Websites for trades and contractors
Most trades websites fail for the same reason: they are a brochure for a business that gets hired by phone. The job of the site is to survive the ten seconds between a search result and a call.
Short answer
A trades website needs three things above the fold on a phone: what you do, the towns you cover, and a tappable phone number. Named service areas win local and AI-assistant results. Done-for-you builds start at $99 one time plus $10 CAD per month hosting.
On this page
- What a trades website is actually for
- The service-area page is the one that earns money
- Emergency work needs a different path than scheduled work
- Proof beats adjectives
- Where the phone fits
- How people actually find a trade
- Reviews belong on the page, not just on the profile
- Speed matters more here than almost anywhere
- What to do about after-hours
- The pages that actually pay for themselves
- What it costs
What a trades website is actually for
Your customer has water on the floor, no heat, or a panel that smells hot. They are not comparing craftsmanship. They are deciding, in about ten seconds, whether you are real, whether you cover their town, and whether you will pick up.
That means three things have to be above the fold, on a phone, without scrolling: what you do, where you do it, and a tappable phone number. Everything else on the site is secondary to those three.
The service-area page is the one that earns money
Trades are geographically bounded and search is geographically weighted. A single page that says "serving New Brunswick" competes with everyone. Named coverage — the actual towns, written out — is what gets you into a local result and, increasingly, into an AI assistant's answer when somebody asks "who does emergency plumbing near me".
We build the service area from a real list of towns and drive times, not a guess.
Emergency work needs a different path than scheduled work
These are two different customers and one website. Emergency: phone number, hours, response time, and nothing in the way. Scheduled work — a renovation, a panel upgrade, a new system — can take a quote form, because that customer is willing to spend two minutes describing the job.
A quote form that captures photos is worth building. Half of trades quoting is "send me a picture of the thing", and a form that collects it up front removes a full round trip.
Proof beats adjectives
"Quality workmanship" is what everyone writes, so it carries no information. Photographs of finished work, your licence and insurance stated plainly, the year you started, and reviews with real names do carry information. If you are licensed and insured, say so in text — a badge image cannot be read by a search engine or an AI assistant.
Where the phone fits
Missed calls are the biggest silent loss in trades. If you are under a truck you are not answering, and that caller is phoning the next name on the list. An AI receptionist that answers, takes the job details, and texts them to you turns a lost call into a lead. That is an add-on, not part of the build — but the site should be built so it can be bolted on without a rebuild.
How people actually find a trade
There are only three roads to your phone number, and they need different things from a website. A referral already trusts you and is only checking that you exist and still work in their area. A map search wants hours, distance and reviews. A typed search — "no hot water Moncton" — is a person describing a symptom, not shopping for a company.
That third road is the one most trades sites ignore, because it means writing about problems rather than services. A page titled "Water Heater Repair" competes with every supplier in the country. A page that explains what a pilot light that will not stay lit usually means, what it costs to look at, and how fast you can get there, answers the question the person actually asked. It also gives an AI assistant something specific to quote, which a services list never does.
Reviews belong on the page, not just on the profile
Your reviews probably live on a Google profile or a Facebook page. That is fine, but it means the trust you have earned only exists somewhere else. Pull a handful onto the site itself, with the first name, the town and the job, and put them near the point where someone decides to call rather than buried on a testimonials page nobody visits.
Two cautions. Do not invent them, and do not paraphrase them into marketing language — real customers do not write in slogans, and the difference is obvious to a reader. And if you mark them up as structured review data, only do it for reviews you genuinely collected, because fabricated review markup is a penalty risk rather than a ranking trick.
Speed matters more here than almost anywhere
A trades visitor is frequently standing in a basement on a phone with one bar of signal. Every stock photo slider and tracking script you add is paid for out of the ten seconds you have. The practical version of this is unglamorous: images sized for phones rather than uploaded straight off a camera, no video on the home page, and as few third-party scripts as you can live with.
The related trap is the contact form that only works if JavaScript loads. On a bad connection that is a lead that silently never arrives. A plain phone link cannot fail that way, which is another reason it belongs above the fold.
What to do about after-hours
Most trades businesses decide their after-hours policy by accident. The phone rings at 9pm, sometimes it gets answered, and the website says nothing either way. That ambiguity costs you twice: the emergency caller assumes you are closed and rings someone else, and the routine caller who does get through at 9pm annoys you.
State the policy plainly — the hours, whether there is an emergency rate, and what qualifies. If you want to capture the calls you currently miss, an AI receptionist can answer, take the address and the symptom, and text it to you. Treat that as a later add-on, but make sure the site is built so it can be bolted on without a rebuild.
The pages that actually pay for themselves
A working trades site is usually six to ten pages, not thirty. Home, what you do, service area, about with real faces, reviews, contact. Past that, add a page only when it answers a question people genuinely type, and write it properly when you do.
The failure mode is the twenty-page site where eighteen pages are the same three paragraphs with the town name swapped. Search engines have recognised that pattern for years and it now drags down the pages that were fine. One honest service-area page listing real towns outperforms twenty doorway pages, and it is far less work to keep true.
What it costs
Builds start at $99 one time (20,000 characters of copy, 4 custom images, 2 hours of work) plus $10 CAD per month hosting. Past the allotment: $0.20 per 1,000 characters, $2 per extra image, $40 per hour. If you would rather build it yourself, maple.website is $50 one time.
A typical trades site — home, services, service area, about, contact, quote form — fits inside the base build unless you want a large gallery or a long list of individual service pages.
Common questions
Do I need a separate page for every service?
Only where the service is genuinely searched for on its own and you want to rank for it. Five strong pages beat twenty thin ones, and thin duplicate pages can actively hurt you.
Is a booking system worth it for a trades business?
For scheduled work like inspections or maintenance, yes. For emergency work, no. Nobody books a flooded basement through a calendar widget.
What about before-and-after photos?
They are the single most persuasive thing you can put on a trades site. The base build includes 4 custom images; additional photos you supply are $2 each to place and optimise.
Should I put prices on a trades website?
Put something. A call-out fee, an hourly rate or a typical range for common jobs all qualify. Complete silence on price reads as expensive and filters out nobody, so you pay for the call anyway. A stated minimum removes the tyre-kickers before they reach your phone.
Do I need a blog?
Not a blog. A few genuinely useful pages about the problems you get called for will outperform a stream of posts nobody reads, and they do not go stale. Write five good ones and stop rather than committing to something weekly you will abandon in two months.
How long does a trades site take to build?
Usually two to three weeks, and the slow part is almost never us. It is getting photographs of finished work and a confirmed list of the towns you cover. Gather those before you start and the build compresses considerably.
Talk to us
Tell us what the business does and what it has to accomplish. We will tell you honestly if a cheaper option fits you better.