Do you actually need a website? A straight answer for tradespeople

The short answer

Not every tradesperson needs one. When a mate recommends you, the customer will often type your name into Google before ringing, so the first thing they should find is a filled-in Google Business Profile. A website is worth paying for once you want work from strangers, or when your name brings up nothing that is clearly yours.

What happens after someone recommends you

Say a joiner in Bury fits a kitchen and the customer tells her neighbour. The neighbour has a name and maybe a number on the back of an envelope. Before letting a stranger into the house, plenty of people do the same thing. They put the name into Google on their phone and have a look.

They are not shopping around at this point. They already want to ring you. They want a reason to feel fine about it: the name matches what they were told, there are a few reviews, there are photos of real work and the number is the one they were given.

So the useful question for a sole trader is what your name brings up when someone searches it, and whether that settles the customer or puts doubts in their head. Everything below follows from that.

There is a second kind of customer: the one with no name to search. They type “electrician Wigan” and pick from what comes up. Keep both in mind, because they need different things from you.

What your Google Business Profile shows them

Your Google Business Profile is the listing that can appear on Google Search and Maps. For the customer who searches your name, it often does most of the job on its own.

Google’s guidelines for representing your business list what it can hold: your business name, your address or service area, your hours, a phone number, a website, your categories and a description of what you do. Add your reviews and your photos and that is most of the sniff test passed in one box.

Three things from Google’s own help pages are worth knowing.

• It is free. Google’s page on adding or claiming a profile says you can do it “at no charge”.
• You do not have to show your home address. Google’s help on service areas says that if you don’t serve customers at your business address, you should remove it, and that you can set up to 20 service areas by city, postcode or similar.
• Reviews count. Google’s page on local ranking says prominence is partly based on how many reviews you have, and that more reviews and positive ratings can help your local ranking. It also says there is no way to pay for a better local ranking.

One more detail that matters here: the profile has a slot for your website. Leave it empty and the customer has nowhere to go for more. For a lot of word-of-mouth jobs that is fine. For a big job, it can leave them wanting more than the box can give.

If you have not claimed yours yet, our guide to claiming your Google Business Profile walks you through it.

What a Facebook page shows them

A Facebook Page is good at one thing: showing you are busy and real. Photos from this week’s jobs, the van, your face. A customer who finds a Page with recent posts gets a sense of who turns up.

The weaknesses, in our view, are worth being honest about.

A Page is built around posts, so the customer has to scroll to piece together what you do and where you cover. The basics live in the About section, which not everyone opens. If your last post was two winters ago, the Page tells the customer you might have packed it in, even if you are flat out and just never get round to posting.

You also do not control how it looks. Facebook decides the layout and changes it when it likes. And some customers do not use Facebook at all, so a Page cannot be the only place you exist.

None of that makes it a bad tool. A live Page with real jobs on it backs up everything else. It just works best as a second witness, with your Google profile as the first.

What a directory profile shows them

Directories like Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Rated People sell something useful: a third party vouching for you, with reviews collected through their system. For a customer who found you through the directory in the first place, that profile is the main thing they look at.

For the recommended customer, it matters less. They are more likely to search your name on Google than to go looking for you on a directory, and a directory listing may or may not come up near the top.

There is also the question of whose page it is. A directory profile sits on someone else’s site, under their name, on their terms and at their price. Before you lean on one, read the directory’s own pages for what it costs now, and ask what happens to your profile and your reviews if you stop paying. You are renting the space, which is fine as long as you know it.

What a website shows them

A website is the one place where you decide what the customer sees and in what order. Your trade, the towns you cover, photos of your work, your reviews, and a big button to ring you. Nobody else’s adverts beside it, and no other firm’s listing underneath.

It is also the best home for your proof. If you are a gas engineer, HSE’s domestic gas FAQs tell customers they can check an engineer on the Gas Safe Register website using the licence number from the engineer’s ID card, or ring Gas Safe Register on 0800 408 5500. A website can put your licence number right next to the badge, where a careful customer can check it in under a minute. The same goes for your NICEIC or NAPIT registration if you are an electrician.

And it is yours. A website on a domain in your name survives a change at Facebook or a falling out with a directory. That is the real reason to own one, more than anything to do with how it looks.

Who needs which

Here is how we would split it.

• One van, busy on word of mouth, booked a few weeks ahead. A properly filled-in Google profile, a steady trickle of reviews and a Facebook Page you keep alive. A website can wait, and nobody should tell you otherwise.
• You want work from people who do not know you yet. Moving into a new area, adding a new service, or wanting fewer quiet weeks. This is where a website earns its keep, because the customer with no name to search needs somewhere to land that tells them what you do and where.
• Your name is common or your trading name is generic. Say a plumber in Stockport trades as “Smith Plumbing”. A search for that name could bring up several firms. A website with your name, your town and your trade is one more page that is clearly yours.
• You do bigger jobs. Rewires, kitchens, extensions. A customer about to spend thousands looks harder and for longer, and a few lines in a Google box may not be enough for them.
• You get most of your work through a directory. That can work, but you are relying on a page you rent. Make sure your Google profile is sorted too, so your name brings up something you own.

The order we would do it in

Whatever you decide about a website, the order is the same.

First, claim and fill in your Google Business Profile. Name exactly as on the van, the phone number you actually answer, your hours, your service areas, real photos and a website if you have one.

Second, ask your last ten customers for a review. Google’s page on managing reviews says you can share a review request link or QR code, and that replying to reviews shows customers you value their feedback. Reply to every one, the good and the awkward.

Third, make your name and number match everywhere: Google, Facebook, any directory, the van. A customer who sees three different versions of your name is not sure they are looking at one firm.

Then decide on the website. If you want one, what a website should cost a tradesperson sets out the prices and the questions to ask before you sign anything.

What to do next

Get your phone out, search your own name and town the way a customer would, and look at what comes up. If it is your Google profile with a few good reviews, you are most of the way there. If it is a mess, or nothing at all, send us the free check-up and we will tell you straight whether a website would help or whether your Google profile can do the job for now.