Jobs, not looks
For a trade, the website question is how many jobs it brings. One boiler replacement, one rewire, one landscaping project covers a lot of website. If a custom site produces a few more enquiries a month than a template, it has paid its extra cost fast and keeps paying. If it does not, the template was fine. Here is how to tell which you are.
The template
A trade theme or builder layout with your logo, a few photos and a contact form.
Cost: hundreds to low thousands.
Good at: existing; being found for your business name.
Weak at: ranking for "[trade] [town]" across the towns you cover (one Services page and one Contact page cannot); speed on a phone with poor signal; a quote form that takes photos; tap-to-call placed where a thumb lands; proof laid out (licence, insurance, accreditations); and ownership, if it came from a lead-gen company.
The custom build
Built around how trade work is won: a page per service and a page per town as records; tap-to-call on every screen; a photo quote form to your phone; live booking for standard jobs if your software supports it; licence and insurance displayed; real job photos and reviews near every call to action; fast on a phone; structured data for a local business; tracking of calls and quotes; everything in your name.
Cost: mid four figures, fixed.
Good at: appearing for searches in every town you serve, converting them to calls and photo quotes, and reporting which town and service produced them.
Weak at: the invoice, and two to three weeks of build.
Where the extra jobs come from
Area pages. "Electrician Harrow", "electrician Pinner", "electrician Ruislip" are three different searches. A template with one address ranks for one town at best. A custom site with a page per town you cover, each with genuine local content, ranks in each. This is the single largest difference for trades that travel.
Service pages. "Boiler repair", "EV charger installation", "fuse box replacement" are separate searches with separate intent. A page each ranks and converts; a bullet list does not.
Tap-to-call and the photo form. A visitor on a phone with a leaking pipe wants to call now or send a photo. A template's contact form asks for their address and message and loses them.
Speed. Your customers are on phones, often on site, often with one bar. A template at five seconds is a template nobody sees.
The arithmetic
A trade business with a template site getting 200 visits a month, converting 4 percent to enquiries: eight enquiries, perhaps three jobs.
A custom site ranking in six towns for four services, fast, with tap-to-call and a photo form, might reach 600 visits at 8 percent: forty-eight enquiries, perhaps eighteen jobs. Even at a third of that uplift, the additional jobs in the first two or three months exceed the price difference between template and custom for most trades, and the difference recurs monthly.
When a template, or no site, is right
- A sole trader with a full book from referral and no wish to grow. Google Business Profile and a Facebook page may be all that is needed.
- A trade that works only through contractors and never for the public.
- A business about to be sold or wound down.
When the template is a leak
- You cover several towns and rank in none of them.
- You want to grow, hire, or move into a higher-value service (EV chargers, heat pumps, full renovations) and need enquiries for it.
- Your current site takes over three seconds on a phone.
- Enquiries come as evening phone calls because the site has no way to send a photo.
- The site belongs to a lead-gen company and you pay monthly for leads you do not own.
Deciding
Three numbers: monthly visits, monthly enquiries from the site, and the average value of a job. If the site is under 4 percent conversion or over three seconds, or you rank in fewer towns than you serve, a custom build pays back in a few jobs. If it is fast and converting, keep it and add area pages.
Our trade sites are custom builds at a fixed price, with area pages, the photo quote form, tap-to-call and speed included, because that is the version that brings jobs. The template costs less to buy and more in the jobs that went to the firm that ranked in your town.