Phone number prominence
For a trade business, the phone call is almost always the first step in a customer relationship. Not a form submission, not a WhatsApp message — a phone call. Emergency searches especially. Someone with a burst pipe at 9pm wants to call someone, not fill in a form and wait for a response.
Your phone number needs to be visible on every single page, in the header, above the fold on mobile. It needs to be a tappable link on mobile — clicking it should immediately start a call. If someone has to scroll to find your number or copy-paste it into their phone app, some of them won't bother.
Test this right now: open your website on your phone and try to call yourself. How many taps does it take? If the answer is more than two, fix it.
Mobile speed
The majority of trade searches happen on mobile. Someone standing in their kitchen looking at a leaking pipe searches on their phone. They're not at a desktop. If your site takes more than 3 seconds to load on a mobile connection, a meaningful proportion of visitors leave before seeing anything.
Page speed is also a confirmed Google ranking factor. A slow site doesn't just lose visitors — it ranks lower. The fastest trade websites load in under 1.5 seconds on mobile. That requires optimised images, minimal JavaScript, and a fast hosting environment.
Real photos of real work
Stock photos are one of the most damaging things a trade website can use. A staged photo of a smiling plumber holding a wrench looks nothing like the reality of trade work, and customers know it. It signals that you either don't have real work to show or you couldn't be bothered to photograph it.
Real photos of completed jobs — a tiled bathroom, a neat consumer unit installation, a new roof with clean flashings — build credibility faster than any amount of text. Take them with your phone after every job. Before and after shots work especially well because they show the transformation and demonstrate the quality of your work.
You don't need a professional photographer. A decent phone camera in good light is enough. Ten real job photos beats fifty stock photos every time.
Photos and Google: Google indexes images and uses them in Local Pack results. Trade businesses with real, well-labelled photos of their work tend to get more clicks from Google Maps than those with generic imagery.
Credentials above the fold
For a plumber, Gas Safe registration is not optional — it's a legal requirement for gas work. Displaying your Gas Safe number visibly builds immediate trust with customers who know to look for it. For electricians, NICEIC or NAPIT registration. For roofers, NFRC membership. For accountants, ICAEW or ACCA.
Put these credentials in the header or near the top of the homepage. Don't hide them in the footer or on an About page. A customer who is about to call you wants to see them immediately.
Service coverage explicit in copy
Many trade websites say things like "serving the local area" or "covering surrounding towns." This is too vague both for customers and for Google. You need to name the specific towns, cities and postcodes you cover.
"We cover Sheffield, Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster and surrounding S, DN and WF postcodes" is useful. Google reads this and uses it to determine when to show you in search results. Customers read it and immediately know whether you'll come to them.
Individual service pages
A single "Services" page listing everything you offer is one of the most common mistakes on trade websites. Google can only rank a page for searches that the page is clearly about. A page called "Services" isn't clearly about any specific service.
Create individual pages: Boiler Installation, Boiler Servicing, Emergency Plumber, Bathroom Fitting, Drain Unblocking. Each one with its own clear title, its own content, and your location included. These pages are what rank for specific service and location searches.
What tradespeople overpay for
A few things that agencies and designers often include in trade websites that don't add meaningful value:
- Video backgrounds and animations: look impressive in demos, slow down the site in practice
- Complex navigation: trade visitors know what they want — make it one click away, not buried in menus
- Live chat widgets: most trade customers want to call, not type. Live chat adds page weight and rarely generates additional enquiries for trades
- Blog sections that never get updated: a blog dated 2021 is worse than no blog — it signals neglect
- Multiple contact forms on every page: one clear contact page is enough
What tradespeople underpay for
- Content: the words on the page matter enormously for SEO and conversion. Generic copy written by a designer with no knowledge of the trade won't rank or convert well
- Local SEO setup: title tags, schema markup, GBP connection — often treated as optional extras when they should be foundational
- Ongoing maintenance: a website that isn't updated, monitored and maintained drifts down the rankings over time
The pattern is consistent: trades tend to overpay for things that look impressive and underpay for things that produce results. A plain, fast, well-structured site with proper local SEO and real photos will outperform a beautifully designed site with slow load times and no SEO work.