Six tests, ten minutes
A trade website has six jobs. Each has a one-minute test on your own phone. The first three are the path from a customer's phone to your phone; if any fails, fix it before anything else.
1. Get a call in one tap
Test: open the site on your phone. Without scrolling, is there a call button? Tap it. Does the phone app open with your number?
Pass: tappable number visible on landing, with hours or "24/7" beside it.
Fail: the number is text; it is in the footer; the first screen is a slider.
Fix: a tel: call button in the header on every page and after every section.
2. Get a photo quote in a minute
Test: find the quote form. Count the fields. Try to attach a photo from your camera. Submit. Time how long until it reaches your phone.
Pass: six fields or fewer, camera upload works, notification within a minute.
Fail: ten fields; no photo upload; it emails an inbox checked at night.
Fix: a short form with photo upload, delivering to your job software or a phone notification, with a same-day response target.
3. Appear in under two seconds on one bar
Test: private window, mobile data, ideally somewhere with poor signal. Load the home page and a service page. Count.
Pass: under two seconds; Core Web Vitals Good on mobile in Search Console.
Fail: blank, then a slider; Poor in Search Console.
Fix: images sized and compressed, hero prioritised, slider removed, scripts trimmed, decent hosting.
4. Rank in the towns you cover
Test: search your trade plus a town you serve that is not your base address. Page one? With a page about that town?
Pass: a page per town served, each ranking or at least indexed, with real local content.
Fail: one address; no area pages; area pages that are one paragraph with the town name swapped.
Fix: area pages as records with local jobs, photos, reviews and a call button, built from a template.
5. Prove you are real, qualified and insured
Test: find your registration or licence number and click through to the register. Find your insurance statement. Find a photo of you or your team, and three real job photos.
Pass: all within a minute; numbers linked to registers; real photos.
Fail: "fully qualified and insured" with no numbers; stock photos.
Fix: a trust bar on every page with numbers and logos linking to registers; an About page with insurance details; job photos with captions; reviews embedded near the buttons.
6. Know what it produced
Test: ask whoever runs the office how many calls and quote requests came from the website last month, and from which towns.
Pass: the numbers are known, by page.
Fail: "a few, I think."
Fix: call-click and quote-submission events by page; a tracking number for website calls if most enquiries are calls; a monthly look at enquiries by area and service page.
Scoring
Six of six: the site is working; add area pages for the next towns and keep the job photos coming. Four or five: fix the failures, no rebuild. Three or fewer with 1, 2 or 3 failing: the site is losing jobs every week and the fixes cost less than one of them.
Where this sits
This is the launch checklist for every trade website we build and the first ten minutes of a diagnosis on an existing one. Most trade sites fail at least four, and the area pages are the fix that changes the business.