By Surinder Ahitan · Independent SEO Consultant · United Kingdom A construction website is not really a marketing document. It is the thing somebody opens when they are deciding whether to put you on a tender list, and it either survives that look or it does not. Most of the ones I see do not, and it costs work nobody ever finds out they lost.
01The sector Why construction works differently from the trades.
This site is mostly about trade businesses, roofers, plumbers, electricians, where a homeowner rings and a job starts next week. Construction is a different animal in three ways.
The purchase is a process, not a decision. Somebody looks you up, checks you out, adds you to a list, and months later invites you to price something. You are rarely present for any of it. The site is doing the work while you are on site.
The reader is paid to be sceptical. A quantity surveyor or a procurement officer is professionally required to check whether you can carry the job. They are not persuaded by adjectives; they are looking for values, durations, sectors and numbers.
One job can be a year of turnover. Which changes the maths completely. You are not looking for volume. You are looking to be on the list for two or three things a year that you would not otherwise have been asked about.
02The reader Who is actually on your website.
Almost never the person you imagine. In my experience it is four groups, and only one of them is a potential client directly.
An architect or QS checking who to recommend. A main contractor building a supply chain. Somebody in procurement completing a pre-qualification exercise. And people you want to hire, who look at your site before they reply to a job advert, which matters more than most firms expect in a trade this short of people.
All four are doing the same thing: looking for evidence you have done this size and type of work before. Write for that and the site does its job.
03The levers What actually moves the needle.
- A page per sector, not per service Education, healthcare, industrial, retail fit-out, residential development. A buyer searches for somebody who has done their kind of building before, not for a general contractor. Sector pages are how you show up for that.
- Projects written up as projects Value, duration, sector, main contractor, what the constraints were. Six of those beat sixty photographs, because the person reading is checking whether you have handled something of this size before.
- Accreditations where they can be seen Constructionline, CHAS, SafeContractor, SMAS, your CSCS position and your insurance limits. On a domestic site these are footer material. Here they are close to a qualification requirement, so they go near the top.
- The site has to survive a PQQ Somebody will check you before you are invited to tender. Company number, registered office, real named people, accounts that make sense, accreditation numbers that can be verified. A thin site loses work before anyone reads a price.
The map pack barely matters here, which is the opposite of every other page on this site. Nobody picks a groundworks contractor off a map. They search by sector and by capability, and then they check you.
04The proof Accreditations, and why they go near the top.
On a domestic site a badge is reassurance. In construction it is closer to an entry requirement, and burying it in the footer is a genuine commercial mistake.
Constructionline and CHAS do the most work, with SafeContractor and SMAS close behind depending on who you work for. Put the registration numbers on, not just the logos, the numbers are checkable and the logos are not, and the sort of person reading knows the difference.
Insurance limits belong there too, stated as figures. Employers' liability, public liability, professional indemnity if you carry design responsibility. A procurement team is going to ask; answering before they ask saves an email and reads as competence.
05The price What it costs.
£297 a month, the same as everything else on this site. The website, on-page SEO, missed-call text-back, a review funnel, follow-up on every enquiry, one inbox and a business number. The full breakdown is on the pricing page.
No build fee and no minimum term. For a construction firm that matters less than it does for a one-van trade, but it is worth knowing there is nothing to negotiate and no contract to have your solicitor look at.
06The awkward ones Common questions from construction firms.
01 Is this the same package as the trade pages, or something bigger?
Same package, £297 a month. What changes is what goes on the pages, sectors instead of services, project write-ups instead of job photos, and accreditations near the top. If you need something genuinely bespoke, say so on the call and I will tell you honestly whether this fits.
02 Most of our work comes through frameworks and repeat clients. Does a website matter?
It matters differently. It is unlikely to win you a framework place on its own, but it is checked by nearly everyone who is about to invite you to something, main contractors, architects, QSs, and the client themselves. A weak site does not lose you the ones who know you. It quietly loses the ones who were considering you.
03 We are a subcontractor, not a main contractor. Is this aimed at us?
Yes, and arguably more so. Subcontractors are searched for by trade and sector by people building a supply chain, and most subcontractor websites are one page from 2018. It is a much emptier space to rank in than main contracting.
04 What about construction leads, are those worth buying?
Bids on construction leads run to around £35 a click, which tells you what the lead resellers think a construction enquiry is worth. That is also the argument against renting them: you are paying that every time, and you own nothing at the end. Your own rankings cost more to start and nothing per enquiry after.
05 Do you do tender writing or bid support?
No, and I would not pretend otherwise. I build the website and the follow-up that sits behind it. Bid writing is a separate skill and there are people who do only that, if that is what you actually need, I will say so rather than sell you a website.
06 How is this different from the builders page on this site?
That one is domestic, extensions, loft conversions, a homeowner deciding whether to trust you with a deposit. This one is commercial: tenders, accreditations and a procurement process. Different buyer, different searches, different site. If you do both, we build both properly rather than blurring them.
If your work is domestic extensions rather than commercial, start here instead.
I'll look at your site the way a quantity surveyor would before putting you on a tender list, and tell you which sectors you could realistically rank for and which are already carved up. That's twenty minutes, and it costs you nothing. Book a call. Tell me what's going on.