Website for builders with quotes and a diary

A directory, a lead site or your own website: what each one does

A homeowner looking for a builder often lands on a directory or a lead marketplace. A directory lists you beside every other firm in the county. A lead marketplace takes the homeowner's request and passes it to several trades at once, so the job starts as a race.

Your own website and your Google listing do a different job, and it happens earlier and later than the directory's. Earlier, because a search for ‘plasterer’ and a town shows the map and its listings before any directory. Later, because the homeowner who was given your name by a neighbour types it into Google to check. What they find there, photos of finished work, reviews, the towns you cover, a way to ask for a quote, decides whether the recommendation turns into a call.

To know where to start, look at where your time goes. If the diary is full and the evenings go on pricing jobs for people who wanted it three times cheaper, the problem is the filter: a price range and a form that asks what the work involves. If the pricing is quick but the enquiries are too few, the problem is being found: that is the work of a website and a Google listing.

• Directory: your name in a list, beside your competitors, with whatever the directory chooses to show.
• Lead marketplace: the same request sent to several trades; you answer fast or you lose it.
• Your website and Google listing: found on your trade and your town, enquiries that describe the job, your work and your reviews on show.
• Booking calendar: quoting visits and call-outs in their own slots, travel time included.

What a tradesperson's website should show

The agency pages that rank for trade websites in Ireland sell design, speed and search rankings. What a homeowner looks for is plainer, and most of it fits on one phone screen:

• Your trade and the towns you cover, in words, not only on a map.
• Each service on its own line or page: bathroom refits, rewires, boiler servicing, roof repairs.
• Photos of your own finished jobs, with the town and the type of work.
• Your registration where the work requires one, with the number to check it.
• Your call-out charge, and a price range for the standard jobs, VAT included.
• Whether a quote is free, and how soon you can visit.
• A way to ask for a quote with photos and a description, without ringing.
• Who you are: business name, address, phone number and email.

Electrical and gas work: registration is the first thing customers are told to check

For two trades, being found is not enough: the customer is told to verify you. The CRU, which regulates electrical contractors and gas installers for safety, states that it is an offence to carry out restricted electrical works or gas works while not registered, or to pass oneself off as a Registered Electrical Contractor or a Registered Gas Installer. The penalties run to a fine of €5,000 or six months on summary conviction, and €50,000 or three years on indictment.

Safe Electric gives homeowners the other half: always use a Registered Electrical Contractor for electrical work in the home, and ask for a Completion Certificate when the work is done. The CCPC says the same in general terms: if a tradesperson claims to be registered with a professional body, ask for the details and confirm them with the organisation.

On a website, that turns into one line that does a lot of work: your registration, the body it is with, and the number. A customer who can check you in a minute doesn't need to ring three other firms to feel safe.

CRU, “Safety compliance and enforcement”, read on 02/10/2026 · Safe Electric, read on 02/10/2026 · CCPC, “Home improvement and building work disputes”, read on 02/10/2026

Written details, deposits and changes of mind: what the CCPC tells your customers

The CCPC's page on building work reads like the list of what a homeowner will ask you for. Secure written quotes from several contractors. Before paying a deposit, have the scope of the work and the payment structure in writing. Use a payment method that leaves a record, such as a debit card. Be cautious about large sums up front, and avoid paying the full cost before the work is completed.

It also reminds them that a contract doesn't need a signature: it can be made verbally, through emails, text messages, quotations and invoices, or by both sides acting on it. Whatever your website, your messages and your quote say is therefore part of what you agreed. Keep them consistent.

One more point concerns work ordered at a distance. The CCPC explains that a consumer has a legal right to end a service contract because of a change of mind only where the service was ordered online or on the doorstep, during a cooling-off period. For a booked visit or a deposit paid online, take advice on how that applies to you, and state your cancellation terms where the customer reads them before paying.

With Traxo, the customer describes the work when asking for a visit, books the quoting visit in the slots you opened, and can pay online when booking, the full job or a deposit, at 3% of what is paid and nothing else.

CCPC, “Home improvement and building work disputes”, read on 02/10/2026 · CCPC, “Cancelling a service or contract”, read on 02/10/2026

What a tradesperson's website costs in Ireland

Several Irish agencies that build for the trades publish their prices, which makes the market readable. Two ways of paying, read on 02/10/2026. A one-off build: Blossom Designs starts at €800 for up to five pages, at €1,800 for the tier with online calendar booking and service pages, and at €2,800 for a bespoke build; its page doesn't say whether VAT is included. A monthly rental: TradePro charges €259 + VAT a month, with no contract, hosting included.

The figures don't compare line by line. Ask each provider the same things: is the booking calendar included or an extra, who changes the text and the photos after launch and at what price, are hosting and the domain name in the price, and what is left to you if you stop.

Traxo's Starter plan is €50 a month excl. VAT with no commitment, or €40 a month on yearly billing, paid in one go (€480 excl. VAT for twelve months): the website, online booking day and night, online payment, the full job or a deposit, and customer records. Pro, at €100 a month (€80 on yearly billing), adds the Google listing kept up to date, the review card, loyalty points and up to six accounts.

Blossom Designs, “Tradesmen web design”, read on 02/10/2026 · TradePro, read on 02/10/2026

A worked example: a tiler on his own, his quoting visits and what they cost

An example built for illustration, not a customer's story: a tiler working alone around a mid-sized town. He prices his jobs in the evening, and his enquiries come in by phone during the day, when he is on his knees with adhesive on his hands. What costs him most isn't writing the quote, it is the visit: thirty minutes on site, the drive there and back, for a customer who sometimes never had the budget.

Work it out for your own business: the number of quoting visits a week, multiplied by the length of a visit and its travel, then by the share of those visits that lead nowhere. Three visits of forty-five minutes each, travel included, with one going nowhere, is three quarters of an hour lost every week, more than thirty hours over a working year. Put your own figures in place of ours: that total is what a question asked before the visit, about the area, the floor, the photos and the budget, is there to reduce.

On the subscription side, Starter on yearly billing is €480 excl. VAT for twelve months. Online payment costs 3% of what is paid, nothing else: on a €1,200 deposit paid online for a €4,000 bathroom, that is €36.

On your own or with a crew: what changes, and what happens if you stop

On your own, the point is not to lose the enquiry that arrives while you are on a job, and not to drive out for nothing. A website, a Google listing and a calendar that puts quoting visits in the slots you chose are often enough.

With a crew, the question becomes who goes where, and when. A foreman who does the visits, two men on long jobs, an apprentice: each has a calendar, and a quoting visit mustn't land on someone who is away for three days. Pro gives each person a calendar and an account, up to six, and adds the Google listing kept up to date, the review card and loyalty points. Beyond six, or for several branches, we talk about it on the phone.

Either way, here is what happens if you stop. The website and the domain name stop with the subscription. Your content, your customer records and your appointments are sent to you on request, in a usable format, during the thirty days after cancellation; they are then deleted. Your Google listing stays yours.