Website Design for Tradies

What does a good tradie website need?

A good tradie website needs to answer three questions in the first few seconds on a phone: do you do this job, do you come to my suburb, and how do I call you. Everything else, such as photos, reviews and licence details, exists to make the customer trust you enough to tap the call button.

Element	Why it matters for tradies
Click-to-call button, always visible on mobile	Urgent trade searches often happen on phones, and customers tend to ring the first tradie who looks right
One page per money job	“Hot water system replacement” and “blocked drains” are different searches with different customers; one page can’t rank for both
Service areas listed clearly	Customers want to know you’ll come to them before they call; Google wants the same
Short quote form with photo upload	Lets customers send a photo of the leak, the switchboard or the roof, so you can price before visiting
Licence number, ABN and insurance	Trust signals customers look for, and in several states a legal requirement in advertising
Real job photos	Your own work, your own vans and your own team beat stock photos every time
Reviews from Google	Recent reviews that mention the job and suburb, linked back to your Business Profile
Fast mobile load	A slow site on 4G loses the call to the next result

Before going independent, Dyllan spent years inside a Perth SEO agency working on the websites of hundreds of local businesses, including electricians, landscapers, builders and other trades. In trades, the site that wins the call is rarely the flashiest. It’s the one with a clear page for the job and a phone number you can tap.

How should a tradies website be structured?

Structure tradies websites around jobs and areas, not around your company story. A homepage, one page per high-value job, a page per region you service, a recent jobs gallery, an about page with your licence and insurance, and a contact page cover most trades. A sole trader can launch with five or six pages and add job pages as the business grows.

A hypothetical electrician in Wollongong might use:

• Home: what you do, where, licence number, call button, recent reviews.
• Job pages: switchboard upgrades, safety switch installation, EV charger installation, solar and battery, emergency callouts.
• Area pages: Northern Illawarra, Wollongong CBD and surrounds, Shellharbour and Kiama.
• Recent jobs: photos with the suburb and the job, updated monthly.
• About: who you are, licences, insurance, memberships.
• Contact and quote: phone, form, hours, service area map.

Each job page should cover what the job involves, the price factors, how long it takes, which areas you cover, and photos of your own work on that job. Copying the same text onto ten pages with a different job name swapped in won’t rank, and customers can tell.

Area pages need real local detail, such as the age of homes, common problems, or access issues, rather than a list of suburb names. For how this ties into ranking, see our guide to SEO for tradies.

How fast does a tradie website need to load on mobile?

Fast enough to pass Google’s Core Web Vitals on mobile: the main content should load within 2.5 seconds, the page should respond to a tap within 200 milliseconds, and the layout shouldn’t jump around (a layout shift score of 0.1 or less). Google measures these at the 75th percentile of real visits, split by mobile and desktop.

For tradie sites, the usual culprits are easy to fix:

• Huge photos. Job photos straight off a phone are often several megabytes each. Resize and compress them before they go on the site.
• Sliders and video headers. A rotating banner of five stock images slows the page and rarely gets watched. One strong photo of your own work does more.
• Too many plugins and chat widgets. Each script adds load time. Keep the ones that bring enquiries.
• Cheap shared hosting. A slow server makes every page slow. Hosting is a small part of the cost and worth getting right.

Test your current site with Google’s PageSpeed Insights on the mobile tab. If the main content takes more than 4 seconds, that’s the first thing to fix, ahead of any redesign.

How much does a tradie website cost in Australia?

Typical Australian market ranges run from $500–$1,500 a year to do it yourself on a website builder, $700–$4,000 for a template-based tradie site, and $3,000–$10,000 for a custom small-business site. Rental plans usually charge $59–$250 a month. These are market ranges from published Australian pricing, not our quote.

Option	Typical Australian market range	Good for	Watch for
DIY website builder	$500–$1,500 a year	Brand-new sole traders on a tight budget	Your time, generic templates, weak job pages
Template-based tradie site	$700–$4,000 upfront, plus hosting	Most small trade businesses	Whether you get job and area pages, or just a brochure
Custom small-business site	$3,000–$10,000; larger custom builds $6,000–$15,000	Established businesses with several trades or regions	Paying for design flourishes instead of pages that rank
Rental or subscription site	$59–$250 a month, often a 12-month minimum	Businesses that want no upfront cost	Who owns the domain and site when you stop paying
Ongoing hosting and care	Roughly $30–$400 a month depending on what’s included	Everyone	What “updates” actually covers

Do the three-year sum before choosing. A hypothetical rental plan at $250 a month for a 12-month minimum, then $99 a month, costs $5,376 over three years, and you may still not own it. A $3,000 build with $50-a-month hosting costs $4,800 over the same period, and the site is yours.

We build SEO-ready lead-gen websites for tradies, with job and area pages planned from the start. Pricing depends on the number of job and area pages, so we quote after the free audit.

Should you rent a tradie website or own it?

Own it, in almost every case. Rental plans spread the cost, but the provider often owns the site, the design and sometimes the domain, so when you stop paying you can lose the website and the Google rankings that came with it. Some charge a buy-out fee to keep the site, sometimes several months’ worth of fees.

Whoever builds your site, get these in writing before you pay:

1. The domain is registered to your business. auDA’s rules for .com.au require an Australian commercial entity, most commonly shown with an active ABN or ACN. The registrant should be your ABN, not the web designer’s.
2. You have admin logins to the website, the hosting account and the domain registrar.
3. Content and photos are yours to take with you, including the copy written for you.
4. There’s no lock-in or buy-out fee, or you know exactly what it is.
5. Tracking accounts are in your name: Google Analytics, Search Console, the Business Profile and any Google Ads account.

Also note: if you close your business and the ABN tied to the domain is cancelled, auDA says you’re no longer eligible to hold that .com.au. Keep your domain registration and ABN details current when you restructure, for example moving from sole trader to company.

Which licence and business details must go on a tradie website?

Show your licence or registration number, business name, ABN and phone number on every page, usually in the header or footer. In several states this isn’t optional: Queensland’s QBCC lists websites as advertising that must carry licence details, NSW requires the licence number in all building and trade advertising, and WA requires registration numbers in website advertising for builders and painters.

State	What the regulator says (plain-English summary)
Queensland (QBCC)	Licensees must include the licensed name, a statement that they’re licensed under the QBCC Act, and the licence number, legible and reasonably prominent. Websites, social media, online directories and vehicle signage are listed as advertising
New South Wales (NSW Fair Trading)	The licensee’s name and licence number must be shown in all advertising, with the correct category of work and a business phone number
Western Australia (Building and Energy)	Section 8 of the Building Services (Registration) Act 2011 requires builders and painters to include their registration number in advertisements, including websites. Electrical contractors must conspicuously display their licence number in any advertisement under regulation 45(1) of the Electricity (Licensing) Regulations 1991

This is a plain-English summary, not legal advice. Victoria and other states have their own registration rules, so check your regulator.

Beyond the legal minimum, show what customers check: insurance (public liability), trade memberships, warranties you offer, and how long you’ve been operating. Put the licence number on the quote form confirmation and in your email signature too.

A website is one part of the mix. For how it fits with Maps, reviews and lead platforms, see marketing for tradies. If you want calls while the site builds rankings, see Google Ads for tradies, and for the Maps side, our local SEO service.

Want to know whether your current site is costing you calls? Get a free tradie website and SEO audit.