After looking at hundreds of tradie websites, the same problems show up repeatedly. The good news: each one is fixable, and you do not need a complete rebuild to fix most of them.
Your phone number is not click-to-call on mobile
Over 70% of people searching for local tradies are on their phone. If your phone number is plain text or buried in a footer, visitors cannot tap it to call you directly. They have to copy the number, open the phone app, paste it in, and call. Most people do not bother.
Fix: make your phone number a tel: link that opens the dialler instantly. Put it in the header on every page. One tap, straight through to you.
Google cannot find you for local searches
If you search "plumber [your suburb]" and your business does not appear in the map results or the first page, you are invisible to the people most likely to call you.
This is a local SEO problem. It is usually caused by an incomplete Google Business Profile, a website Google cannot read properly, or a lack of content targeting the specific searches your customers use. All fixable.
You have no service area pages
If you serve five different suburbs but have no pages mentioning those suburbs, you are relying on one page to rank for dozens of different searches. Google cannot work out where you operate.
Creating suburb-specific pages is not about stuffing keywords. Each page should have specific, useful information about the services you provide in that area. One electrician we worked with added four suburb pages and went from 4 to 14 enquiries a month within three months.
There is no proof of your work
Stock photos of a smiling tradie in a hard hat tell a potential customer nothing. Before-and-after photos of your actual work tell them everything: that you are real, that you do quality work, and that you have experience with jobs like theirs.
Start taking photos on every job. Even a quick phone photo before you pack up is better than stock. Build a library of genuine work photos and put them on your homepage, service pages, and Google Business Profile.
There is no clear next step
What do you want someone to do after reading your website? If the answer is "call me" or "get a quote", make that the only obvious action on the page. A single, prominent CTA - a button that says "Get a Quote" or a click-to-call number - converts better than a page full of options.
If your tradie website is missing any of these elements, they are worth fixing before spending money on advertising. Traffic to a site that does not convert is wasted spend.