Industries
Marketing for tradespeople
Websites, Google Ads, SEO and Meta campaigns for plumbers, electricians, heating engineers, builders, roofers and other trades who want a steadier diary of local work. It's all built around how homeowners pick a trade: a quick search, a look at reviews and photos, then a call. Arête's aim: make you the name they ring.
The situation
How the work is won.
Word of mouth keeps plenty of trades busy for years. Then it goes quiet, you add a van, or a regular customer moves away, and the gaps between jobs start to show. Two kinds of buyer are searching. The homeowner with a leaking pipe or a tripping fuse box rings the first credible name on their phone. The one planning a rewire or an extension weighs up two or three firms over a week or more. Your marketing has to win both, without filling the diary with jobs outside your patch or below your minimum.
What sends them looking
- Referrals have slowed and there are gaps in the diary two or three weeks out.
- You've taken on a new van, apprentice or engineer, and they need a full week of work.
- You want to rely less on pay-per-lead platforms, where the same enquiry can go to several competing firms.
- You want fewer small call-outs and more of the bigger planned jobs: boiler replacements, rewires, extensions.
- A competitor keeps turning up above you on the map for your own trade, in your own town.
The problem
Why it's harder than it looks.
Where the work slips away
- Urgent work is won in minutes by whoever picks up. Miss the call while you're up a ladder and the customer is probably ringing the next name.
- Rewires, boiler replacements and extensions get compared on reviews, photos and how well you explain the quoting process.
- Your patch is defined by drive time, but most websites and ad accounts treat a whole county as one flat area.
- Your reviews are scattered across Google, Facebook and trade directories, so new customers rarely see the whole picture in one place.
- Enquiries for work you don't do, or jobs below your minimum, eat into the evenings you spend returning calls and pricing up.
What makes customers hesitate
- Nobody wants a cowboy in the house. Homeowners look for a named owner, a base town and proof of insurance before they ring.
- Customers dread a vague price that grows once the job starts, so they want to know how your quotes and site visits work.
- Someone with water on the kitchen floor wants to know if you can come today. A generic contact form doesn't tell them.
- For gas and electrical work, customers want proof of registration before they let anyone through the door.
The approach
Where Arête would start with tradespeople.
Every service works on its own. Which one comes first depends on how your customers search and decide.
- Website design
A website built to make the phone ring
Fast mobile pages, click-to-call and a short quote form that takes photos. Urgent call-outs and planned jobs get separate routes, so every visitor lands on the next step that fits their problem.
Websites for tradespeople - Google Ads
Google Ads for the jobs you want
Urgent and planned work run as separate campaigns. Targeting follows realistic drive time from your base, and ads run in the hours someone can answer the phone.
Google Ads for tradespeople - SEO
Local SEO and the map listing
A properly set up Google Business Profile, a page for each core service, pages for the towns you cover and a steady review routine. When someone nearby searches for your trade, there's plenty to find.
SEO for tradespeople - Meta Ads
Meta Ads for planned, visible work
Facebook and Instagram campaigns built from finished-job photos and short phone videos. They're for planned work like extensions and heating upgrades. Emergency call-outs belong on Google.
Meta Ads for tradespeople
Proof and measurement
What customers check, and what counts.
What customers look for before they call
- Your Gas Safe registration number, NICEIC or NAPIT membership, or other scheme details that match the work you advertise.
- Recent Google reviews that name the job and the town, which say far more than a star rating on its own.
- Photos from your own jobs with the work and the area named. Stock shots of tools and vans prove nothing.
- Your public liability insurance and the guarantee you give on workmanship, stated plainly.
- A name and a face behind the business: the owner on site, or the van outside a job.
What counts as an enquiry
- A call from a mobile search, traced back to the ad, map listing or page that sent it.
- A quote request with the job type, the postcode and a photo of the problem.
- A WhatsApp or text with photos, asking for a quick first price.
- A booked site visit for a rewire, boiler replacement, extension or other planned job.
What gets tracked
- Calls answered and missed, by source, so any gaps in phone cover show up.
- Enquiries by job type and postcode, checked against the work and areas you want.
- The price of each qualified enquiry, a far better guide than cost per click.
- How many quotes become booked jobs, logged in a way that's quick enough to keep up with in a busy week.
Worth knowing
The rules and the practicalities.
Constraints for tradespeople
- Gas work must be carried out by a Gas Safe registered engineer, so your ads and pages should only offer the gas work you're registered to do.
- In England and Wales some domestic electrical work is notifiable under Building Regulations. That's why NICEIC, NAPIT or similar scheme membership is worth showing wherever it applies.
- Claims like 'fully insured', 'guaranteed' or 'same-day' need to be true and provable, because UK advertising rules expect claims to be backed by evidence.
- You can only be in one place at a time, so campaigns need to be easy to narrow or pause when the diary's full.
Questions
Marketing for tradespeople: your questions answered
Does a trade business that runs on word of mouth still need marketing?
Most referrals look you up before they ring, so a thin or missing presence can cost you work that was already yours. Marketing also fills the quiet weeks word of mouth leaves behind. To start with, plenty of trades only need a credible website and a well-kept map listing.
Which channels suit emergency work and which suit planned jobs?
Emergency work is mostly won on Google search and the map, because people search the moment something breaks and call straight away. Planned jobs take longer to decide, so your website, photos, reviews, SEO and social ads all play a part. Keep the two apart in your ads and on your pages. Each buyer needs something different.
Should a trade business stay on lead platforms or move away from them?
Lead platforms can tide you over while other channels are built. The catch: enquiries can be shared with competing firms, and your reviews live on someone else's site. A website, map listing and ads you control bring enquiries to you alone. Run both for a while, compare the cost per booked job, then decide.
Start a conversation
Tell Arête about the business and what currently feels missing.
You will receive a direct reply with the most sensible next step, even if that means recommending that nothing needs changing yet.
A direct reply
A personal reply, usually within one working day. No sales script, no chasing.
A short conversation
A look at the business, your current website and what a good result would look like for you.
A clear recommendation
The leanest sensible next step, with fixed scope and a fixed price. Sometimes that's nothing yet, and you'll be told so.
Prefer email? Write to info@aretemarketing.co.uk.