Website design for tradespeople: a site that wins the job.
A roofer, a plumber and a plasterer don't need a shopfront, they need a workbench. The customer wants to know within ten seconds whether you do their kind of work, whether you cover their area, when you're available and roughly what it costs. We build sites that answer those four questions before anyone needs to call, and that capture the enquiry in a way that means you don't have to call back just to find out what it's about.
You cancel by email, and that email counts as the official cancellation. You still pay for the current month, and then it stops. We forward you the content of your site, because that's yours. The domain name is already in your name, since you bought it yourself. The site itself doesn't go with you. You can't just stop within that first two years.
If you do want to leave earlier, you buy out the remainder: you pay the remaining months in one go, and then you get the content forwarded just as with a normal cancellation. It works this way because we don't invoice the build upfront while still paying to keep the site running in the meantime; those costs keep running if you leave early.
Which trades already have their own website page today
This site covers forty trades, counted across all pages. For five of them there's a fully worked-out website page; the rest have an advertising or SEO page but not yet a page about the site itself. That gap is the reason this page exists: it's the place where the trades layer begins, and where the next trades will hang underneath.
filled in: 5still open: 35
locksmiths removals companies pest control window frame companies solar panel companies NL
Forty boxes, one for every trade that has its own page on this site. If your trade isn't listed yet, that's no reason to wait: the approach on this page applies to every trade that works with urgent call-outs, quotes and a service area. The five filled-in trades have a page with their own trade language, and those stay exactly where they are.
A trade website is a tool, not a business card
Most sites in construction and building services are made to look good: a big photo of a van, three tiles listing services, and a contact form at the bottom with name, email and message. That kind of site tells people who you are. It doesn't tell them whether you can come today, whether you cover their area, or what price range a dormer conversion falls into with you.
That's where the enquiry gets lost
Someone with a leak doesn't read, they look for a number. Someone planning a new bathroom does read, but wants to see that you've done this before and what the price range is. Two kinds of visitors, two kinds of pages, and a homepage that tries to serve both usually does neither well.
So we build back from the enquiry
First the question: which jobs do you want to win, and which ones do you specifically not want. Then the intake: which fields do you need to be able to assess that job without calling first. Only after that comes the design. How we build and host those sites technically is on the page about how we build websites; this page is about what a trade site needs to do to win a job.
The five questions a customer asks before they call
Every enquiry starts with the same five questions, in this order. Answer them in that order and you don't need to convince the visitor; they just need to call.
Do you do this
- Do you do this? Not roofing in general but the job itself: a leak in a flat roof, fitting a dormer, making a chimney lead-free. Put the jobs on the page in the words a customer uses to describe them.
- Do you come to my area? Not a list of fifty place names, but a radius with a drive time next to it. See the section on service area below.
- When can you come? This is the question that's missing most often and that convinces the most. Today, this week, or not for six weeks: all three are a good answer, as long as it's there.
- What does it cost, roughly? A price range with the assumptions behind it is better than saying nothing. Whoever names no figure at all gets the enquiries from people who are only comparing on price.
- Have you done this before? Two photos of a real job with a line underneath about what was involved do more than twenty stock-style photos.
Those five belong above the fold or just below it, not on an About us page
And they need to be true: anyone who puts available 24 hours a day on their site and doesn't answer at night loses that customer twice over.
Five questions, one line, and on an ordinary trade site three sit below it
The five questions above sit in a list and look equal there. On a screen they aren't: there's a line where the visitor has to start scrolling, and what's below it rarely gets read for an urgent job. This is the layout we come across on a trade site that hasn't been tackled yet, with the right-hand column showing where the answer should sit.
The mood image is the most expensive block on the page. Not because it's ugly, but because it takes up exactly the height where questions 2 and 3 would have fitted, and for an urgent job those two are the questions that decide whether someone calls or clicks back. So the fix isn't a redesign: it's flipping the order, so there's an answer above the line instead of just an impression.
Urgent call-outs and projects are two sites in one
A leak calls for a phone call right now. A new bathroom starts with an idea, photos and a quote. Those two visitors don't want to see the same thing, they don't want to do the same thing, and they don't belong on the same landing page.
In practice, that means
An urgent-call-out page with the number at the top, a short line about how quickly you can get there and as little else as possible; and a project page with work you've done before, a price range, and a form that asks for photos. The same site, two entry points, two goals.
What changes per entry point, from the top to the proof
The differences are set out above in running text, where they read as nuance. Side by side, it's a choice you make per page. This diagram deliberately carries no numbers at all: there's nothing to measure here, there's something to decide.
elementurgentproject
Five elements, two choices per element. The mistake most trade sites make isn't picking the wrong column, it's putting both columns on the same page. Then there's an eight-field quote form underneath a phone number, and nobody does both.
Service area: a radius is stronger than a list of place names
The temptation is strong to list fifty towns at the bottom of your site. That rarely helps. A list of place names with no content isn't an answer for a visitor, and for Google it's a familiar pattern that gets flagged as spam.
What does work is a radius with a drive time, and the reason behind it
Twenty-five minutes' drive from your depot, naming the places that genuinely fall within it, plus the line about when you'll go further and under what condition. That's a real answer to the question do you come to me, and it's also the reason you turn down that other town.
We only build a separate page per place if that page has something of its own to say
A job we did there, a local rule, a different kind of housing. Without that, it stays with the radius, and that's no loss. Anyone wondering whether a separate city page makes sense in their case will find the trade-off on the page about landing pages for tradespeople NL.
Fifty names with no boundary, or a boundary with a number attached
The two ways to write up your service area are set out above in two paragraphs. Side by side, you can see where they differ: on the left is a list with no answer in it, on the right is a boundary with a drive time attached, and so an outcome you can check for yourself. The place names are deliberately left blank, because your radius is different from your neighbour's.
The twenty-five minutes are the whole figure. As soon as a number is attached to your service area, it becomes an answer to the question do you come to me, and at the same time your own filter on enquiries you didn't want anyway. We only build a separate page per place once that place has something of its own to say: a job we did there, a local rule, a different kind of housing. Without that, it stays with the radius, and that's no loss.
The intake: which fields save you a round of callbacks
The ordinary contact form asks for name, email and message. What you get back is quote for my roof please, and then you call to ask what kind of roof, how big, and when. That costs you a round of callbacks before you can assess anything at all, and it costs you the jobs where someone else was faster.
Four fields fix that
This is the set we build by default:
Postcode
- Postcode. Not the whole address line, just the postcode. That way you know straight away whether it falls within your radius, and you don't have to ask.
- Type of work. A dropdown list in your own trade terms, with an option for something else underneath. The list is your filter as well: whatever isn't on it, you don't take on.
- When. Three options are enough: urgent, within a month, or later this year. That determines whether you call back or email back.
- A photo. The field that makes the biggest difference. A photo of the situation replaces five questions, and anyone who takes the trouble to take one is almost always a serious enquiry.
Alongside that, a phone number and, if you handle GDPR-sensitive data, a short line about what you do with it
Nothing else. Every extra field is a reason to drop off.
What we build and what it costs
We build the site, host it on our own Cloudflare platform, and keep working on it. That last part isn't a side note: a trade site that stands still for a year after launch loses its lead over the competitor who adds a job every month.
You don't pay an upfront build fee for that
There's a monthly fee, and that's the whole story.
A website costs 75 euros a month, excluding VAT.
That includes the build, the hosting, the maintenance and the ongoing development. If you also sell products and need an online shop, that's 150 euros a month, excluding VAT. If you'd like a logo or a house style added, that's 500 and 1,000 euros respectively, one-off; those are separate items alongside the site. All the amounts are on the pricing page NL.
The term is fixed for the first two years, then cancellable monthly.
Those two years aren't there to lock you in but because we don't invoice the build upfront. At the start there's therefore work that hasn't been paid for yet, and it earns itself back over those twenty-four months. After that you're not tied to anything and you can stop month by month.
You cancel in writing, by email to sales@theseo.nl or via the contact page
When the cancellation takes effect and what happens to the site and the hosting afterwards is set out in the agreement and in the terms and conditions NL; you get those before you sign, not after.
What falls outside this.
If you advertise with Google, you pay that budget directly to Google from your own account. It's not part of the monthly fee and it shouldn't be added to it either. If you take SEO and Google Ads alongside the website, there's a separate amount for that; in a current agreement, those three together come to 650 euros a month excluding VAT, with the website fixed for twenty-four months and then cancellable monthly.
What a website generally costs and where the difference lies is covered in more detail on what it costs to have a website made NL.
Two monthly amounts, and what's deliberately left out
The amounts are set out above in running sentences, which makes them hard to line up against each other. Here they're stacked with their unit next to them: the website, the same website with an online shop added, and the advertising budget as a third, separate line. That budget stands apart because it goes straight to Google and so is never part of our rate.
€75 per monthA websiteunit: per month
Excluding VAT. Building, hosting, maintenance and ongoing development are included, and there's no upfront build fee. Fixed for the first two years, then cancellable monthly. Logo at 500 euros and house style at 1,000 euros are separate one-off items.
€150 per monthA website with an online shopunit: per month
Excluding VAT. The same as above, but with an online shop included: products, basket, payment and shipping. Here too, fixed for the first two years and then cancellable monthly.
deliberately left out hereAdvertising budget to Googleyou decide the amount
Paid directly to Google from your own account. It's not part of either form above, and it shouldn't be added to them either.
Two monthly amounts with the same unit, and a third line that's deliberately left out of that. The website and the online shop are stacked together because they're billed the same way: per month, excluding VAT. What you buy in both is the same, namely the build plus the ongoing work on it; the difference is the online shop. The advertising budget stands apart because it goes straight to Google and so is never part of our rate.
By trade: what's already there
For five trades, the write-up is already there, in the words of that trade. If you don't see your trade, read the page that's closest to it; the structure is the same and the questions customers ask look very similar.
If you're also advertising, this site should be tied to the campaign
Which trades have their own approach for that is on Google Ads by trade and region NL.
Questions tradespeople ask
I already have a site. Does it have to go?
Usually not straight away. Start with the free scan: it checks a page against 24 points and shows whether the problem is technical or about the content. If it's in the text and the intake, that can often be fixed on the existing site.
How is this different from getting an ordinary website built?
In the order. We start with the enquiry you want to win and work back to the design, instead of the other way round. We do the actual building in WordPress; how that works is on the page about WordPress.
Can you also just do the text and the form?
Yes. That falls under hourly work, and that rate is on the pricing page NL. Whether it's sensible depends on whether your current site can still keep up technically.
How long does it take?
That depends on how quickly the material is ready: photos of your own work, your services in your own words, your service area. The build is rarely the delay; delivering the material is. So at the start we agree who delivers what, and when.
Do I own the site?
The domain name stays yours and is in your name. We agree the terms for the site and the hosting per project, and those are set out in the agreement before you sign, not after.
My trade isn't one of the five. Can you still do it?
Yes. The five pages are examples, not a condition. What we need is your list of jobs, your service area, and the questions customers ask you over the phone.
Starting with what's there now
The first step costs nothing. The free scan checks a page of your current site against 24 points and gives you an answer straight away. If you'd like us to look at it by hand, we'll do a free audit of five pages; that's broader, but still a fair picture of where you stand.