Nine things, in this order: a phone number that dials from a phone, the towns you cover, every service on its own line, photos of your own finished work, a form that reaches your email, whatever you are licensed and insured for, your hours, plain prices where you have them, and a page that loads fast on a phone. Titan builds all nine from your Google listing in 10-15 minutes, free to see.
A homeowner does not read a contractor website. They land on it from a search on a phone, usually with a problem in progress, and they scan for three things in about ten seconds: can this person do my job, do they cover my town, and how do I reach them. Everything a contractor site includes should serve that scan. Everything that gets in the way of it - a slideshow, a mission statement, a page about your values - is cost without return.
That is why the list below is in order. The first items are what the homeowner looks for first. If your site has the last item and not the first, it has the wrong one.
One: a phone number on every screen that dials with one tap. Not in a footer, not on a contact page - at the top, on every page, as a link a thumb can hit. Two: the towns and counties you work in, written out as words, because both the homeowner and Google match on place names, and "serving the greater metro area" matches nothing. Three: every service you offer on its own line, in the words the homeowner uses. A general contractor website design page that lists home additions, basement finishing and ADUs separately gets the addition call; one that says "remodeling" gets the call meant for somebody else.
Four: photos of your own finished work, once you have them, and honest stock until you do. A bathroom remodeling website design is judged on the shower photos, and a flooring company website design on a floor laid in a real room; no paragraph substitutes for either. Five: a form that reaches your email in seconds and asks the two or three things you need to price the job - the room, the rough size, what is already chosen. Six: your license number and insurance, where your state expects them, but only if they are true. Seven: your hours, including whether you take emergency calls, so nobody calls at midnight expecting an answer you do not give. Eight: prices where you have them - a minimum charge, an hourly rate, a starting-at figure - because the homeowner who knows the price calls once instead of shopping three more sites. Nine: a page that loads fast on a phone with nothing sliding around, because that is where nearly every one of these visits happens.
The nine are the floor, not the whole house. Each trade has one or two things a homeowner in that trade searches for that a generic contractor site never mentions. A roofing website design needs storm damage and insurance claims as their own section. A tile contractor website design needs a sentence on what goes behind the tile, because that is where a shower fails and the informed homeowner asks. A kitchen remodeler needs to say roughly how long the family is without a kitchen. A handyman needs a form that takes a whole list, not one job.
You know what those are for your trade; they are the questions you answer on the phone every week. Put the answers on the site, in the section where that caller lands, and the phone call starts one step further along.
A blog, unless you enjoy writing one and will keep it up; a dead blog with two posts from three years ago says more than no blog. A slideshow on the home page - it pushes the phone number and the services below the fold on a phone, which is the one place that matters. A page of values, a mission statement, a founder story longer than two sentences. Quotes you cannot prove, review counts you did not earn, badges that claim the whole town relies on you. Stock photos of smiling models in clean uniforms. A live chat widget you will not staff.
None of these get you a call. Some of them cost you one, because the homeowner scrolling past a slideshow looking for the number gives up and taps the next result.
Open your site on your phone, not your desk. Count the taps to dial your number - it should be one. Look for your town as a word on the first screen. Look for the specific service a homeowner would search, not the category. Try the form and see whether the email arrives and what it asks. Then hand the phone to somebody who does not know your business and ask them what you do and where; if they cannot say in ten seconds, the site is missing one of the nine.
If the site fails more of that than it passes, the fix is not a redesign, it is the list above, done in order. The full set of trade pages on the websites for contractors page shows each item in place for a specific trade, with a live demo you can hold the same quick test against.
Titan builds the nine things from your Google listing, in the order above, with the trade-specific sections already in place for your trade, in 10-15 minutes. It is free to see, no card. If you keep it: $97 today (first week of hosting free), $97/month starts one week later, 30-day guarantee, hosting included, and 50 plain-English edits a month so item seven and item eight stay true when your hours or your prices move. Everything the site claims about your license, insurance and hours is what you typed, never a guess.
It does not fit a contractor who needs a shop, a booking calendar, or a large custom portfolio with a designer across the table, and it does not write a blog for you. If those are the missing pieces, hire for them. If the missing pieces are the nine, the demo is the fastest way to see them in place.
Titan fits the contractor whose site is missing some of the nine things - or all of them - and who would rather see the fixed version before paying than read a proposal about it. If your business is a phone number, a list of services and a service area, the demo puts the nine in place and lets you judge them on your own phone.
Titan does not fit the contractor who needs an online shop, a booking calendar, a blog written for them, or a large custom portfolio site with a designer in the room. Those are real needs and worth paying a person for. Titan builds the trade site, not the custom project.
No. A blog helps only if you will write it and keep writing it, and most contractors will not, which is fine - the phone is the product. A blog with two old posts looks abandoned and can cost you the call. Put the effort into the nine things instead: the number, the towns, the services on their own lines, the photos, the form.
Where you have a real number, yes - a minimum charge, an hourly rate, a starting-at price for a common job. The homeowner who sees a number calls once instead of shopping three more sites, and the ones the number scares off were never going to hire you. Where a job cannot be priced without a visit, say that plainly and ask for the details you need in the form.
Fewer than you think. One strong home page with the nine things, a page or section per major service so the search lands on the right words, and a way to reach you. A twenty-page site with thin pages ranks worse and reads worse than five pages that each say something. Add pages when you have something specific to say on them, not to look bigger.
Type your business name and see your own site, free, before you decide anything.
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