Most tradies get their first few years of work from referrals and a lot of them never need more than that. The ones who want to grow past word-of-mouth hit the same wall: the phone rings when a mate recommends you and goes quiet when it doesn’t. A website fixes that, but only if it is built for how trade customers actually find and choose a tradie, which is not how a generic small-business template assumes.
We build websites for plumbers, electricians, builders, landscapers, roofers and a couple of dozen other trades across Melbourne and regional Victoria. This guide sets out what a tradie website needs to do, what it should have on it, what it costs in Australia in 2026 and the mistakes that waste money. It is written for the business owner, not for a web designer.
Key takeaways
- A tradie website has one job: turn a search or a referral into a phone call or a quote request. Everything on it should serve that.
- Service pages and suburb pages bring in the work from Google. Visual polish does not. Spend accordingly.
- Real job photos, visible licence numbers and reviews on the page do more for trust than any amount of copy.
- A solid tradie site costs roughly $1,700 to $3,500 plus GST in 2026. Be wary of monthly “rent-a-site” plans where you never own it.
- Your Google Business Profile will often produce more calls than the site itself. The two need to work together.
What a tradie website actually has to do
Trade customers behave differently from most buyers. They usually have a problem right now (a blocked drain, a tripped switchboard, a fence that came down in the wind), they are searching on a phone and they will call the first business that looks legitimate and local. They are not comparing brand stories. They want to know three things in about five seconds: do you do this job, do you cover my area and can I trust you in my house.
That shapes every decision. The phone number has to be tappable and visible on every page. The suburbs you cover have to be stated plainly. The proof that you are licensed, insured and have done this before has to be right there, not buried on an About page. A site that nails those three things with plain design will out-earn a beautiful one that doesn’t.
The second audience is the customer who found you through a referral or a hipages quote and is checking you out before calling back. For them the site is a credibility check. It needs to look like a real, established business with real photos of real jobs, not a template with stock images of smiling models in hard hats.
What every tradie website must have
- Phone number in the header, tappable, on every page. Most enquiries are calls and most calls come from phones. On mobile, a sticky call button at the bottom of the screen is worth more than any other single feature.
- Your service area stated plainly. The suburbs and regions you actually cover, on the home page and on every service page, not just a map in the footer.
- Real photos of your own work. Before-and-after galleries outperform any amount of copy. Stock imagery actively hurts credibility for trades; customers can tell.
- Licence and insurance details visible. In Victoria that means your VBA registration or plumbing licence number, your REC number if you’re an electrician and a line confirming public liability cover. Customers are letting you into their home; make it easy to check.
- Reviews on the page, not just on Google. Pull your Google reviews onto the site so the proof is there when someone lands from a referral rather than a search.
- A short enquiry form that accepts a photo. Customers describing a problem badly is a common friction point; a photo of the leaking tap or the cracked render saves a site visit.
- Emergency or after-hours availability stated clearly if you offer it, including what you charge for a call-out. If you don’t offer it, say your hours so people don’t waste a call.
- Fast loading. A lot of your traffic is on mobile data at a job site or in a car park. A page that takes six seconds to load on 4G loses the call.
Service pages and suburb pages: where the work comes from
This is the part most tradie websites get wrong and it is the part that decides whether the site brings in work from Google or just sits there. A single “Services” page that lists everything you do in four paragraphs cannot rank for any of it. When someone in Reservoir searches “blocked drain plumber Reservoir”, Google wants to show a page about blocked drains, ideally one that mentions Reservoir, not a page that mentions drains in passing.
The structure that works is one page per core service (hot water repairs, blocked drains, gas fitting, bathroom renovations) and, if you genuinely work across distinct areas, a page for each of your main suburbs or regions. Each page needs a few hundred words that answer what a customer would ask on the phone: what is included, what affects the price, how quickly you can come and what areas you cover. It sounds like a lot of pages. It is also the difference between a plumber who shows up for three searches and one who shows up for thirty.
Two cautions. Do not create twenty near-identical suburb pages that just swap the suburb name; Google treats those as low-quality and they can drag the whole site down. Write five or six genuine pages for the areas you really work in. And keep your Google Business Profile service list matching the pages on the site, so the two reinforce each other. Our local SEO guide covers the full approach and our guide to on-page SEO for small businesses explains how to write each page so it ranks.
Design choices that suit a trade business
Keep it simple and keep it honest. The colour scheme should match your vans and your uniforms so the brand is consistent from the driveway to the website; if you don’t have a brand yet, pick two colours and stick to them. Use large, legible type, because a lot of your customers are reading on a phone in bad light. Put the important things (phone, services, service area, reviews) above the fold on mobile.
Photography is where you should spend effort. Get in the habit of taking a quick before-and-after photo on every job with your phone. Twenty real photos of your work in Preston, Epping and Mill Park are worth more than a professional shoot of a staged site and they double as Google Business Profile posts. Avoid stock images entirely.
Features to skip unless you have a specific reason: chatbots (customers want to call, not chat with a robot), elaborate animations, video backgrounds that chew mobile data and any page that exists for the sake of it. A team page is useful if it’s you and three others with real photos; a “Our Values” page is not.
Online booking, quoting and job software
Whether you need online booking depends on the trade. For jobs that are predictable and time-boxed, like a standard service, an inspection or a lawn mow, a booking calendar on the site removes phone tag and wins work after hours. For jobs that need a quote, a booking system just creates confusion; a good enquiry form with a photo upload is better.
If you already run job management software such as ServiceM8, Tradify, Fergus or simPRO, the site can feed enquiries straight into it and in some cases customers can book directly against your real availability. That is worth doing once you have a team and enough admin to justify it. For a sole operator, a form that emails you and sends a text notification is usually enough.
What a tradie website costs in Australia in 2026
Prices vary a lot, so here are the numbers we work with and the market ranges from our website cost guide.
A single-page site with your services, service area, job photos, reviews, a sticky call button and a quote form suits a sole operator who mostly gets referrals and needs somewhere credible to point people. We build these for $1,699 plus GST and have them live within a week. Across the market, expect $1,400 to $2,500.
A standard multi-page site with a page per service and a handful of genuine suburb pages is the right choice for anyone trying to win work from search, which is most growing trade businesses. Ours is $2,490 plus GST for up to seven pages including copywriting and Google Business Profile setup, live in two to three weeks. Market range for a comparable build is roughly $2,500 to $4,500; custom-designed sites from larger agencies run $3,500 to $8,500.
A larger build with online booking, multi-location support and integration with your job management software makes sense once you have a team. Ours starts at $3,490 plus GST; fully custom projects start around $7,500.
Ongoing costs are the part people forget. Budget $20 to $60 a year for a .com.au domain, $33 to $60 a month for decent Australian hosting and from $32.95 a month for maintenance (updates, security, daily backups, uptime monitoring). A site that isn’t maintained will eventually break or get hacked, usually at the worst moment.
One warning that comes up constantly. Some providers sell tradie websites on a monthly plan of $100 to $200 a month with nothing up front. Read the contract: in many of these you never own the site, the content or sometimes even the domain and if you stop paying it all disappears. Over three years you will have paid $4,000 to $7,000 for something you can’t take with you. Whatever you choose, make sure you own the domain and the site outright at the end.
Getting found: the website and Google Business Profile together
For trades, the Google Business Profile (the listing with the map, reviews and phone number that appears for “plumber near me”) often produces more calls than the website itself. Claim it, fill in every field, list each service you offer, add job photos regularly and ask every happy customer for a review. Then make sure the website backs it up with genuine service and suburb pages that the profile links to. Google cross-checks the two; a complete profile pointing at a thin website underperforms and so does a good website with a neglected profile.
Directories like hipages, Airtasker and Oneflare can be a useful source of leads when you’re starting out, but you’re paying per lead and competing on price with everyone else in the category. The point of your own site and profile is to build a channel where the customer finds you directly, calls you directly and isn’t comparing five quotes.
Common mistakes we see on tradie websites
The site has no phone number on mobile, or it’s an image rather than a tappable link. The service area is a vague “Melbourne and surrounds”. The only photos are stock. There is a single Services page instead of one per service. The site was built in 2016 and hasn’t been touched since, so it’s slow, insecure and says “Est. 2009, 7 years’ experience”. The contact form goes to an email address nobody checks. The domain is registered in the web designer’s name, not the business owner’s. Each of these is cheap to fix and each one quietly costs work every week.
Keeping it working
A tradie website needs less upkeep than most, but not none. Add new job photos every month or two. Update the service list when you add or drop services. Keep your prices, hours and licence numbers current. Make sure WordPress, the theme and plugins are updated and backed up, either yourself or through a maintenance plan. Check Google Search Console every few months to see which searches are bringing people in and write a page for any service that’s getting searches but doesn’t have one yet.
We build fixed-price websites for tradies across Melbourne and regional Victoria and you own everything at handover. See our web design for tradies page for packages, or look at what we do specifically for plumbers, electricians, builders and landscapers.
Frequently asked questions
Do I really need a website if I get enough work from referrals and hipages?
If you’re happy with your current volume, maybe not. If you want to grow, charge more, or stop paying per lead, yes. A website with proper service pages plus a well-maintained Google Business Profile is the only channel where customers find you directly, without a middleman taking a cut or a competitor’s quote sitting next to yours.
How much does a tradie website cost?
In 2026, a good single-page site is around $1,700 plus GST, a multi-page site with service and suburb pages is $2,500 to $4,500 and larger builds with booking and software integration start around $3,500 and go up from there. Add $20 to $60 a year for the domain and $30 to $60 a month for hosting and maintenance.
How long does it take?
A single-page site can be live within a week if you have your photos and licence details ready. A multi-page site usually takes two to three weeks. The most common delay is waiting on photos and content from the business, so gather those first.
Should I have a page for every suburb I work in?
Only for the five or six areas you genuinely work in most and only if each page says something specific. Dozens of copy-paste suburb pages are treated as spam by Google and can hurt the whole site.
Do I need online booking?
For fixed, predictable jobs like services and inspections, it’s useful and wins after-hours work. For anything that needs a quote, a good enquiry form with a photo upload works better. If you use job management software, ask whether it can connect to the site.
What licence details should be on the site?
Whatever your trade requires in your state. In Victoria, builders show their VBA registration number, plumbers their VBA licence number and electricians their REC number. Also state that you hold public liability insurance. It takes one line in the footer and it’s one of the first things a careful customer checks.
Can I update the website myself?
Yes. A WordPress site lets you add photos, change prices and edit text without a developer. The technical maintenance (updates, backups, security) is better handled on a plan so you don’t have to think about it.
What happens if I stop paying a monthly website plan?
Depends entirely on the contract. With genuine hosting or maintenance plans, you keep the site and simply lose the service. With “rent-a-site” plans, you usually lose the site, the content and sometimes the domain. Before signing anything, confirm in writing that you own the domain and the website files.
