Tradie website checklist for NZ trades

1. Quote form on every page

Phone calls are great, but plenty of leads will try to message after hours. A simple form (name, job type, suburb, photo upload optional) beats a mailto link. Test it on mobile before you go live.

2. Service areas spelled out

List suburbs and regions you cover — “Hamilton, Cambridge, Morrinsville” not just “Waikato”. Google and customers both use this to decide if you're relevant.

3. Fast load on 4G

Tradies and customers browse on site with weak signal. Heavy page builders and giant hero photos kill load time. Static, lightweight pages load faster, which helps both search and enquiries.

4. Logo that matches your van

Same colours on uniform, vehicle, and website. If your site looks like a different business from your van, trust drops.

5. Google Business Profile aligned

NAP (name, address, phone) should match your site footer. Link to reviews. Ask happy customers — don't fake them. The Google Business Profile guide walks through setup step by step.

6. Licences and trust — only if real

Electrical registration, Master Plumbers, LBP — show real credentials. No placeholder badges.

7. The first screen, written out

On a phone, the first screen is roughly the logo, one sentence, and two actions. The sentence should name the trade and the area: “Electrician in Hamilton and Cambridge” beats “Quality service you can trust”. The two actions are call or message, and a quote form. If you don't have a public phone yet, the form is the action. Don't hide it under a video.

Put the suburbs in that first screen or immediately under it. A customer in Morrinsville should not have to open an About page to learn you don't travel that far. The same line helps Google understand the page. It is not a keyword list. It is the jobs you will actually take.

8. Photos from real jobs

A switchboard, a finished bathroom, a roof before and after — phone photos are fine if they're in focus and cropped. Skip the stock handshake and the American pickup truck. Name the suburb in the caption when you can: “Heat pump, Rototuna, 2026” is more useful than “Our work”.

If you don't have photos yet, launch without a fake gallery. A short “recent jobs coming” line is better than pictures of someone else's house. Add real photos when you have them. On a Growth site that's a page you can extend; on Starter it's a section on the one page.

9. What the quote form should ask

Keep it short enough to finish on a driveway. Name, phone, suburb, job type, and a note cover most trades. Job type can be a short list you actually do: switchboard upgrade, leak, hot water, repaint, new build. Don't ask for a budget range if it makes people abandon the form. Photo upload is useful for leaks and faults, and optional.

Send the enquiry to an inbox you check, not a Gmail you opened in 2019. Test it yourself from a phone on 4G before you tell anyone the site is live. We do that test on every Starter and Growth handover. If the form needs a captcha that fails on mobile, it isn't done.

10. Google profile, reviews, and the footer

Your Google Business Profile and the site footer should use the same business name. If you publish a street address, it should be the one customers can visit or the service-area setting Google expects — don't invent a shopfront. The phone on the profile should be the phone you answer. We don't put a placeholder number on a site.

Ask for reviews after a job, from people who hired you. Don't buy them and don't write them yourself. A new business can launch with zero reviews. Say so if you want, then collect them. Linking to the profile is enough. Quoting a star rating you don't have is the sort of thing that gets a page ignored.

11. Speed, ownership, and the quote you should ask for

Heavy builders and full-width hero videos struggle on a rural 4G mast. A static page with a compressed photo usually loads. You can feel the difference in the van. Ask whoever builds the site what happens to the files if you stop paying them. If the answer is “the site stays on our platform”, you are renting.

Our Starter package is $499 and takes 5–7 business days: logo mark, one page, quote form, map, and the files. Growth is $1,199 and 10–14 business days when you need up to five pages. Custom is quoted. Half to start. If a proposal can't answer four questions — fixed or hourly, who owns the files, what happens if you leave, is the logo included — keep looking. The tradie websites page is the package itself, if you want this checklist built rather than DIY.

12. Walk the list before you pay anyone

Print this or keep it on your phone and answer it in one sitting. Trade and suburbs you will actually travel: write them as names, not a region. Phone or form: which one will you check tomorrow morning? Photos: do you have three in-focus shots you're allowed to publish? Licence: if you claim one, do you know the number? Google profile: does the business name match the name you want on the site? If any line is a guess, fix the guess before you brief a designer. A site cannot make an unclear service area precise.

Then decide the size. One page is enough when every job is the same shape — call-out repairs across a city. Extra pages earn their place when the work splits: domestic versus commercial, or a gallery you want separate from the pitch. That choice is Starter versus Growth in our pricing, $499 or $1,199. It is also the choice a freelancer should be able to explain without a workshop. If they can't say what the second page is for, you don't need it yet.

Check the form on a friend's phone, not only yours. Ask them to request a quote for a job in a suburb you do cover and one you don't. You want the first to feel easy and the second to make the boundary obvious. If they can't find the suburb list without hunting, the page is still a brochure. Time this on 4G if you can. A page that spins on a job site will be closed.

Only after that, compare money. A cheap monthly builder can look fine until you add the form plugin, a domain, and the hours you'll spend fighting the theme. A fixed package is only cheaper if the list above is included and the files come to you. Use the cost guide for the wider NZ ranges and the package guide for what Starter and Growth contain line by line. If you want the page built to this checklist, get a quote and name your trade and suburbs. We'll say which tier fits, or that you need a custom scope, within one business day.

Two mistakes show up on a lot of thin tradie sites. The first is a homepage that talks about passion and quality and never names a suburb. The second is a contact page with an embedded map of the wrong town because the pin was never checked. Open the map, drop the pin on the place you actually work from or the area you cover, and read the address back. If you are a service-area business without a shop, don't invent a street address to satisfy a form. Say the suburbs and use the profile settings that match.

When the list is done, the site is allowed to be plain. A clear page with a real form beats a dark theme full of stock tools. Customers hiring a plumber are not scoring your animation. They are scoring whether you look like you will turn up. That is the whole checklist.

What building to this list costs

A one-trade site that ticks every item above — a quote form on every screen, named suburbs, a fast mobile page, a matching logo, and real job photos — fits our Starter package at $499 NZD in 5–7 business days. Add separate pages per service, a gallery of finished jobs, and Google Business Profile setup, and it is Growth at $1,199 in 10–14 business days. Online booking with payment, a customer portal, or a parts shop is a custom quote. You supply the photos and the facts; we won't write licence numbers, years in trade, or review counts that you can't back up. The tradie website page shows how the package is laid out for trades.