Do it yourself
$98/mo
Build it yourself in an evening. Website included, no setup fee.
Grab the DIY planWebsites for trades
Contractor Website Design
A contractor website has one job, which is turning someone who found you into someone who calls you. Most of them fail at it because they were designed to look good rather than to book work.
This page covers what belongs on a contractor site, why your own photos matter more than the layout, whether to build it yourself or have it built, the local SEO that decides whether anyone sees it, and what it costs. There are trade guides for HVAC and plumbing further down.
What a Contractor Website Actually Needs
A homeowner who lands on your site has one question, and it is whether you can do their job and be trusted in their house. Everything on the page either answers that or gets in the way.
Six things do almost all the work:
- A phone number that dials on a tap, visible without scrolling, on every page
- A short quote form asking for the job, the address and a photo, and nothing else
- The towns you cover, written out, because people search with a place name attached
- Reviews on the page rather than a link to somewhere else
- Before and after photos of your own work, not stock images of someone else's
- A privacy policy and terms page, which you need for text messaging registration
Photos of Your Work Beat Everything Else on the Page
Contractors consistently underrate their own photos. A homeowner deciding between three companies will spend more time looking at a gallery of finished jobs than reading anything you wrote.
Take the photo from the same spot before and after. Get the whole room or the whole elevation in frame. Twelve honest pictures from jobs in towns your visitors recognise will outperform a professional shoot of one showpiece project.
The same photos then feed your Google Business Profile and your social posts, which is how most local searches find you in the first place.
Done-For-You or Build It Yourself
Building it yourself
If you have a free weekend and some patience, a site builder gets you online cheaply. The trap is what comes after. A page on its own does nothing when a lead fills the form at ten at night, so you add a form tool, then a texting tool, then a booking tool, and now you are running four subscriptions that do not talk to each other.
On the Phanz DIY plan at $98 a month, the site, the forms, the calendar, the CRM and the follow-up are one account, so the thing you build is connected from the first day.
Having it built
An agency build is usually $3,000 to $8,000 and four to eight weeks, and when it is done you own a website and nothing else. Changes go back through them.
Done-For-You is $547 a month with no build fee. We write the pages, set up the forms, connect the phone number and the automations, and hand it over live in about 3 business days. If you later drop to the DIY plan, the site stays up and you run it yourself.
Local SEO Basics for Contractors
Most contractor work comes from searches with a town in them, and the results are dominated by the map pack rather than by websites. So the order of operations is your Google Business Profile first, your website second.
Fill in every field on the profile, choose the right primary category, set your service area honestly, and add photos every month. Then make sure your business name, address and phone number are written identically everywhere they appear online, including your website footer.
On the site itself, give each service its own page and each town you cover its own page, with real detail rather than the same paragraph with the place name swapped. Reviews arriving steadily do more for local ranking than anything you can write, which is why review requests are automated on every Phanz plan.
Websites by Trade
The structure is the same everywhere, but the buttons and the pages change with the trade. These guides cover what to change and why.
- HVAC website design: emergency call buttons, financing, maintenance plans and seasonal landing pages
- Plumber website design: 24/7 emergency calls, click to call on mobile and service pages for drains and water heaters
- Roofing and construction sites are covered on the roofing and construction pages
What It Costs
The DIY plan is $98/mo and the website is included. So are the landing pages, the CRM, the calendar, missed call text back, email and SMS follow-up, review requests and payments. No setup fee and no contract.
Done-For-You is $547/mo, or $4,997 a year at about $416/mo. We build the site and the automations and hand it over running. There is no separate build fee, which is the main difference from an agency quote.
Compare that with a $5,000 build plus hosting plus a booking tool plus a texting tool. See the pricing page for the full breakdown.
Contractor Websites: Common Questions
How much does a contractor website cost?
Agencies usually quote $3,000 to $8,000 for a build and then charge separately for hosting and changes. Template builders are cheap to start and cost you the hours. With Phanz the site is part of the plan: $98 a month on DIY if you build it yourself, or $547 a month done for you with no separate build fee.
Can I just use Wix or Squarespace?
You can, and plenty of contractors do. Those tools make a page that looks fine. What they do not do is answer the phone, text a lead back, chase an unsigned quote or ask for a review, so you end up adding three more subscriptions to make the site actually produce work.
How long does a contractor website take to build?
With Phanz it is live in about 3 business days once we have your photos, service list and service area. An agency build usually runs four to eight weeks, mostly waiting on revisions and content.
What should be on a contractor website homepage?
Your trade and the towns you cover in the first line, a phone number that dials on a tap, a short quote form, proof in the form of reviews and finished work photos, and your service area. Anything else is decoration.
Are contractor website templates any good?
A template is a reasonable starting point and a terrible finishing point. The layout is rarely the problem. What decides whether a contractor site produces calls is the photos, the service area pages and whether anything happens when a form is submitted at nine at night.
Do I need a privacy policy and terms page?
Yes, and there is a practical reason beyond legal cover. If you want to send text messages from your business number in the US you have to register with the carriers under A2P 10DLC, and that registration checks that your website has a privacy policy covering messaging and an opt-in explanation. Sites without those pages get rejected.
Will the site rank on Google?
A new site does not rank on its own. What moves the needle for contractors is a complete Google Business Profile, a page for each service and each town you cover, real reviews arriving steadily, and consistent contact details everywhere. The website is the foundation for all of that.
Get started
Get a Contractor Site That Answers For You
A site with click to call, a quote form, your photos and your service area, connected to a CRM that texts people back when you miss the call. Grab the DIY plan and build it this week, or have us do it.
Prefer it handled?
$547/mo
We write it, build it and hand it over live in about 3 business days.
Compare both plans