The short answer is: you do not need one if you are happy with the work you have.
If you are fully booked from word of mouth and you do not want more jobs, do not want to raise your prices, and do not want to hire, a website will not change your life. Save the A$500.
But if you want more of the right jobs, or you want homeowners to find you instead of chasing leads, a website is the one thing that works while you are on the tools.
What most tradies use instead
Word of mouth. The best source of work. Nothing beats a recommendation from someone who has seen your work. The problem is you cannot control the volume. Some months it is steady. Some months it goes quiet. And when it goes quiet, you have no way to turn it back on.
Facebook. A Facebook business page is free and it works for people who already know you. Your mates share your posts, you put up a few job photos, and the phone rings.
The problem is reach. Facebook shows your posts to a fraction of your followers unless you pay to boost them. And when a homeowner searches "painter near me" on Google, your Facebook page is not what shows up.
Hipages, Airtasker, Oneflare. Pay-per-lead platforms. They work, but the leads are shared and the cost adds up. We wrote a separate post on that.
Google Business Profile. This one is worth having whether you have a website or not. It shows your business on Google Maps. But it has limits: you cannot add service pages, suburb pages, or proper content. It is a listing, not a site.
What a website does that nothing else can
A website does one thing the others cannot: it shows up when a stranger searches for your trade in your suburb.
Word of mouth reaches people who know someone who knows you. Facebook reaches people who already follow you. Hipages reaches people who posted a job on hipages.
A website reaches people who searched Google. That is a different audience: homeowners who are actively looking for a tradie, right now, in their area.
The more specific your pages, the more specific the searches they can show up for. "Interior Painting in Penrith" is a real search that real homeowners type. A site with a page for that search can show up for it. A Facebook page cannot.
The "I get enough work" argument
Fair enough. But consider two things:
1. You can pick your jobs. More enquiries means you can choose. You take the jobs you want, at the price you want, in the suburbs you want. Right now, if you depend on platforms, you take what comes in.
2. Word of mouth is seasonal. It slows down at the same time every year. A website gives you a channel that does not go quiet because it is January or because it rained all week.
Neither of these require ranking number one on Google. They just require having a page that exists when someone searches for what you do.
What about social media?
Social media is good for one thing: showing your work to people who already follow you. Post a photo of a finished paint job, a freshly installed switchboard, a new fence. Your audience sees it, your credibility builds.
But social media is not search. Nobody opens Instagram and types "painter Ipswich". They open Google. If you are not there, you are invisible to that homeowner.
A website and social media do different jobs. One reaches strangers who are searching. The other keeps your existing audience engaged. You need both, but only one of them brings in new enquiries from people who have never heard of you.
What it takes to get started
The Setup Fee is A$500. A$100 Deposit starts the Build. You see the finished site, 20 to 30+ pages, within 3 business days. Changes until you are happy. A$400 Balance on Approval.
You provide your services, your suburbs, your logo and your job photos. We write the copy, handle the design, and build the whole thing.
The Care Plan keeps it live after launch. Price agreed on the call.
The real question
The question is not "do I need a website?" The question is "do I want homeowners who are searching for my trade in my suburbs to find me?"
If yes, you need a website with a page for every service and every suburb you work in. That is what we build.
If no, keep doing what you are doing. No hard feelings.
Link: Book a 15-minute call
Link: See our work
Link: What it costs
Ready for a proper tradie website?
A$500 setup fee. A$100 Deposit starts the Build. 20 to 30+ pages, service and suburb pages, quote form on every page. Full preview in 3 business days.