Most people who land on a trade website want one of two things: to find out if you do the job they need, and to reach you. A good site makes both easy on a phone, in a few seconds. Use this checklist to see how yours does.
The first screen on a phone
- What you do and where. Your trade and the towns you serve, in plain words, at the top.
- A phone number you can tap. Not an image of a number. A link that dials.
- One main action. Call, text or request a quote. Pick one to lead with.
Getting in touch
- A short quote form. Name, phone, what they need and their zip. Every extra box loses people.
- The form reaches your phone as a text. An email you read tonight is too late for a customer who needs help today.
- The customer gets a confirmation right away. So they know the request arrived and stop calling around.
- Chat that turns into a text. Some visitors who will not call will type a question.
The pages
- One page for each main service. A drain page, a water heater page, a repipe page. Many people search for the job, not the trade.
- Where you work. The towns and areas you cover, so customers outside them do not waste a call.
- An about page with real photos. You, your crew and your trucks beat stock photos.
- A link to your Google reviews. Let people read them where they live.
Trust
- Your license number, if you have one. It is a quick way to show you are the real thing.
- Plain answers to common questions. Do you charge for estimates? Do you work weekends? What do you not do?
- Your real business name, address and phone, the same everywhere. On the site, on Google and in directories.
Speed and basics
- It loads fast on a phone. Test it on your own phone on cell data, not office Wi-Fi.
- It works one-handed. Buttons big enough to tap, text big enough to read.
- It is on your own domain. Your business name, not a free subdomain.
Search basics
- Each page title says the job and the town. "Water heater repair in Mesa" tells Google and the customer what the page is.
- One topic per page. A page that tries to cover everything ranks for nothing.
Test it yourself today
- Open your site on your phone. Can you tell what you do and tap to call within a few seconds?
- Fill out your own quote form. How long until you hear about it, and how?
- Call your business number after hours. What happens to the caller?
If any of those three made you wince, start there. See how we build websites for electrical companies, read about the website we build, and run your numbers in the missed-call calculator.