Builders, Contractors, Trade Services – How important is your website?

For 30 years I’ve been running a small agency and have worked with a lot of trades, contractors, etc. over the years. I’m happy to share my experience to help businesses do better when it comes to websites, design and marketing.

I’ll answer the importance question first: Your website is your central marketing hub on the web – it’s not Facebook, it’s not Angi, or Yelp or any other site like that. Your website is the ONLY place on the internet you have total control over. It can often be the first touch-point someone has for your business (remember the old saying about “first impressions are lasting ones”), so ensuring it looks great, functions great, and has the information your target customers want to see is super important.

Now … Some things I’ve noticed about the trades, builders/contractors, etc. when it comes to this topic:

• Some will say they don’t have a budget to do a website
• Some will say they’re “too busy” to address it
• Some will say their old website they had made in 2012 “works fine” or are reluctant to spend any money updating/refreshing their old website
• Some will say, “we’ve got plenty of work”, so they figure they don’t need to do anything more
• Some will try to D.I.Y. their website or marketing (and many now believe that AI will “save” them)
• Some are paying high monthly fees to a company who gave them a “package deal” which often includes a promise to deliver sales or leads or traffic to their website and it’s only after paying for months (or sometimes even years) that they realize nothing really ever happened with it

Are you guilty of any of those? 

Let me address some of these individually ….

We don’t have a budget -OR- We’VE ALREADY GOT A LOT OF WORK.

I get it. Times are tough right now and spending additional money on something you feel isn’t a requirement for your business operation can feel like an unnecessary expense. But marketing should absolutely be something you set aside money for. I’m all for careful consideration when it comes to deciding what marketing efforts are best for you (pro tip: ALWAYS keep your target customer/audience in mind – where are they likely to “see” you most, what would appeal to them most, etc.), but remember, your website should be your central marketing hub (kind of like an “all roads lead to Rome” type of thing).

Also, as we all know, there are many external things that can affect work, materials, etc. A few years back, roofers were all singing the blues because they couldn’t get materials. Jobs were stalled or they couldn’t take on new work and consequently, they were totally hurting. Some had to lay off labor to stay afloat, but some saw an opportunity to add new services, such as roof repairs and gutter cleaning/repairs. I was able to help my roofing client market these services to the local community through their website and print marketing materials.

Whether it’s a scenario like that, or you just want to plan for the future to have a steady stream of new work coming in, a modern, well-maintained and updated site can absolutely help.

Clinging on to Your Old Website

I get it, you spent a lot of money a long time ago and you feel that your old website is still doing “just fine”, but is it?

Here are just a handful of issues I’ve seen on old websites:

• Does not display well on mobile
• Hasn’t been updated in years – may include inaccurate or info that is not current (new services not listed, old business location and you’ve since moved, wrong contact phone, etc.)
• Contact for is broken (or it submits, but you never get an email from it)
• Images or other graphics are broken

Remember that your website might be the first touch-point someone has for your business (and remember that old saying about “first impressions are lasting ones”). If someone encounters any of the above, what do you think that says about your business to them? The first thing is not going to be, “oh well, maybe they’re too busy to fix their website”. They’re going to think you don’t care, you lack attention to detail, you’re a shoddy operation, etc.

Things like this also hurt your overall web presence. They do nothing for SEO (search engine optimization) and just leave a general bad impression for your overall brand (note: your “brand” is not just your logo – it’s everything about your company).

The Do It Yourselfers

This one especially applies to the sole proprietors and small companies who are super budget conscious. And I get it, if you can build a house, you could surely build a website, right? Well, while there are some similarities (for example, I like to call the basic “wireframes” I create as initial web layouts, “blueprints” because they really are like a blueprint for a house), we’re really talking about two different animals.

And yes, there’s AI everything right now. Just tell chatGPT to build you a website and write all your content. Well, I’m going to have to bust out another old saying, “you get what you pay for”. In the case of “free” you’re going to come up on a lot of pitfalls. Here are just a few:

• AI models, like chatGPT, Claude, etc. will not always spit out perfect code. I’ve been coding for years and when I’ve experimented with it, I have to go over the whole thing, practically line by line and “fix” things. Also, output is only as good as the initial “prompts” you give it. You give it something like “I need a website for my contracting business” that is far too broad for it to give you something tailored to you and the customers you want to attract.
• Be aware of “AI slop”. I’ve been following along closely with the whole AI thing and let me tell you, a large portion of people are not deeming a lot of AI as “slop” – poorly done, obvious AI stuff. I’m not saying all AI = slop, but you have to be really careful with it.
• It’s not unique. Great marketing is something memorable and often unique. I don’t care what business you’re in, there are things you do that can set you apart. Maybe it’s the fact you’re a 3rd generation family business, or you spend extra time providing free estimates, or any number of things that can help set you apart from the competition. AI generated content often does not take these sorts of things into consideration unless you spell out every detail (and even then, you still need to check things over before just using it in your marketing).
• Be very careful with logos. Logos are a particular problem area because of trademarks. I can’t tell you how many times a client has provided a logo to me, I run it through a reverse image search and find that it’s part of a logo that’s already in use, or even worse, stock art. Stock resources have very specific usage terms that almost always rule out using for a business logo. While you might get away with it if you’re just a small town service provider, you’d run into issues if you ever wanted to trademark it. On the web, it might also lead to confusion if someone else is using the same logo. You can check out a couple other posts I’ve done on logos here and here.

Basically, don’t look at AI or “one click website builders” as “easy buttons” but something that might be able to be a stop gap and certainly something you need to really review before you start using.

“Package Deals” (often with monthly fees and oppressive contracts that are hard to cancel)

I’d be remiss if I didn’t address one other thing here and it’s something I’ve given talks about to my local Home Builders Association – predatory web “marketing” companies that target service-based businesses like yours.

These are companies who have charismatic, “hard-sell” sales people (either calling you or they have local sales people in your area) pushing everything from website “packages” to SEO and other marketing services. My first tip is: take down their information, and then google them (preferably by typing in: COMPANY NAME and reviews in the Google search bar). You might be surprised with what you find.

Do not let anyone sell you a “too good to be true” package (example: Full website + SEO for low cost or free and you only pay x monthly).

Another phone call almost all of us have gotten now is the “We’re calling from Google about your business listing …”. This is also what I like to call one step up from a scam in that they are actual companies, but the scam is they pretend to be “from Google”. Some are more unscrupulous than others, but they generally use scare tactics to tell you your listing is somehow messed up or they’ll charge you to set up the listing. A small fee to set up the listing if you’re not technically inclined is okay, but do you really want to work with a company who starts out lying to you that they’re part of Google? You are basically giving them full control over your business information on a Google “listing”.

Google has no phone marketing, so will never call you out of the blue (they do have a “call back” option when requesting support). The Google business listing is technically free and I’ve walked many people through the process (it’s really not that tough).

I’m a big supporter of shining a light on scams. You can see some others on this post I’ve written: 6 Marketing Scams Targeting Small Businesses + How to Avoid Them – JVM Design (JV Media Design)

This isn’t an exhaustive list, but I hope there has been some helpful information for you here. I’m always happy to answer website, design and marketing questions, so feel free to post in the comments.