If your phone already rings from word of mouth, Facebook, and Checkatrade, it is a fair question: why bother with a website at all? Plenty of good tradesmen run busy businesses for years without one. So let me give you the honest answer, not the salesman’s answer.
You do not strictly need a website to get work. But you are almost certainly losing some work without one, and you do not see it happening.
What actually happens when someone is recommended you
Say a neighbour recommends you for a £6,000 job. Here is what the homeowner does next, before they ever call: they Google your name. They want to see photos of your work, check you look legitimate, and read a review or two. It is human nature when money is involved.
If they find a tidy website with real photos and genuine reviews, they call you with confidence. If they find a half-finished Facebook page, an old Checkatrade listing, or nothing at all, a seed of doubt creeps in, and they quietly ring one of the other two trades the neighbour also mentioned. You never find out you were in the running. A website does not replace word of mouth. It makes word of mouth actually convert.
”But Facebook and Checkatrade work fine for me”
They do work, and you should keep them. But they have real limits:
- You do not own them. Facebook can restrict your reach or your account overnight. Checkatrade puts you on a page next to your direct competitors and charges you for the privilege.
- You rent the audience. Stop paying or posting and you vanish.
- They cap how you look. A profile in someone else’s template never looks as established as your own professional site.
A website is the one part of your online presence you actually control. Everything else points back to it.
When a website genuinely is not worth it
To be fair: if you are fully booked for the next year, not taking on new customers, and have no interest in growing or selling the business later, you can probably skip it. A website is for businesses that want more or better work, or that want to look the part for bigger jobs.
For most trades, though, “I get enough work” tends to mean “I get enough of the work that happens to find me.” A website widens the net to the people searching Google right now for a roofer, builder, plumber, electrician, or joiner in their area.
What a trades website actually needs
You do not need anything fancy. The essentials:
- Photos of real, completed jobs
- Genuine reviews
- The areas you cover and the work you do
- An obvious way to call or message you
That is it. One good page can do all of that.
”Websites are expensive though”
This is the real objection behind most of the others, and it is fair. The good news is it no longer needs a big upfront bill. You can get a professional one-page site with nothing to pay upfront and own it within a year, for a low fixed monthly cost. For most trades that is an easy yes: one extra job a year more than covers it.
The honest bottom line
You can run a trade without a website. But in 2026, when nearly everyone Googles you before they call, not having one quietly costs you the bigger, better-paying jobs you never hear about. It does not have to be expensive or complicated, and it is the one bit of your online presence you truly own.
If you want one sorted without the hassle or the big bill, tell me about your business and I will get you online, usually within days.