Cleaning is the only trade here that sells a subscription. Everyone else quotes a job, does it, and starts again from nothing. You win an arrangement that pays every month for years, which changes what your website has to argue and what a single enquiry is worth.
01The contract One customer, thirty-six payments.
A roofer needs a constant supply of new customers because every job ends. You need considerably fewer, because the ones you win stay.
A modest office at four hundred pounds a month is close to fifteen thousand pounds over three years. That single number should govern how patient you are willing to be about marketing, and most cleaning companies are far too impatient.
It also changes what to measure. Counting enquiries per month tells you very little. Counting contracts won per year, and how long they last, tells you everything.
02The split Domestic and commercial share nothing but a mop.
A homeowner is deciding whether to hand a key to somebody they have never met and let them be alone in the house. Price is almost the last thing on their mind, whatever they say.
A facilities manager is managing a risk and a budget. They want insurance figures, cover arrangements when somebody is off, a named contact, and confidence that changing supplier will not blow up in their face.
Those two people are reassured by completely different things. Writing one page that tries to settle both is how most cleaning websites end up settling neither.
03The levers What actually moves the needle for a cleaning company.
- Write for the contract, not the clean An office manager is not buying an afternoon of cleaning. They are buying not having to think about it again, and not being embarrassed when someone visits. Pages built around the ongoing arrangement convert far better than pages listing what you wipe.
- Separate domestic from commercial completely One is a person deciding whether to give a stranger a key to their house. The other is a business with a budget, a procurement process and an insurance requirement. Nothing about those two pitches overlaps, and a single page trying to do both loses both.
- Put the vetting where it can be seen DBS checks on domestic staff, your public liability figure, whether staff are employed or subcontracted, and how you handle keys. For a service that happens in an empty building, this is the whole decision, and almost nobody puts it above the fold.
- Sector pages for commercial work Offices, schools, medical practices, gyms, restaurants, industrial units. A facilities manager searches for somebody who has cleaned their kind of building, because the requirements genuinely differ. Generic commercial cleaning pages compete with everyone and match nobody.
The map pack does real work on the domestic side and very little on the commercial side. Office contracts are not chosen off a map pin, they are chosen after somebody has read three websites and asked a colleague.
04The handover The thing nobody writes about, and should.
When a commercial cleaning contract moves from one supplier to another, the existing cleaners usually transfer with it under TUPE. The people stay, the employer changes.
Every facilities manager who has done it once knows this is where it gets awkward, and it is a genuine reason they put off switching. It is also, as far as I can tell, almost never addressed on a cleaning company website.
A short honest page setting out how you handle a transfer, what you need from the outgoing supplier and what the first month looks like, does two things. It removes the objection, and it makes you look like the grown-up in a field of quotes.
05The price What it costs, and what you get.
£297 a month. 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. After three months the code can be bought outright for £1,000.
Given one office contract is worth thousands a year, the arithmetic here is less delicate than for most trades on this site. One won contract covers several years of the fee.
06The awkward ones Common questions from cleaning companies.
01 One contract is worth years. Does that change the maths?
It changes it completely, and it is the strongest argument in your favour. A small office at £400 a month is nearly £15,000 over three years. Judge this on contracts won over a year, not enquiries in a month, because a single one covers the cost many times over and then keeps paying.
02 What about TUPE? Does that belong on a website?
Yes, and hardly anyone does it. When a commercial contract changes hands the incumbent's cleaners usually transfer to you under TUPE, and buyers know this is the messy part. A plain page explaining how you handle it removes the biggest reason a facilities manager puts off changing supplier.
03 Should we chase domestic or commercial?
Whichever you are already better at, and then say so clearly. Domestic is easier to start and harder to keep, because it churns when people move or economise. Commercial takes longer to win and holds for years. Most companies that struggle are doing both without admitting to themselves that they are two businesses.
04 We are competing with people charging half our rate.
You always will be, and the website is where you stop competing on the hourly figure. Employed and vetted staff, cover when somebody is off sick, one point of contact, real insurance. Those are the things the cheap quote does not include, and the buyer only knows that if you write it down.
05 Do reviews matter for commercial cleaning?
More than the sector believes. A facilities manager who is about to recommend you internally will look you up first, and an empty Google profile makes that recommendation harder to make. It is rarely what wins the contract. It is often what stops you reaching the shortlist.
06 How much does one of our enquiries actually get valued at?
Bidding on "cleaning company leads" runs to around £49 a click at high competition. That is a lead reseller's view of what one enquiry to your business is worth, and it is a fair argument for owning the channel rather than renting it a click at a time.
Other trades are listed here, and if your work is mostly builders' cleans and commercial sites, that page may be closer to what you need.
Tell me whether you want more domestic or more commercial and I'll tell you which of the two your website is currently arguing for. In most cases it is trying to do both and landing neither. Book a call. Tell me what's going on.