How an electrician, plumber or painter gets a website
Someone looking for a tradesperson usually has a problem right now. They are not browsing. They want to know that you cover their area, that you do the thing that broke, and that they can reach you — and then they call. Everything else on the page is decoration.
What people are actually looking for
Whether you cover where they live
The first thing they check and the most commonly missing. Name the towns and districts you actually travel to, in plain text. "And surrounding areas" answers nothing.
A phone number they can tap
Most enquiries in the trades are still calls, often from someone standing next to the problem. The number belongs at the top, in the middle and at the bottom, and it must dial when tapped.
Whether you handle emergencies
If you take call-outs at ten at night, that is the most valuable sentence on your site. If you do not, say so — it saves you the calls and them the disappointment.
Evidence that you are not going to disappear
Registration numbers, insurance, years in business, photographs of finished work. Trades suffer from a trust problem created by other people, and the cure is specifics.
Four ways to get there
All of these work. Which one suits you depends on your budget, your patience, and how often you will want to change things afterwards.
1. A listing on a trades directory
Checkatrade and its equivalents put you in front of people actively looking, with reviews attached. The costs add up per lead, you are shown beside your competitors, and you are renting the relationship rather than owning it.
Best if: You need work this month and have no other source of leads.
2. A Google Business Profile only
Genuinely underrated: for local trades this often produces more calls than a website will. Photographs, reviews, hours, a phone number. What it cannot do is explain what you specialise in or convince anyone you handle larger jobs.
Best if: You are local, you take domestic work, and you want the highest-value hour you can spend.
3. A simple site you own
Where a site earns its place is the larger job: the landlord with eight flats, the builder looking for a subcontractor, the office manager comparing three firms. They want to see the range of work and the credentials, which a directory listing cannot carry.
Best if: You want commercial or larger domestic work, not only call-outs.
4. Word of mouth alone
Many good trades run this way for years and stay busy. The risk is concentration: when the builder who sends you half your work retires, there is no second channel, and building one takes months you may not have.
Best if: You are booked out and have a referral source you trust completely.
The prompt, if you go the AI route
The difference between a disappointing AI site and a good one is almost entirely the description you give it. This one is written for a trade business: it says what to build, who is reading, and what to leave out. Fill in the brackets — the more specific you are, the less you will have to fix afterwards.
Copy this, fill in the brackets, paste it anywhere
Build a website for my [electrical / plumbing / painting / heating] business. ABOUT US - Business name: [name] - Based in: [town] - Areas we cover: [list the actual towns and districts — be specific] - Years in business: [number] - Registrations and insurance: [e.g. registered electrician number, public liability cover] - Emergency call-outs: [yes, 24/7 / yes, evenings and weekends / no, normal hours only] WHAT I NEED ON THE PAGE 1. A hero that says what we do, where we work, and shows the phone number large enough to tap. It must be readable on a phone without scrolling. 2. A sticky call button on mobile that stays visible the whole way down the page. 3. A services section listing exactly what we do: [rewiring, fuse boards, EV chargers, emergency faults, inspections]. Plain names, no marketing language. 4. A clearly stated coverage area, listing the towns by name. 5. A trust section: years in business, registration numbers, insurance, and any guarantee we give. 6. Space for six photographs of finished work — clear placeholders, I will add them. 7. A short section on what happens when you call: how quickly we answer, whether quotes are free, how we price. 8. A contact form for people who cannot call: name, phone, postcode, what the problem is, and how urgent. HOW IT SHOULD FEEL Straightforward and solid. Clear type, strong contrast, nothing fancy. This should look like a firm that turns up when it says it will. IMPORTANT - The phone number is the most important element on the page. Treat it that way. - Most visitors are on a phone with a problem. Speed and clarity beat everything else. - Name the towns we cover. Never write "and surrounding areas". - No stock photographs of models in hard hats — use marked placeholders for our real work.
Works in any AI website builder. In relivo it is one click — we put it in the box for you.
Build it with relivoGather this first
Whichever route you take, having these ready is what separates an afternoon from a project that drags on for months.
- The exact list of towns and districts you will travel to
- Your registration numbers and insurance details
- Six photographs of finished work, including a couple of larger jobs
- Whether you take emergency call-outs, and at what hours
- How you price: free quotes, call-out fee, hourly rate
Three mistakes worth avoiding
Vague coverage
"And surrounding areas" makes someone guess whether to bother calling, and many will not. A list of town names is worth more than any design decision on the page.
A phone number you cannot tap
Written as plain text without a tel: link, it forces someone to memorise nine digits and switch apps. That is where the call is lost.
Leaving out the credentials
Registration numbers, insurance and years in business feel like paperwork to you and read as proof to a stranger deciding whether to let you into their home.
Questions that come up
Or paste that prompt and watch it happen
relivo turns it into a working website in about a minute — with your own domain, a contact form and hosting handled. Building is free; you only pay to put it online.