Most trade business websites are built backwards. The owner thinks about design first, or worse, they think they need to tell their life story. Meanwhile, the customer just wants to know three things: can you do the job, can I reach you, and do other people trust you?
A good trade website is ruthlessly practical. It's not there to win design awards. It's there to get a plumber, electrician, roofer or joiner in front of actual customers who are ready to ring and get a quote.
Here's what actually matters.
Your phone number needs to be impossible to miss
This is the first rule and it matters more than everything else combined. When someone lands on your site, they need to see your phone number before they scroll. Top right corner, top left corner, in the hero section, anywhere obvious, but it has to be there and it has to be big enough to read.
On a phone, that number should be clickable. Not just clickable, it should be the default action. Someone browsing on their mobile at half five in the afternoon is about thirty seconds away from ringing someone. Make it one tap and they ring you. Make them find a tiny number and type it out, and they'll find someone else instead.
The same goes for your email and your contact form. Include all three. Some customers will ring. Some will prefer to type out a message. Give them the choice.
Show real photos of real work
This is where most trade websites fail completely. They fill the site with stock photos of people in hard hats pointing at plans, or close-ups of tools nobody recognises. Then they wonder why nobody rings.
Your customers want to see jobs you've actually done. They want to see a bathroom that looks like someone's actual bathroom, not a Pinterest shot that cost thirty thousand pounds. They want to see your workmanship. They want to see something that looks like their problem and then looks fixed.
Take good photos. Use your phone if you have to. Get the light right, clean up before you shoot, and take it from more than one angle. Show the before and after. If you've done that job a hundred times, pick the six best examples and use those. Bad photos do more damage than no photos, but good photos do the heavy lifting of your entire site.
Put photos on every service page, on your gallery if you have one, and in your testimonials if a customer lets you. Photos prove you do what you say you do.
Cover your service area clearly
If you work in Nottingham, say it. If you cover the East Midlands, say it. If you only do jobs within five miles of the city centre, say that too. Don't be vague about where you'll work. Someone in Leicester will see your site and ring you to ask if you can travel down. If the answer is no, you've wasted both of your time.
If you work a wide area, one page saying 'we cover Nottingham, Derby, and Leicester' is fine. If you want to rank for specific postcodes or towns, make separate pages for each one with a bit of detail about that area. It doesn't need to be long. Just something that shows you know the patch and you're willing to work there.
Most customers search 'plumber near me' or 'roofer in Nottingham'. Your website needs to be clear enough that Google understands where you work, and your customer understands it's worth ringing you.
List your accreditations and memberships
If you're Gas Safe registered, put it on the site. NICEIC, TrustMark, Which? Trusted Trader, local chamber, professional body, anything that proves you're legitimate. Put the logos where people can see them, and make sure they link to the register so a customer can verify you actually hold them.
A customer choosing between two electricians will often pick the one with visible badges. They can't check your work in person before ringing you. A badge proves an independent body has already done it for them.
Reviews matter far more than your own words
Write something about yourself if you want to. One or two sentences is enough. But what a customer actually believes is what other customers say about you. Find a reviews site that customers in your trade use. Google Reviews, Trustpilot, Feefo, even Facebook. Pick one and commit to it. Get customers to leave reviews. Reply to them all, even the bad ones.
Put a selection of your best reviews on your website. Don't cherry pick just the perfect ones, though. A mix of genuine reviews that mention specific jobs, specific problems solved, and what it was like to work with you, is far more persuasive than a wall of five-star comments saying 'great service'.
If you don't have reviews yet, ask. Five or six good, real reviews will win you more work than a thousand words of your own copy.
A quote form that asks the right questions
When someone fills in a form on your site, you want to qualify them immediately. You want to know what the job actually is, where they are, when they need it done, and how to reach them. Save everything else for the phone.
A form that asks for their life story and their company size and their marketing preferences will scare people off. A form that asks 'what do you need done, where are you, and what's your phone number' will get filled in. You can ask the details when you ring them back.
Make sure the form actually works. Test it yourself. Make sure when someone submits it, you get the details and you know how to reach them. This is the one moment in your site that actually turns into money. Get it right.
What to leave off
You don't need a fifteen-minute video of you explaining your values. You don't need a page about your company history. You don't need testimonials about your personality. You don't need to list every single service you've ever done.
You don't need pop-ups, countdown timers, chat widgets demanding to know who you are before you can look at anything, or autoplay music. You don't need seventeen paragraphs of text where two would do. You don't need to say the same thing on five different pages.
Every single thing on your site should earn its place by either showing customers you can do the job, or by making it easier for them to ring you. If it doesn't do one of those two things, take it out.
The point
A trade website that works doesn't need to be clever. It needs to be clear, honest, and easy to navigate. It shows real work. It makes your phone number obvious. It lets customers see that others trust you. And then it gets out of the way and lets them reach you.
Build a site for a customer deciding whether to ring you, not for an awards ceremony. When your phone rings more often, you'll know it's working.