What Do the Best Tradie Websites Have in Common?

The tradie websites that win calls have five things in common: a phone number you can see without scrolling, real reviews, a clear list of the suburbs they cover, pages that work on a phone, and photos of actual jobs. None of it is fancy, and all of it answers one question a stranger is asking: "Can I trust this person to turn up and do the job?"

You're a sparkie in Geelong and someone's just lost power to half their house. They're standing in the hallway with a torch, searching on their phone. They open three sites in three tabs. One takes forever to load. One has a phone number buried at the bottom. One shows the number at the top, a few reviews and a list of suburbs, and it says "Geelong" in plain words. That's the one they ring.

What's at stake when someone is comparing you

When someone searches "electrician Geelong" or "plumber Bristol", they're not reading everything. They're scanning for a reason to rule you out. Most of the time it's something small: no phone number, no sign you work in their area, a page that's awkward on a phone.

That matters because the person searching often needs the job done soon. A blocked drain or a dead hot water system doesn't wait while they hunt for your contact details. Whoever makes it easiest to get in touch usually gets the call, even if they're not the cheapest or the best on the tools.

We haven't run a formal audit of 100 tradie sites, so we won't hand you made-up percentages. What follows is the pattern you'll see if you run the check yourself. Open ten tradie websites in your area on your phone and score them against the list below. It takes about half an hour, and it'll tell you more than any statistic.

What good looks like: the five-point check

1. A phone number you don't have to hunt for. Open the site on your phone. Can you see a number, or a call button, before you scroll? If you can't, a stressed customer won't look for it.

2. Reviews on the page, not just on Google. Two or three real reviews, with the customer's first name and suburb, do a lot of work. If you're not sure how those reviews get you seen in the first place, here's how Google picks the three businesses in the map pack.

3. Where you work, spelled out. "Servicing Wollongong, Shellharbour and Kiama" beats "servicing the greater region". People search by place, so the site should name the places.

4. A page that works on a phone. Text you can read without pinching, buttons you can tap, and a page that loads while you're still standing in the driveway.

5. Photos of real work. A finished bathroom, your ute, you on the job. Stock photos of smiling models in hard hats tell people nothing.

Notice what's not on the list: animations, a big "About our journey" essay, or a blog. Plenty of tradies wonder about that last one, and we've covered whether you need a blog to rank locally.

The usual objections

"It costs too much." Fair, if you're picturing a custom agency build. A basic site doesn't need to be that. It needs the five things above and correct details, and most of that information already exists in your Google listing.

"I'm not technical." You don't need to be. Nobody should expect you to write code or copy at the end of a long day on the tools.

"I get enough work from word of mouth." You may well do, and that's a good sign. But a referral usually ends with the customer searching your name before they call, and what they find can decide whether they do. We've written about why referrals don't always turn into calls. Where the objection holds up is if you're already booked out and happy that way. Then a website is a nice-to-have, not urgent.

What to do now

Do the half-hour check. Pull up your own site (or search your business name if you don't have one) on your phone, then score yourself and three local competitors on the five points. Write down where you fall short.

If you don't have a site, or yours fails most of the list, you don't have to start from scratch. Get a free website preview and we'll build it from your Google listing, with no technical knowledge needed. You can see what it looks like before you decide anything.