Website Builder for Tradesmen - The Comprehensive Article (2022)


Update - 29/12/2022 - Addition of Live Video Demonstration of Building a Tradesmen Website

Update - 07/12/2022 - Examples of Websites Built by Tradesmen



The following are examples of websites created by tradesmen and tradeswomen that are multi-page websites that were able to provide an excellent first web presence. Here are the four examples:


Get Scaped Landscaping & Design

This landscaping website was recently developed by Andrew and his partner in-order to attract job leads as they’ve only recently moved to a new location. By using a website builder that is suitable for tradesman, they were able to get a web page presence online within days and begin to attract job leads and visibility in their new market within a few weeks and at a very cheap cost.


DV Home Repair & Maintenance

Doug created his website to advertise for local home repair and maintenance work in the wider region of where he lives. He too, had been working as a tradesman for many years, but recently moved to a new region and was willing to travel far for initial jobs, especially as they could last a few weeks in some instances (such a roof replacement) which makes it worth it. Doug put a lot of effort into writing some initial articles which paid off in the months that followed as job leads began to arrive in his inbox.


High Maintenance Abseil



Having had an established business for a number of years performing building and home maintenance, Jimmy needed a website to visually represent his team and himself in order give a professional impression to potential customers and those in the wider construction industry that may wish to find out more about his business.


In the four cases above, businesses operating in different trades (plumbing, landscaping, building and handyman trades) were able to create and launch a website without the need to use a website design professional (but sometimes with their partners assistance). In short, if you are a tradesman or tradeswomen looking to build a website for your small building business, be sure to use a website builder that is made for tradesmen such as Dazzly.


What do we mean by tradesmen businesses?

Tradesmen can of course cover both Men and Women. They can work in any trade, such as a builder, plumber or welder. They may be formally qualified or qualified in their experience. They may have decided to go out on their own as an individual contractor or perhaps forming a small business with a trusted work mate. A tradesmen business is a business owned by people that carry out trades. So either you’re starting out and considering what would be the best website builder option, or otherwise, you may already be an individual(s) with a small team, existing projects on-board but perhaps all of this work is coming from a single supplier, or a handful of them, and you need to branch out and diversify the source of your contracts to further advance your business. How can a website help with that? In every way!

 

Evaluating your tradesmen customer:

‘Best Effort Bert’ vs ‘Prudent Pete’

Want to encourage all tradesmen to correctly represent their construction brands and craft (work) through a visual medium that can be elegantly displayed on a nice mobile device (phone on-hand or tablet).

No matter their current personal situation, at Dazzly, we believe that everyone strives to be better. If you have a friend who is a bit down or needs motivation to push themselves to the next step in their trades career, please reach out as we’d be happy to give them an excellent discount (in addition to the free 14-day trial we offer) if they want to go ahead and use our website builder service. Dazzly supports tradesmen and women in every country to further their business ambitions, themselves and their families. Satisfaction in life can be achieved through quality work and represented by a quality website for the benefit of everyone using Dazzly.


What do tradesmen look for in services and solutions to their general problems?

1.      Convenience

2.      On-call

3.      On-hand

a.      Works directly from your mobile device (mobile website builder), even without internet connectivity, to best service tradesmen, craftsmen and other workers, even in very remote places.

4.      Straight-forward to use

a.      No fear of complexity, but with all the existing complexity of their particular job occupying their working memory, tradesman prefer that business solutions they purchase be straight-forward to use, as to not add to the existing workload they are managing. Life is complicated enough as it is!

5.      Human support available

 

FAQ:

What specific services does the term Tradesmen cover?

By the definition we use in our offices, we feel the term tradesmen covers both men and women, of all ages and abilities, carrying out at least one of (but not limited to) the following list of services:

1.      Carpenter

a.      Finisher

2.      Plumber

3.      Electrician

a.      Data cabling

b.      Industrial electrical contracting

4.      Painter

a.      Prep

5.      Roofer

6.      Flooring Specialist

7.      Plasterer

a.      GIB Stopping

b.      Hard Plasterer

8.      Arborist

9.      Concrete services

10.  Cleaning services

11.  Construction services

12.  And so many more!


This definition is in-line with the definition “a worker in a skilled trade” provided by Merriam Webster [1].


Why would residential tradesmen use Dazzly to build a website?

-         Residential factors, reputation, electrician/plumber-callOutFactor

-         Visual gallery of work good to obtaining job sign-offs as social proof


Why would commercial tradesmen use Dazzly to make a website?

-         Commercial knowledge, reputation, credibility, show certifications, differentiate yourself

-         Represent your complex commercial work in an appropriate manner to potential customers

-         Gain visibility and reputation amongst local industry participants


Why would new tradesmen businesses use Dazzly to create a website?

-         Jobs

-         Reputation

-         Visibility online / generally / opportunities this can bring

-         Specific for plumber/electrician/locksmith/on-call trades - on-call/on-demand service leads!


Why is Dazzly the website builder of choice for Tradesmen?

Re-iterate the part about trades solutions generally and how Dazzly matches that.


What other services would Dazzly recommend when starting a tradesmen business?

We recommend you get a custom domain (we can take care of that), custom email services (we can also take care of that) and to be prudent, amongst other things, you should get competent financial and accounting advice – we’re happy to refer you to a local provider for you if you need further assistance with anything we cannot take care of directly.


What are the trade services that have less online competition for job leads?

-         All in proportion with amount of people starting businesses in this area

-         Also to do with the nature of how work is acquired in this area


How can I check the online competition for my trades service in my local area?

The most simple way to do this is by putting yourself in your customer's shoes and conducting searches to find out which of your competitors (if any) are appearing in search results when they look up generic terms such as "painter" in your specific area within New Jersey, if you don't find much competition then you shouldn't need to produce many written articles/content to get some visibility within this space. Effort and patience rewards those. You don't need to spend more on advertising once you have a fundamentally good website presence on search engines.


Will Dazzly help me get job leads for my new trades business?

Yes, as per the previous answer, if you set a realistic goal for representation for one or two services within a specific location then you can realistically expect to rank for your website if you follow the prompts and our Dazzly SEO guide.


Word of mouth is what gets me all of my work today. Are you sure Dazzly can help me get job leads for trades work?

If your business has operated for a reasonable period of time, and in that period of time, you took care in your craftsmanship and were prudent in your project management and kind in your customer service, then we understand that your local reputation will accumulate over time and that you may be in a situation where you’re very used to receiving work via ‘word of mouth’, it likely has been this way for a number of years. As you know, that ‘word of mouth’ was hard-earned, and will serve for as an asset for times to come. You also understand it is more competitive now and there are other, physically closer service providers or stores and more options generally for customers that otherwise don’t know about your services.

Our suggestion to you is that you open a new channel, a Dazzly website, to represent your local tradesman business and to make yourself visible to new customers that are considering your competitors services. This will simply broaden your reach, in addition to enhancing your existing reputation when your loyal local customers also enjoy viewing your website.

Further to this, with a website, you’ll get local visibility and attract additional opportunities from local organisations and other industry participants that otherwise may have not known to call you amongst other alternatives. With your existing, loyal customer list, you can kindly request them to leave you an online review for your past work. Leveraging this, you can bring your website into the light of local visible searches and see a realisable, noticeable increase in local job leads as a result, complementing the leads coming in aside them from your existing, known, word of mouth.


Are there any specific situations where you wouldn’t recommend using Dazzly to create your trades business website?

-         Extremely custom design needs

-         Extremely high account management requirements

-         Large business with the desire for a sole-supplier for website, email, domains and IT

-         Custom functionality / processing of data or files submitted via the website

-         Website with ‘User Accounts’ and other advanced Account Management functions

This covers about 0.1% - 1% of all business cases when looking for a website. So there is likely no concern here. However if this is your situation, you should contact a locally-based, high-end, website development firm or potentially a creative agency as a first point of contact.

Should I use Dazzly as my tradesman website builder if I want to sell trade products on an ecommerce website?

Yes – you should still use Dazzly even if your business is selling products to the construction industry rather than directly participating as a tradesman. Dazzly is also an excellent ecommerce website maker and, for the same reasons detailed above, get you up and running fast and with ease. An additional benefit when making an ecommerce website is that you can accept credit-card payments with Stripe, Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) payments with Afterpay, and PayPal payments via our recently released PayPal integration – a very desired feature for our USA website builder customers.


What other things can I do once I have my trades business website online?

1.      Put it on your van/signage

2.      Google for Business

3.      Local Reviews

4.      Job photos

5.      Articles – job postings/report – build up social proof to close more contracts and build REP

 

I want to know how to start a detailing business on the side of my existing work, can Dazzly help me with that?

While we can’t help you with the technical aspects of your work or in actually partnering with you to run your business, we can advise that using Dazzly at the earliest stages of your trades business, in this case, detailing work, is a great idea! We would recommend taking the time during your free trial to write several articles about detailing work that you’ve carried out in your local area. Be sure to include a write-up about this job with all the details and mention the general suburb name. If you can do several of these then major search engines will assess your website as being relevant to detailing work in your local area. In terms of finance, the job leads you generate will exceed the cost of the Dazzly website, but while you’re still getting started with your side business then we recommend using the Pay Monthly pricing plan to make things easier on your immediate cash-flow.

 

Can I start my handyman business using Dazzly?

As per the answer above regarding the detailing business, while you can create a website and start to attract local job leads, you will need to speak with an accountant, bookkeeper or other related professional when starting your handyman business. Dazzly will help you get noticed locally and will represent you well and help generate leads, but there are still many tasks you need to do as a sole proprietor or small business owner 😊.

 

References

[1]

“Tradesman.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tradesman. Accessed 8 Jun. 2022.