Websites for trades: what plumbers, electricians and landscapers actually need

A homeowner in Langley with a leak is doing the same thing as one in Chilliwack with a dead outlet: searching, reading reviews, and calling whoever looks real first. Here is what your website needs to be that call.

The short answer: 98 percent of homeowners search online before hiring a trade, and 81 percent lean on Google reviews to decide. A trades website needs the cities you serve written out, your licence and insurance stated plainly, photos of finished jobs, your reviews, and a phone number that dials with one tap. Reputation beats price: 34 percent of homeowners rank experience and reputation first, ahead of cost.

What homeowners check before they call

The order is consistent across the research: they search, they read reviews, they look for proof the trade is legitimate, and then they call one or two, not five. 81 percent rely on Google reviews for the decision, and more homeowners rank experience and reputation first than rank price first. Which means the job of your website is not to be the cheapest quote. It is to be the one that looks safest to let into the house.

Name your cities, in actual sentences

This is the cheapest ranking win in the trades. When someone types “plumber Langley” or “electrician Chilliwack”, Google matches pages that say those words. A map radius on a directory profile does not count as saying them. One honest paragraph does: “We take jobs across Surrey, Langley, Abbotsford and Chilliwack, and larger projects anywhere in the Lower Mainland.” Write the list you actually drive, keep it true, and every city in it becomes a search you can win. If you serve Delta, Maple Ridge or White Rock, say so; your service area is yours to define.

The trades website checklist

  1. Licence and insurance, stated plainly. Licensed, insured, and your WorkSafeBC coverage if you have crew. Homeowners are told everywhere to check for this, so answer it before they ask.
  2. Cities served, in text. The paragraph above. It is doing search work and reassurance work at once.
  3. Photos of finished jobs. Before and after if you have them. A kitchen you actually plumbed beats any stock image of a wrench.
  4. Reviews on the page. You earned them on Google; put the best ones where a nervous homeowner reads them.
  5. One tap to call, and a short quote form. The call button for daytime, the form for the 11pm leak that can wait until morning.

What you do not need

Customer portals, online invoicing, job management dashboards. Those are subscriptions that live in your toolbox, not on your website. Every trade we have talked to has a story about paying monthly for software the website supposedly needed. The website needs none of it. Its whole job is the call.

What it costs

With us: $499 one time. $699 and we come out and shoot you, the crew and the work, usually on a weekend between jobs. $999 adds video. No monthly fees, live in about a week, and you own the domain, the site and the photos. Websites for trades anywhere in Canada, Chilliwack and Delta included; photo and video shoots we drive to across Vancouver, Burnaby, Richmond, Surrey, Coquitlam, Langley and Abbotsford. Prices in full in the price guide.

Common questions from trades

What should a trades website include?

Cities served in text, licence and insurance stated, job photos, reviews, tap to call, and a short quote form. That is the whole machine.

Do homeowners really check us online?

98 percent search before hiring, 81 percent lean on Google reviews, and reputation outranks price for more homeowners than any other factor.

Why list cities on the page?

Google matches “plumber Langley” to pages that say Langley. A written city list is the simplest search win a trade can get.

Do I need a portal or invoicing on the site?

No. Those are software subscriptions for running the business. The website’s job is getting the call.

What does it cost?

$499 one time, $699 with a shoot of your work, $999 with video. No monthly fees, and you own it.

Sources

Keep reading: why your business isn’t on Google Maps · do you own your website?

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