Professional Websites for Builders in Australia
Websites for builders that show your finished work, your licence and your reviews, and bring in enquiries from Google on top of referrals. Built for residential and commercial builders in Australia.
Get My Free Website CheckSend me your website address. I'll tell you the three things costing you enquiries.
Not a sales meeting and not an automated score out of 100. I go through your site the way a customer does when they're deciding who to trust with a job worth six figures — sitting at a laptop with your website open next to two other builders, looking for a reason to rule one of you out — and I write back with the three things doing the most damage.
- ✓Three specific problems on your actual website, not general advice
- ✓Written for building customers, not businesses in general
- ✓I'll also check what's holding your Google Maps listing back
- ✓If your site's in good shape, I'll tell you that instead
No obligation, and I'm not going to ring you every week. If you want the fixes written out afterwards, that's a paid job — but the diagnosis costs you nothing.
Facebook can switch your business off tomorrow. Directories sell your lead to four competitors.
Plenty of builders run on a Facebook page, HiPages and word of mouth instead of their own website. Those have their place. They are not the same thing, and here's the difference that costs money.
You own a website. You rent a Facebook page.
Facebook can change its algorithm, cut your reach, or disable your page, and you have no say and nobody to ring. A website you own keeps its rankings and its history. One is an asset. The other is space you borrow.
Directories sell the same lead several times
When a customer enquires through a directory, that enquiry usually goes to several builders at once. You're paying for the privilege of racing three competitors to the phone, then competing on price when you get there.
Rankings compound. Posts don't.
A page that ranks keeps bringing work in month after month without you touching it. A Facebook post is gone in a day and a directory listing stops the moment you stop paying. One builds. The other has to be fed.
Who you're actually dealing with
I've not built for a builder yet — the two below are cleaners on the Gold Coast. Different trade, same problem: they were both paying for leads, and now they're not.
I sold perfume door to door for five years. I thought I was good at it. I wasn't — what sold the perfume was the fragrance. I turned up and held the bottle.
Your website is supposed to be the fragrance. You're already doing the turning up: the van, the ads, the hours, the callouts at 2am. What's written on that site is the bit that has to do the persuading when you're not in the room.
Two businesses I helped build and sold went on to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange. I moved to Australia in 2000 and have been building websites and generating leads for local trade businesses for the last ten years.
We used to spend up to $1,200 per week on Google AdWord campaigns for a steady workflow. In a matter of three months Hilton managed to get us ranked in the top position of the Google Map pack for multiple primary keywords, and implemented software that increased our reviews from 18 to over 100. No more AdWords or looking for customers.
I'd been paying for leads from Jim's, HiPages, OneFlare and word of mouth. Hilton promoted my page so that it appears in the Google 3 pack across a wide area for different keywords. This has totally transformed my business — I no longer pay for leads and have withdrawn from both HiPages and OneFlare.
Straight up: neither of those is a plumber — they're cleaners on the Gold Coast. Same game though, and both of them were paying good money for leads before we started.
What does a builder website need to do?
A builder website needs to do one job: convince someone weighing up a large, slow decision that you're the builder to call. Unlike an emergency plumber, a builder's customer takes weeks, compares two or three builders side by side, and looks hard for a reason to rule one out.
So the site has to answer the questions they'd ask in person, before they ask them.
- ✓Built for phones first, because people browse builders on the couch and on site
- ✓Clear pages for each kind of work you want: renovations, extensions, new homes, decks
- ✓Every suburb and region you actually build in
- ✓A project gallery with real photos and what each job involved
- ✓Your licence number and insurance where people can see them
- ✓Reviews and named testimonials
- ✓A click-to-call button and a quote form on every page
- ✓Your Google Business Profile linked and consistent with the site
Do builders need a website?
Builders need a website once they want work from anyone beyond their referral circle. Referrals are the best leads a builder gets, but they arrive when they arrive. A website lets Google send a second, steadier stream on top.
It also does a job for the referrals themselves. When a friend recommends you, the next thing most people do is look you up. If they find a clear site with finished projects, your licence and a few reviews, the recommendation is confirmed. If they find nothing, or a Facebook page with three posts from last year, doubt creeps in, and the builder who looks more established gets the call.
For a job worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, nobody skips that check. The website is where you win or lose it, usually without ever knowing it happened.
You might not need one if you're booked a year ahead on referrals alone and want to stay that size. Most builders aren't, or don't.
What is SEO for builders?
SEO for builders is the work of getting a building business found on Google by people nearby. They search for the work you do: "builder Gold Coast", "home extension builder", "deck builder near me", "bathroom renovation Robina".
It has two halves. The first is the Google Business Profile, which decides whether you appear in the map. That means the right categories, a written list of services, photos of real jobs, and a steady flow of reviews from clients who describe the work.
The second half is the website. One page for each type of work you want more of. Pages for the suburbs you cover. Your licence and insurance in plain view. And project pages that show what you built and where. Each page answers the questions a customer asks before they ring.
Builder SEO is slower than ads and it never stops paying for the clicks you'd otherwise buy. Searches like "seo for builders" cost advertisers a great deal per click, which tells you what each builder enquiry is worth.
How much does a builder website cost?
A builder website from Design Republic costs $995, $1,495 or $2,995, depending on how much you want done, and the prices are published before you talk to anyone.
$995 gets 3 to 5 pages, mobile design, basic SEO setup and a contact form. $1,495 gets 5 to 7 pages with full local SEO, service area pages for 5 to 7 suburbs, a project gallery, testimonials and schema markup. $2,995 plus $495 a month adds ongoing SEO, Google Business Profile management and monthly reporting.
Most builders sit at $1,495, because they need room for several types of work and a proper gallery. The honest way to judge it is against one job: if the site wins you a single extension or renovation you'd otherwise have missed, it has paid for itself many times over.
Not sure which fits? Start with the free website check on this page. It tells you what your current site is missing before you spend anything, and you can take that list to any web designer, not just me.
Why does a project gallery matter so much for builders?
A project gallery matters because a builder's customer is buying something they can't see yet. Photos of finished jobs, with the suburb, the scope and how long it took, are the closest they can get to seeing what you'll build for them.
Show real projects, not stock images. Before-and-after pairs, a short note on what the client wanted, and a named testimonial where the client agrees, do more than any amount of description.
How do reviews help a builder?
Reviews help a builder twice. Google uses them to decide which businesses to show in the map. Customers read them to decide who to trust.
Ask every client at handover, while they're happy, and make it easy with a direct link to your Google review page. Reviews that mention the type of job and the suburb are worth the most, because they tell both Google and the next customer exactly what you do and where.
What a builder website is actually for
The aim is to stop relying solely on referrals and have Google working as a second, steady source of enquiries, and to have the people who do get in touch already half-sold by what they read. I'm not going to put invented percentages next to that. When I've built enough of these to have honest numbers, they'll go here with the client's name on them.
Ready to invest? Check our builder website pricing to find the package that works for your builder business.
Want the complete guide? Learn our builder SEO strategy that gets builders ranking consistently.
Find out why people are choosing the other bloke
A builder's customer takes weeks to decide, compares you against two others, and never tells you why you missed out. Your website is doing most of that arguing without you.
Send me your website address
I'll come back with the three things costing you enquiries. No charge, and no phone call unless you want one.
Or skip the form — 0488 845 404 or hilton@designrepublic.net.au
Want to know what it costs to build? Builder website pricing