Websites for contractorswho get most of their work by referral.
The referrals already trust you. The website has to survive the people who look you up afterward, and the ones who find you with no referral at all.
Recent work
What a contractor’s site has to do differently
Opened in a hurry, on a phone
Three jobs a general business site is rarely asked to do at once.
A contractor’s website is usually opened in a hurry, on a phone, by someone deciding between you and two other numbers. It has to say what you do, prove you can do it, and let them call, before the person gets distracted.
Most trades work arrives one of two ways. Someone was referred and is checking you exist, or something has gone wrong and they are searching. The first visitor is looking for reassurance. The second is looking for the fastest capable option. A site that only serves one of them loses the other.
The referral visitor is the one owners forget. They already have your name. They are deciding whether to feel good about the recommendation. A site that looks abandoned, or that was clearly built for a different business and edited since, quietly undoes the referral that a customer spent social credit making.
Where trades sites lose the job
Ordinary failures, in the order they cost work.
- Nobody can tell what you actually do “Quality workmanship since 2009” is not a service. A homeowner with a failed water heater is looking for the words water heater, and a general contractor who also does emergency plumbing needs both stated, not implied.
- Nobody can tell whether you cover them Service area is the second question every caller asks and the one most sites answer worst. “Serving the Cape Fear region and surrounding areas” makes someone in Hampstead guess, and guessing loses to the competitor who named the town.
- Calling is harder than it should be A number that is an image, a form with nine fields, a phone link that does not dial. On a job site, in a truck, one-handed, any of these ends the visit.
- There is nothing to look at Trades buy trust with finished work. A page of stock photography proves nothing and reads as a business with nothing of its own to show.
- The site and the Google listing disagree The listing says you cover one set of towns, the site says another. Hours that no longer match. A number that changed when you switched carriers. A customer comparing three contractors will not work out which version is current; they will call the one whose details are not in question.
None of these is a design problem, which is why redesigning the look alone tends not to change the phone.
What gets built
A page per service you want more of
The same five steps as any Kreated project, pointed at trades work.
- A page per service you actually want more of. Not one page listing eleven. A service page can rank, be linked and be sent to a customer; a bullet in a list cannot. How many service pages your website actually needs covers how many that is for a trades business.
- Service-area structure that names real places. Towns you genuinely cover, and only those. Web Design & Development adds location pages where demand supports them. Not a page for every town within an hour.
- Your own finished work. Before and after where it exists, because restoration, remodeling and exterior trades are judged on it.
- A contact path that works one-handed. Click-to-call in the header, a number that is real text, and a form short enough to finish at a traffic light.
- Licensing, insurance and credentials where you hold them. Stated plainly. Nothing is claimed on your behalf that you have not confirmed.
- Structure the search side can use. The site launches ready for the ongoing work rather than needing to be rebuilt for it, which is Local SEO.
On record
A contractor site, rebuilt
Rare Raleigh Restoration, a remodeling contractor in Cary: the site before Kreated, and the site live today.
“They listened to exactly what we wanted, offered helpful suggestions, and created a website that represents our company perfectly.”
Read the full review
We had an excellent experience working with Kreated on our company’s new website. Before making a decision, we researched and compared several other website designers, and Kreated offered the best combination of quality and affordability. Communication was excellent throughout the entire process, and they were responsive, professional, and easy to work with. They listened to exactly what we wanted, offered helpful suggestions, and created a website that represents our company perfectly. We couldn’t be happier with the finished product and highly recommend Kreated to any business looking for a professional, modern, and affordable website!
Who this is not for
Not a fit if…
Said now rather than three emails in.
- You need the phone ringing this week. A site takes 1–2 weeks to build and search work takes months to show. Paid ads are the faster route, and Kreated does not run them.
- You want a page for every town you have driven through. Location pages get built where there is something true to say about the place. How many pages you actually need.
- You want a guaranteed ranking. Nobody can promise a position in search results, and nothing here does.
- You have no Google listing yet. That comes first, and it is a smaller job: Google Business Profile.
- Your site is fine and nobody sees it. Then a rebuild is the wrong purchase. That is Local SEO.
And Kreated is not only for contractors. Trades are a good fit, not the only one.
What it costs
Published, not quoted on request
Kreated publishes real numbers rather than “contact us for a quote”. Website projects, the packages that include search work, and the individual services are all listed with prices on Pricing, along with what each one includes.
For trades there is one program built around the whole lead system: Contractor Growth, at $2,000 a month. It runs the site, the local search work, the Google profile, the reviews, missed-call text-back and a CRM together, so a lead is not lost between the search result and the phone.
What moves the number for a trades business is usually the same short list: how many services need their own page, how many places you cover, whether photography exists, and whether the search work runs after launch.
Where to start
Before spending anything
If a site already exists, the useful first step is finding out which part is failing. The Free Website Audit reads your site and reports what it finds across six areas, with the evidence it found it from. It is free, there is no call attached, and if it finds nothing worth paying to change it says that.
It reads your public website only. It does not have access to your Google Business Profile, your analytics or anything private, and it says so in the result.
If you would rather walk the site yourself, the contractor website checklist covers the same ground by hand, in about five minutes, without submitting anything.