SEO for tradesmen: Above the directories,
not inside one of them.
Search your own trade and your own town. The first screen is usually three map results and then Checkatrade, MyBuilder and Rated People, all selling your lead back to you.
Map pack·Towns·Reviews·Directories
The job
The map results are the prize and they are winnable, because they are decided by things you control: a complete profile, details that agree, reviews that keep coming and pages about the places you actually work.
SEO for tradesmen is about as winnable as search work gets, and the reason is plain: most trades never do it.
Local SEO for trades: The whole list, nothing extra.
Every one of these is in the price. If a job needs something that is not here, it is in the written scope before you say yes, not on the invoice after.
The map results
Profile claimed, categories right, service areas set, photographs added. This is where trade work is won and it is mostly unglamorous setup.
A page per town you work in
Real pages about real places, not the same page with the name swapped. That is a doorway page and it stops working.
A page per job worth having
Carpenters, joiners, decorators, gardeners, plasterers: each job is searched differently, and the ones you want more of deserve their own page.
Reviews, arriving steadily
A way of asking at the end of a job that gets answered. Volume and recency both count in local search.
Details that agree everywhere
Your number and address consistent across Google, the directories and your own site. Disagreements hold you down and nobody notices them.
What the directories are winning
Which searches they own, which they do not, and where you can realistically get above them rather than pay to be listed.
What gets crawled
Your site crawled the way a search engine sees it, not the way it looks in a browser: what Google can reach, what it is ignoring, and why.
What gets measured
Core Web Vitals measured on your own pages, with your real content, rather than on a sample page built to score well.
What you get, in order
The findings written down in the order worth doing, so the first thing on the list is the thing that changes most.
The call
A walk through the findings, so you know what each one means before deciding whether any of it is worth paying for.
What gets fixed first
Whatever is stopping pages being found at all comes before anything that improves a page already working. A closed sign beats a slow page.
What happens next
The list is yours either way. Plenty of people take it away and do the work themselves, and it is not a lock-in.
The quick check
Quick check, £400. One day, the whole site crawled, and a written answer to what is reachable, what is ignored and why.
The full audit
Full technical audit, £1,200. For thousands of pages, a shop, or a migration behind you, where a day is not enough to be sure.
Keyword research
The keyword list from £150: the phrases, what they are searched, how hard they are and what the searcher actually wants.
Monthly, and the hours
From £150 a month, with the hours written on the plan, so what you are buying is a number of hours rather than a promise.
What is quoted separately
A migration, a rebuild, or writing the pages themselves. Those are their own jobs with their own prices, not absorbed into a retainer.
No ranking promises
Nobody can promise a position, and anybody who does is selling you the one thing they cannot deliver.
The first month
Setting up and finding out: access to Search Console and analytics, the site crawled and measured, and an ordered list of what is holding it back. The quickest fixes get made that month.
Months two and three
The list, worked through in order, with the hours on the plan. What changed is in the note at the end of each month. Search Console rarely shows much before week six.
What Search Console shows
Impressions before clicks, and clicks before anything that looks like a position. It is the only free record of what Google actually did with your pages.
What takes longest
A new site has no history, so it starts from nothing however good it is. That is the part nobody can shorten by paying more.
What I report
What was looked at, what was changed and how many hours went on it, next to the invoice. The same note the care plans get.
When to stop paying
When the fixes are done and nothing on the list needs an expert, a monthly plan stops being worth it, and I will say so rather than keep invoicing.
How SEO services for tradesmen run: From hello to handover.
Step 1
12 hours max
I reply
Working hours, unless I am on holiday and have said so.
Step 2
Day 0
Scope call
30 minutes. The trade, the towns, and the jobs you want more of.
Step 3
+2 days
Written scope
The profile work, the pages and the order. Priced before anything starts.
Step 4
First
The profile
Claimed, filled and categorised, because the map results read that before anything on your site.
Step 5
Then
The pages
Towns and jobs, written to be about somewhere and something.
This is for you
SEO for carpenters and joiners: SEO for tradesmen is for you
if any of these sound familiar.
- Paying directories for your own leads
- Not in the map results in your own town
- Work only from word of mouth
- A trade with jobs worth more than others
It is not, if
- You want reviews written for you
- You want to rank nationally
- You cannot take more work
Not sure which side you are on? Say so on the call. If I am not the right person, you get the name of someone who is.
What SEO for tradesmen costs
Every price on the page,
before you call.
You should not have to sit through a call to find out whether you can afford me.
Painters, gardeners and plasterers: Questions I get every time.
The honest answers. If yours is not here, it is the first thing we cover.
Ask me yours01 Can I get above Checkatrade?
In the map results, usually yes, because those are decided by your profile and reviews rather than by budget. In the ordinary results below them the directories are strong, which is exactly why the map pack is the target.
02 Do I need a page for every town?
Only the ones you genuinely work in, and each has to be a real page about that place. The same page with the town swapped is a doorway page and Google is specifically good at spotting it.
03 SEO for carpenters and joiners?
Same work, and worth saying because carpentry and joinery are searched as different things by different people. Whichever you want more of gets the page.
04 SEO for painters, decorators, gardeners or plasterers?
All the same shape. The profile, the towns and a page for the jobs you want more of. What changes is which jobs are worth a page and how far people will travel for them.
05 Do I need a website for this?
For the map results, less than you would think: the profile does a lot on its own. For everything below them, yes, and that is website design for tradesmen.
Usually goes with: SEO for tradesmen
and websites for tradesmen.
The site itself: tap to call, the towns named, and a quote form short enough to finish.
See websites for tradesmenOr one of the other three
Paying for your
own leads?
Tell me the trade and the towns. Thirty minutes, no pitch, and you leave knowing whether SEO for tradesmen can get you above the directories where you are.
- Within 12 hoursA reply
- Within 2 working daysA written scope and a price
- OrThe name of someone who fits better