Web design for tradesmen: what a trade website needs

You don't need many. For most plumbers, electricians, roofers and builders, five pages is plenty:

A customer looking for an emergency plumber is on their phone, often stressed. Your phone number should be one tap away on every page.

Photos of your own work. Stock photos of smiling men in hard hats tell the customer nothing. A before and after of a bathroom you fitted last month tells them a lot.

Your registrations. Some trades are legally required to be registered (see below), and customers can look you up. Put your registration number next to the logo so they can look you up.

Reviews. Link to your Google reviews rather than pasting a handful onto the page. The CAP Code bans fake reviews and says incentivised reviews must be made clear (rules 3.44 and 3.45, CAP Code).

What happens next. "Send a photo and your postcode, and I'll reply with a rough price by tonight" is more useful than "Contact us for a free quote".

Under the Electronic Commerce Regulations 2002, a business website must make these easy to find:

• Your business name
• The geographic address where you're established (not just a PO box)
• Contact details, including an email address
• Any trade register you're on, and your registration number
• Your VAT number, if you're VAT registered

If you're a limited company, GOV.UK says your website must also show your registered number, registered office address, where the company is registered (England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland) and that it's a limited company (GOV.UK). A footer on every page is the usual place.

If you're a sole trader, your trading name must not include "Ltd" or "plc" (GOV.UK).

Working from home and don't want your address on Google Maps? Google's guidelines say a service-area business, using a plumber as the example, should hide its address on its Business Profile (Google). That's your Google listing. The website rules above still apply, so talk to your accountant or solicitor about which address to use.

Gas engineers. By law, a self-employed person can't do gas work unless they're in the class of persons approved by HSE, and it's an offence to falsely pretend to be (Gas Safety Regulations 1998, reg 3). That approved class is the Gas Safe Register. HSE says every registered engineer has an ID card showing which appliances they're qualified to work on (HSE). Show your registration number on your site, and only list the gas work your card covers.

Electricians. Members of a competent person scheme can self-certify certain electrical work in homes, and householders can look them up on the electrical competent person register (GOV.UK). If you're on it, say which scheme and link to the register so customers can check.

TrustMark describes itself as the Government Endorsed Quality Scheme, with a search where customers can find a registered tradesperson (TrustMark).

The rule for every logo is the same: the CAP Code says you must not show a trust mark or quality mark "without the necessary authorisation" (rule 3.52). If your membership lapses, take the logo down.

The CAP Code says you need evidence for any claim a customer would take as a fact (rule 3.7). Three that catch trades out:

• "No. 1 in Bristol" or "Cornwall's leading roofer." The ASA treats "number 1" claims like "best-selling" or "leading", as comparisons you'd need to prove (ASA).
• "Cheapest in town" or "we'll beat any quote." The ASA says lowest-price claims need evidence that you will always beat, not merely match, other prices (ASA).
• "Fully qualified" or "accredited." Only if it's true for everyone who'll do the job, and you can say by whom.

Plain and specific beats big and vague: "Gas Safe registered, 12 years fitting boilers around Truro" is a better line than any of them.

If a customer agrees a job with you at their home, consumer law usually gives them 14 days to cancel a service contract (Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013, reg 30). To start within that period, they need to ask you to, on a durable medium such as an email or a signed form (reg 36). Your website is a good place to keep your terms, but get advice on the wording. This is a summary, not legal advice.

It's tempting to make a page for every town you cover, each with the same words and a different place name. Google's spam policies count "pages targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse (Google). A single "areas we cover" page, plus a few real job write-ups in different towns, is safer and more useful. Our guide to local SEO for tradespeople goes into this.

Whoever builds your site, make sure the domain is in your business's name and you have your own logins. Our website cost guide has a short checklist.

We design and set up websites for small businesses across the UK, including trades. We can host and run the whole site for you, or look after the one you already have, even if we didn't build it. If getting found on Google is the bigger problem, we work on that too.

• Website design for small businesses
• Local SEO