Website design for tradies in Wellington should prove you can work in wind and on steep sites. Show photos of hillside jobs and tricky access, explain how you handle weather delays, write plain pages for wind damage and leaks, cover the Hutt and Porirua as well as the city, and display your registration.
Website design for tradies in Wellington should begin with the hills. Plenty of houses here sit up a long flight of steps or on a section where a van cannot get close. Every trade feels that, from the builder carrying timber to the sparky with a new switchboard. Homeowners know it, and they worry about it, so they look for signs you have done this kind of job before.
What should a Wellington trade site show first?
Most trade sites show flat, sunny photos of finished work. Here the more convincing photos show the conditions: scaffold on a steep section in Brooklyn, materials going up a set of steps in Mt Victoria, a job on a house with a private cable car. Those images tell a homeowner you can deal with their property.
A short page on access helps as well. Say how you handle steps, narrow streets and parking, and whether access changes the price. Owners of awkward sections have usually heard "that will cost extra" before, and an upfront explanation earns trust.
How do you explain wind and weather delays?
Wellington is often called the windiest city in New Zealand, and weather changes plans. Put this on the site before anyone asks: what you will not do in high wind, how you let customers know about delays, and how you protect a job that has to stop halfway. It heads off an annoyed phone call.
Wind also creates work. It drives rain into places it would never reach in calmer cities, lifts roofing iron, damages fences and blows outdoor units around. Homeowners search in plain words:
- Write a page for wind damage: loose iron, flapping flashings, fences down.
- Write a page for leaks, using customers' own words: damp patches after a southerly, water through the ceiling.
- Mention spouting. Hillside sections send a lot of water down in heavy rain, and small or blocked spouting overflows fast.
- Keep the phone number visible on mobile, and add photo upload to your form.
Why do older homes and earthquakes matter?
Wellington sits on active faults, and many owners of older homes think about it. Some have replaced heavy tile roofs with lightweight steel, or taken out brick chimneys. Others are looking at foundations, bracing or old wiring while the walls are open. If you do any of this, write a page with examples. Stick to what you did, and avoid promises about how a building will perform in a future quake.
Area pages for the region
The region is spread across valleys and harbours, and locals know exactly where each suburb sits. A few area pages cover it:
- Inner suburbs: Mt Victoria, Thorndon, Kelburn, Aro Valley, Newtown.
- West and north: Karori, Wadestown, Johnsonville, Khandallah.
- East and south: Miramar, Lyall Bay, Island Bay, Seatoun. Salt and southerlies on the coast.
- Hutt Valley: Lower Hutt, Petone, Upper Hutt, Eastbourne.
- Porirua and the Kāpiti Coast, if you cover them.
Where do Wellington trade sites miss?
- Generic photos that could be from anywhere. Hillside houses are distinctive and build trust at once.
- No registration details, whether LBP, plumbing and gas, or electrical. All of them have public registers.
- No mention of wind, the first thing on a local homeowner's mind.
- Service areas that ignore the Hutt and Porirua, where a lot of the work is.
- Old sites that are hard to use on a phone.
Common questions
Yes, if you do it. Many owners are still weighing up heavy roofs, chimneys and old foundations, and a clear page with examples helps them decide. Keep to plain words, and avoid claims about how a building will perform in a future quake.
If you do a good share of work there, give the Hutt its own page with local jobs. Homeowners there often search with Lower Hutt or Upper Hutt in the query, and a Wellington city page may not convince them you cross over.
Put it on the site before anyone asks. Say that you will not do certain work in high wind, how you let customers know about delays, and how you protect a job if it has to pause partway through.
Ones that show the site: steep sections, scaffold on a hillside, materials going up the steps, the view from the job. They prove you can handle the access, which many Wellington homeowners worry about more than the work itself.
Start small. A few honest pages with local photos and a clear phone number will outperform a large generic site. Get help when you want more pages or better results, and own your domain from day one whichever way you go.
If you are a Wellington tradie and your site does not reflect the conditions you work in, start a brief. Christchurch has its own earthquake era story, covered in the Christchurch guide.
