What Should a Tradie Website Include? A Practical Checklist

Short answer

A good tradie website should help the right customer understand what you do, trust that you can do the work and know what to do next.

For many local trade businesses, it should also help customers find you when they search for the services you provide.

That usually means a homepage that says plainly what you do and where, proper pages for your main services, real photos of your work, genuine proof, a site that works properly on a phone, an easy enquiry path and a technically clean build that search engines can read.

It doesn't need much else.

Most trade websites that fall short aren't missing a clever feature. They're unclear, padded out or difficult to use.

A homepage that explains the business clearly

Someone landing on the homepage should quickly be able to work out:

• what you do
• the main types of work you take on
• where you operate
• who you normally work for
• what they should do next

Write it the way you'd explain the business to a new customer.

“Residential and commercial electrician covering Logan and the Gold Coast” says considerably more than “Powering your future with excellence”.

Keep the top of the page simple. A clear headline, one useful supporting paragraph and an obvious next step are usually enough. Put the detail further down or on the relevant service pages.

Proper service pages, not dozens of thin ones

Give the main services you actually want more of enough room to be understood.

A proper page about switchboard upgrades, for example, can explain what the work involves, the types of jobs you handle, when an upgrade may be required and what a customer should do next.

That helps the customer understand the service, and it gives search engines a specific page to associate with that subject.

One homepage listing eight services in a paragraph rarely does either job particularly well.

Don't go to the other extreme and publish dozens of near-identical suburb pages with little more than the location changed.

Google's SEO guidance consistently comes back to creating useful pages for people rather than pages produced mainly to manipulate search results.

A useful service page may cover:

• what the service actually is
• the kinds of work you do under it
• common situations where customers need it
• genuine photos of that work
• the areas you cover
• relevant proof or qualifications
• a clear way to enquire

You don't need a public price list unless pricing genuinely makes sense for the service.

Show real work

Photos of your own jobs can prove far more than stock imagery.

They show:

• the type of work you actually take on
• the environments you work in
• the standard of your work
• that there is a real business behind the website

Phone photos are perfectly useful if they're clear and well lit.

A handful of strong project images with one line of useful context can be more persuasive than a gallery of 60 unlabelled photos.

Choose work that matches the jobs you want more of.

If you want more commercial fit-outs, show commercial fit-outs.

When Orbital built the site for WTM Electrical, for example, the objective was to clearly present its marine electrical, automation, panel-building and system-integration capability. The website is shaped around the work WTM actually does rather than around a generic electrician template.

Link WTM Electrical to:

https://wtmelectrical.com.au/

Put proof where customers need it

Customers need enough evidence to decide whether you're credible and appropriate for their job.

Depending on the business and trade, useful proof might include:

• genuine customer reviews
• licence information
• relevant insurance statements
• qualifications
• memberships or accreditations
• warranties or guarantees you genuinely provide
• real project experience
• brands or systems you work with where relevant

Only display claims that are true and current.

Licensing and advertising requirements vary between trades and states, so check the relevant regulator's requirements rather than copying what another business displays.

The Australian Government's business website guidance also identifies reviews, testimonials and useful customer information as common elements of a business website.

External link:

https://business.gov.au/online-and-digital/business-website/set-up-a-business-website

Make it work properly on a phone

A trade website needs to work when someone is standing in front of a problem with a phone in one hand.

Test your own site that way.

Turn off Wi-Fi and use mobile data.

Ask:

• Does the important content appear quickly?
• Can you read everything without zooming?
• Are buttons easy to tap?
• Is the navigation obvious?
• Can you complete the enquiry form comfortably?
• Are the images appropriately sized?
• Does anything move or overflow awkwardly?

Responsive design is more than making a desktop page narrow enough to fit.

Important sections sometimes need to be deliberately recomposed for a smaller screen.

Business Queensland also recommends checking page speed and accessibility as part of improving a business website.

External link:

https://www.business.qld.gov.au/running-business/marketing-sales/marketing/websites-social-media/improve-website

Make contacting the business simple

When someone is ready to enquire, don't make them hunt for the next step.

A good enquiry path may include:

• a clear enquiry action in the header
• relevant calls to action on service pages
• a short form
• only the information you genuinely need
• optional photo or file upload where that helps
• an explanation of what happens after the form is submitted

Use the contact methods you actually want customers to use.

A phone number is useful for some businesses. Others deliberately prefer enquiries through a form or email.

There isn't one correct answer. The important thing is that the customer understands how to reach you and what happens next.

Also test the form.

A beautiful website with a broken enquiry form can quietly lose every lead it generates.

What happens after the enquiry matters too.

Once a customer has made contact, there should be a reliable way for the business to see it, respond and keep the opportunity moving.

That's the side Orbital covers through Business Automation.

If the problem occurs after a quote has already been sent, Quote Converter also has a practical guide to following up quotes without being pushy:

https://www.quoteconverter.com.au/guides/how-to-follow-up-a-quote/

Explain who the business is

People want to know who they're dealing with.

A useful About page or section may explain:

• who runs the business
• what type of work you specialise in
• how long the business has operated, if relevant
• where you're based
• the areas you cover
• what customers can expect from the way you work

Real photos of the owner, team, workshop, vehicles or work environment can help.

Keep it factual.

A straightforward explanation of the business is usually more useful than a generic mission statement.

Give Google a technically clear site

You don't need to become an SEO specialist, but the website underneath should be technically understandable.

A professional small-business website should normally have:

• a unique, descriptive page title
• a useful meta description
• one clear main heading
• real crawlable text rather than important words embedded only inside images
• crawlable internal links
• a sitemap
• sensible canonical URLs
• no accidental noindex settings left behind after launch
• appropriate redirects if an older website was replaced
• a Google Search Console property controlled by the business

Search Console lets you see how Google views important pages and whether there are crawl or indexing problems.

Your Google Business Profile is separate from the website, but the two work alongside each other.

Google says local results are primarily influenced by relevance, distance and prominence, so keep the Business Profile complete and accurate and link it to the correct business website.

Google local ranking guidance:

https://support.google.com/business/answer/7091?hl=en

If you want to see how Orbital approaches the website itself, visit:

https://www.orbitalsolutions.com.au/websites/

What a tradie website does not need

A trade website does not automatically need:

• A blog you won't maintain. Strong service pages, useful guides and real work are more valuable than three forgotten posts from years ago.
• Sliders everywhere. Important information shouldn't depend on someone waiting for slide three.
• Generic stock imagery. A photo that could belong to any competitor proves very little.
• Long forms. Ask only for information you genuinely need.
• Dozens of copied suburb pages. Create useful location information rather than replacing one suburb name with another.
• Jargon and hype. Plain language normally does a better job.
• Features for the sake of having features. Chat widgets, bookings, portals and automation are useful only where they solve a real problem.

Tradie website checklist

The next step

Does your website reflect the standard of the work you actually do?

If you're not sure, or you know it doesn't, see how Orbital approaches websites for trade and service businesses or tell us about your business.