Websites for trades Updated October 2026
Websites for tradies
A tradie website earns its keep on four things: how fast it loads on a phone, how plainly it says what you do and where you do it, how easy it is to call you, and whether it is wired into local search at all. Get those right and the design has something to sit on. Get them wrong and no amount of design saves it. tyso designs and builds them for tradies in Canberra, Queanbeyan and anywhere in Australia.
A tradie website is the page a customer opens after they have already found you, and its one job is to turn somebody who is looking into somebody who calls.
Why do most tradie websites bring in no work?
Most tradie websites bring in no work because they were built to look finished rather than to be found and acted on. They are not ugly. They fail at four things a person standing under a wet ceiling actually needs, and they fail the search engine for the same four reasons.
Built for a desktop
Nearly every trade search happens on a phone. If the number is not thumb-reachable and the page does not paint quickly on a bad connection, the visit ends before a word of the copy matters.
Vague about the work
Quality workmanship, fully insured, free quotes. Every competitor says the same words, so none of them do any work. What you actually do, for whom, and where, is what gets ranked.
No easy way to say yes
One contact form at the bottom of the page, no number in the header, no way to text. Most people who want a tradie want to call now, not fill in a form and wait.
Invisible to search
No page per service, no page per area, no schema, no profile connected to it. A site nobody can find is a brochure that charges you hosting.
What does a tradie website need to bring in work?
It needs four things: a design that reads like your business, a page for each service and each area, speed on a phone, and outright ownership of the lot. Every build is custom coded rather than a theme with your logo dropped on top, because three of those four are decided under the surface.
Design that reads like your business
Big honest type, real photos of your own work, and room to breathe. The look is doing a job: it is the two seconds where someone decides whether you seem like the person who turns up.
A page per service, a page per area
The pages that rank are the specific ones, so the site gets built with them from the beginning rather than bolted on a year later. Each one is written for a person first, a search engine second.
Speed treated as a feature
Hand-built and light. Load time is one of the few things Google grades directly, it grades it on mobile, and it is also the difference between a call and a back button.
Yours, outright
You own the site, the domain and the Google profile. No rented platform, no lock-in, and nothing that quietly disappears the month you stop paying somebody.
What has tyso actually built?
One live build, named and openable, plus the painting business whose search presence tyso runs. tyso is a one-person Canberra studio launched in 2026, so the list is short on purpose and every line on it can be checked.
Sophisticated Manes, a tyso build
Sophisticated Manes is a Melbourne cat grooming business and a tyso build, live in production. Its Google reviews went from 3 to 10 in August 2026, its first month live.
ANT Painting, quoted in AI answers
ANT Painting is a Canberra painting business whose search presence tyso runs. It was cited on 9 of 22 painting questions we measured on 29 August 2026, across Google's AI Overviews and ChatGPT search.
An audit that goes and looks
The free audit reads your live page and asks an AI assistant who it recommends in your suburb. When a check cannot run it says so instead of guessing.
The working, written up
How much does a tradie website cost?
A tradie website at tyso costs a fixed, published price rather than a number that moves with what you look like you can afford, and the whole list sits on the tradie website cost guide beside what the rest of the Australian market charges.
What moves the figure is page count, whether copy and photos already exist, and whether the local search groundwork is inside the job or bought later. The guide puts published market ranges next to ours, so a quote you have been given somewhere else has something honest to be measured against.
How does a build begin?
A build begins with the free audit on the site you already have, even when the plan is to replace it. It scores what is there and lists the findings worst first, so the rebuild case gets made with evidence rather than with opinion.
- Run the audit on the site you have now.
- Read what is broken, and what it would take to fix.
- Check the published prices on the cost guide. Nothing is quoted on request.
- Hand over photos and content. Found and Chosen is live in 14 days from that day, or your money back.
Questions about the build
What should a tradie website include?
A page for each service you sell, a page for each area you cover, your number visible on every screen, real photos of your own work, and reviews. Underneath that: schema markup, fast mobile loading, and a Google Business Profile connected to it.
Should a tradie build their own website?
You can, and for a sole trader with no budget a properly filled Google Business Profile plus a free site builder beats waiting six months to afford better. What you give up is speed, the page-per-service structure, and the schema underneath, which is the part that decides whether Google can file you at all.
How long does a tradie website take to build?
The build is rarely the slow part. Content is. Once photos and details are in hand, a three to five page trade site is days of work, not months. Found and Chosen puts a clock on it: live in 14 days from content day, or your money back.
Do I own the website?
Yes. You own the website, the domain and the Google Business Profile, which is created under your own Google account. No rented platform and no lock-in, so cancelling anything later does not cost you the site.
What makes a tradie website design actually work?
Restraint, mostly. Big readable type, real photos instead of stock tradies, one obvious action per screen, and speed treated as part of the design. Tradie website design is not decoration: it is the two seconds where someone decides whether you look like the person who turns up.
See how your site actually scores.
The audit reads the site you have now and shows the score before it asks for an email. If it is fine, keep it. If it is not, you will know exactly why.
Rather talk it through? Book a call.