Web design for painters and decorators, from £395
Decorating is sold on the finish, and a new customer never sees your last job unless you show it to them. Most decorators have years of good work sitting in a phone.
We build decorators' sites around finished rooms, a clear diary and an easy way to send a photograph of the job. We already build for a painting and decorating firm in Cheshire.
Decorating is sold on the finish, and the finish is invisible until somebody shows it
A customer cannot judge a decorator from a van or a business card. They judge from the last room you did, and most of the time they never see it. They get a name from a neighbour, look it up, and decide in about a minute whether you look like somebody who will turn up, protect the carpets and leave straight lines.
That minute is what a decorator's website is for. Not a list of services, because everybody's list says interior, exterior, wallpapering and woodwork. It is the photographs of finished rooms, a plain account of how you work in somebody's home, and a way to reach you that does not depend on you answering the phone up a ladder.
Most decorators we look at have years of good work on a phone camera roll and none of it anywhere a new customer can find it. The job is usually to get it out of the phone and in front of the people already searching for you.
What we would put on a decorator's website
Built around what a homeowner checks before they ring.
A gallery that loads on a phone
Finished rooms and exteriors, with before and after pairs. Sized properly so the customer sees your work and not a grey box.
Interior and exterior, separately
They are different customers with different worries. Dust sheets and furniture for one, scaffolding and weather for the other.
How far ahead you are booking
A simple availability line or page. It saves the calls from people who needed it done this week and sets expectations for the rest.
Insurance and the brands you use
Public liability as a figure, and the paints you actually buy. Small details that tell a customer you are not the cheapest and why.
Guide prices for common jobs
A room, a hall, stairs and landing, an exterior. A range is enough to make every enquiry a serious one.
Call, WhatsApp or a short form
Customers send photographs of the room on WhatsApp far more readily than they fill in a long form. All three, on every page.
Shakeshaft and Jones, Middlewich
A painting and decorating firm we build for, so this page is not guesswork.
Shakeshaft and Jones Home Improvements
Painters, decorators and property maintenance, trading in Middlewich since 2016 on referrals alone. Live at shakeshaftjones.co.uk, built by us and carrying our footer link. It was the first website the business had ever had.
The site is led by a gallery of finished work, has an availability page so customers can see how far ahead the diary runs, and gives each of the two people in the business their own contact route, so an enquiry reaches the right phone first time.
Painter and decorator plus a town is a search you can win
Decorating searches are local and specific. Painter and decorator in a town, exterior painting, wallpaper hanging, kitchen cabinet spraying. The national directories rank for the first of those and very little else, which leaves the specific ones to whoever bothers to write a proper page about them.
So the plan is simple. One page for each kind of work you want more of, written for the person who wants exactly that. A Google Business Profile set up with the right categories and your real service area, which we do as part of the £650 build. And photographs added steadily, because a profile and a gallery that keep moving are a signal that you are still trading.
Reviews do the rest. A decorator with a handful of recent, detailed Google reviews is in a strong position against a directory listing, and our article on getting more Google reviews covers how to ask without it feeling awkward. If you are weighing a directory against your own site, we have written up Checkatrade against your own website as fairly as we can.
Built first, paid for second
Tell us about the business and within 48 hours you get a link to a real working site built for it, using your own photographs if you send them. If it is not right, say so and you owe us nothing. There is no card, no deposit and no call to sit through.
A solid site with a gallery and your main services is £395. £650 buys more pages, a page for each kind of work, and your Google Business Profile set up. £1,200 is for a larger firm that needs something closer to a system. You own it either way, and the build can be split across three payments within twelve months at the same price.
Care plans start at £45 a month, have no minimum term and are optional. Full pricing is here.
What decorators ask us
All my work comes from recommendations. Why would a decorator need a website?
Because the recommendation gets checked. Somebody is told your name over a fence, and the next thing they do is search for it. If nothing comes up, or only a Facebook page last updated two summers ago, a share of those people quietly ring the other name they were given. A site does not replace word of mouth. It stops word of mouth leaking away at the moment somebody goes to look you up.
What photographs does a decorator's site need?
Finished rooms in daylight, taken square on, and a few before and after pairs from the same spot. Close-ups of the cutting in, the woodwork and the wallpaper joins are worth more than a wide shot, because that is where a customer can see the difference between you and somebody cheaper. Phone photographs are fine. We sort, crop and size them so they load quickly on a phone.
Should I put prices on the site?
A day rate or a guide for common jobs helps more than it hurts. A hall, stairs and landing from a stated figure, or an honest range for a single room, filters out the people who wanted it done for half that, and it makes the people who do ring more serious. You do not need a full price list. You need enough that nobody is surprised by the quote.
I am booked up for weeks. Is there any point?
That is the best time to do it. A busy decorator can choose the work, and a site lets you say what you want more of: full interiors rather than single ceilings, exteriors in the summer, commercial repaints, wallpapering. It can also show how far ahead you are booking, which saves a dozen phone calls a week from people who needed it done by Friday.
Do you build for painters and decorators already?
Yes. Shakeshaft and Jones are painters and decorators in Middlewich, Cheshire, trading since 2016, and theirs was the first website the business ever had. It is live on their own domain and there is a case study on our work page. That is one decorating client, and we are not going to pretend it is twenty.
Towns with a page of their own
We are a Southampton studio and we work wherever the job is. These towns have a page of their own on what the local market looks like and who you are up against.
Other trades, and four plain guides
Each trade has a page of its own. The guides cover what a site costs, how a directory listing compares, your Google listing, and paying in parts.
Get your free preview
Your name, your business and a way to reach you. We build a real preview of your site inside 48 hours, and you see it before you pay anything.
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See your decorating site before you pay for it
We build a real working preview in 48 hours. Builds from £395, care plans from £45 a month, no minimum term. Don't like it and you owe nothing.