A trade website has one job: convince someone standing in front of a problem that you are the safe pair of hands, then make it effortless to reach you. That is it. You are not competing with national brands on clever design, you are competing with the next local firm on the search results page, and usually the one that gets the call is the one that looks established and answers quickest.
I am based in Coventry and most of the sites I build are for trades across Warwickshire and the Midlands: roofers, landscapers, driveway firms, window cleaners, electricians. The pattern that works is remarkably consistent, so here it is in full.
The six things every trade site needs
Your number visible on every screen
Most trade enquiries come from a phone in someone's hand while they stand looking at the problem. Your number belongs in the header of every page, tappable, not buried on a contact page.
Instant WhatsApp contact
Customers want to send a photo of the leak, the drive or the garden before they talk to anyone. A WhatsApp button turns that instinct into a quote request, and it lets you reply between jobs instead of missing calls on site.
Before and after galleries
For trades, photos are the sales pitch. A simple gallery of finished roofs, block paving, fencing or rewires does more for trust than any paragraph of copy. Shoot on a phone, keep them bright, and group them by job type.
Reviews where people can see them
Pull your best Facebook or Google reviews onto the homepage with the customer's first name and the town. Local proof beats generic praise every time.
The areas you actually cover
Say Coventry, Nuneaton, Warwickshire and the surrounding towns in plain words. People search with a place name attached, so the page needs to answer that question directly.
Fast and built mobile first
Trade traffic is overwhelmingly mobile. A site that loads in a second on 4G and reads well one-handed converts better than anything clever or animated.
How to be found for local searches
Local trade searches are specific. People type roofer Coventry, block paving Nuneaton, garden clearance Warwickshire. Your site needs pages that match that wording, which means one page per service rather than a single page listing everything you do. Put the town in the page title, the main heading and the opening sentence, then let the photos and reviews do the rest.
Two other things move the needle quickly. Claim and complete your Google Business Profile, with the same phone number as your site, and keep posting finished jobs to Facebook with a link back to the matching service page. Both feed the same signal: a real firm, working locally, right now.
A page structure that works
Homepage
One clear line saying what you do and where, your number, a WhatsApp button, three or four proof photos and your best two reviews.
Services
One short page for each trade service you sell, written the way customers describe it. Roof repairs, flat roofs, block paving, fencing, garden clearance, rewires.
Recent work
Your gallery, grouped by job type, with a sentence on each project saying the town and what the job involved.
Areas covered
A list of the towns and postcodes you travel to, so local searches have something to match.
Contact
Phone, WhatsApp, email and a short form. Nothing else competing for attention.
Mistakes I see on trade websites
- A homepage slideshow of stock photos that could belong to any firm in the country.
- A contact form as the only way to reach you, with no phone number or WhatsApp.
- No pricing guidance at all, so every enquiry starts from zero.
- A gallery of dark, unlit photos taken at the end of the day.
- Pages that never mention Coventry, Nuneaton or the towns you work in.
- A site nobody has touched since it launched, still listing an old number.
What this looks like when it is done
Every site I build for a trade business follows the layout above and costs £350 all in, including the domain, a business email address and the first three months of hosting. It is live and taking enquiries within 48 hours, and because I also design and print your cards, flyers and banners, everything matches from the van to the website.
