential up to 10 pages at £79, Professional up to 15 pages at £99 and Business up to 25 pages at £149. All exclude VAT. Extra pages are £10 a month each or five for £40 a month, which is how most firms add their town pages later.
Most skip hire firms land on Essential, because sizes, waste types, permits, areas, trade and contact fills ten pages comfortably. A blog is included on every tier except Starter, where it is £10 a month extra. Online bookings are included on Business and are £20 a month on the other tiers, worth a look if you want people to reserve a delivery slot rather than ring.
You pay the first three months up front, then monthly from month four, with no setup fee and no contract. Cancel any month with a month's notice. One design revision is included, and content changes such as prices, waste rules and permit notes are unlimited and free, which matters when council charges move. You can also buy the site outright at the start or later, at a separate one off price, and should you own your website or rent it? lays out that decision honestly.
Frequently asked questions
How many pages does a skip hire website need?
Eight to twelve is typical. Home, sizes, what can go in a skip, permits, areas covered, trade accounts, about and contact gets you to eight. Add town or service pages only where you have something real to say about that place. Our Essential tier covers up to 10 pages at £79 a month excluding VAT, with extras at £10 a month each.
Should I put skip prices on the website?
Usually yes, at least a from price per size with VAT stated. Skip hire buyers are ringing round and comparing, and a site without prices often gets skipped over. If access or waste type changes the figure, publish a from price and explain in one line what moves it. Hidden pricing tends to cost you calls rather than protect margin.
Can I update permit and tip charges myself?
Yes. Every site comes with the Nova editor so you can change prices, waste rules, permit notes and opening hours yourself. Content changes are unlimited and free, so if you would rather send them over than do it yourself, that is fine too. Only design changes are limited, to one revision included.
Do I need online booking for skips?
Not always. Many operators prefer a call so they can check access, waste type and whether a permit is needed. Online booking suits firms with fixed sizes, fixed prices and settled delivery slots. It is included on our Business tier and £20 a month excluding VAT on the others, so you can add it later if demand points that way.
Will a new website get me to the top of Google?
Nobody can promise that, and be wary of anyone who does. What tends to help is clear pages about the things people actually search, such as skip sizes, permits and the towns you cover, a fast site on a mobile, and a well kept Google Business Profile. The website is one part of local visibility, not all of it.
Where this leaves you
A good skip hire website is not a design exercise. It is sizes with real dimensions, an honest list of what you will and will not take, a permit page that saves arguments, and a map that stops wasted journeys. Do those four well and the phone calls you get will be the right ones.
RentAWeb builds and runs that kind of site for a monthly fee, with hosting, SSL, business email, the editor, a service area map and a free redesign every year included, no contract and a month's notice. You can see what yours would cost in a couple of minutes, or read how to pick a small business website package first if you are still weighing up options.
