I hear this from builders all the time: "I don't need a website, I get all my work from referrals." And for a long time, that's true. Word of mouth is powerful in the trades. But I've also watched three separate building companies in Manchester lose half their pipeline in the space of a year.
People Google builders before they call them
Even when someone gets a recommendation from a friend, about 70% of them will still search for you online before picking up the phone. They want to see photos of your work, check your reviews, and get a sense of whether you're the kind of builder they want in their house for six weeks.
If they search your name and nothing comes up, or they find a half-finished Facebook page with no photos and no reviews, they'll probably move on.
What a builder's website actually needs
Forget the fancy animations and stock photos of people in hard hats pointing at things. A builder's website needs to do four jobs well:
A real example
A builder I worked with in Prestwich had a website that was three years old and had never been updated. It had four photos and no reviews. We rebuilt it with a gallery of 30 projects, added his Google reviews, and made sure every page mentioned his services and areas. His enquiries went from 2 or 3 a month to 12 within two months.
A website lets you charge more
This is the bit most builders don't expect. When you've got a proper website with photos of quality work and a stack of good reviews, you can charge more than the builder down the road who only has a phone number on a Facebook page.
The builder in Prestwich put his prices up by about 15% after the new site went live. Not a single customer pushed back on it.
What it costs and what you get back
A decent website for a builder will cost somewhere between £1,000 and £3,000 to build, and maybe £100 to £250 a month for hosting, maintenance, and ongoing SEO work. For a building company doing extensions and renovations, a single new job from the website pays for a year's worth of online costs.
The Prestwich builder spent £2,200 on his new site and £200 a month on SEO. In the first six months, he booked four jobs directly from the website, ranging from a £12,000 extension to a £45,000 full renovation.
You don't need to understand SEO
You need to understand building regulations, structural calculations, and how to manage a project. You do not need to understand how Google ranks websites. That's someone else's job.
If you're a builder in Manchester and you want to stop relying entirely on word of mouth, talk to Martin at SEO 4 Tradesmen. We'll sort out the website and the SEO so you can get on with the building.