UPDATE: I have taken the Tradie Engine site down for now. If any Australian Tradies need a hand getting a website up and running, let me know and I can still help out on a project by project basis.
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As I mention in my about page, even though I am a carpenter by trade and I am still regularly on the tools, my daytime job is a web developer. So it only make sense that one day I would combine the two skills.
It took a while to figure out what I should do, apart from this site of course. But after speaking with a couple of mates in the trades, it seemed like what is lacking out there is a simple website solution for small trade businesses (e.g. 1 man working from home like an electrician, plumber or handyman). Something that is hassle free and affordable.
The other thing that came up is that the tradies themselves didn’t want to be involved in the website design or set-up at all. They just wanted someone to give them a “professional looking website” that let potential customers know 3 things:
- What they do
- What areas they service
- How to contact them
Websites for Tradesmen – a simple, affordable solution
A simple tradesmen website solution was something I knew I could set-up. So the first thing I did was write a list of what a website service like this needed to include, to make it worthwhile for a tradesman:
- Affordable (low-cost)
- Easy to get started
- Professional Design
- Reliable Website Hosting
- Fast turn-around
- No risk (no contract – cancel anytime)
- Optimised for Google Search
- Optimised for Mobile Devices
- Simple updates for free
- and again – Affordable
I also wrote a list of what would not be included in the service:
- No supply of Domain name
- No Email set-up
- No access to website set-up
Why No Domain Name Supply (or Make Sure YOU Own Your Domain Name!)
Always make sure you own your domain name! A domain name is a very important piece of property for you and you business. Therefore you should own it yourself. It should be under your name, with all your details and only you should manage it.
In my opinion you should never let anyone else purchase your domain name on your behalf.
Your domain address gives you control over your online presence. Even if you part ways with your website designer or website host, as long as you have control over your domain name, you can just point your domain to another host and set up a site there.
The last thing you want is to have to ask whoever purchased your domain to please give you access because you want to go elsewhere. It can get a bit awkward.
Registering your own domain name is really easy and quite cheap. Even if you have no immediate plans for a website, it’s still better to lock in your domain name now just in case things change in the future.
You can get an Australian “.com.au” Domain name at NameCheap for around $20.00 for 2 years registration.
Why No Email Set-up
Hosting and managing emails can be a nightmare. All the control is with the company that is hosting the email server, and also with the end user and their email software. If there is a problem with sending or receiving emails it’s best to deal directly with the supplier.
If I set-up the email account, I would end up just being the middle man, if there was a problem. So with my website service, an email address needs to be supplied by you, and I will add it to the website and also link it to the contact page on the new site.
Whatever email address you are using now is fine to use.
Why No Access to the Website Set-up
The idea behind this website service is that it has been developed specifically for the tradesman that is busy focusing on doing their job. Also that you have no interest in working on a website yourself.
There are plenty of resources out there if you want to set up, and manage a site yourself. I even have written an article on on this site about “how to set-up a site”, if you want to go down that path.
So my new website service is definitely targeted at a specific tradesman market:
- Small Trade business
- Busy working on their trade
- No interest in working on a website
- Don’t want to spend too much
Setting up the new “tradesman website service” website
I’m sure the logo at the top of this article has given you a pretty good idea of what I named the new service.
Tradie Engine
How did I come up with that name? Well I just wanted something that expressed what it does, it drives/powers your business online. Other names on the list were: Tradie Motor, Tradie Workbench, Tradie SparkPlug, Tradie Toolbox, etc.
The next steps
Creating a Demo
I started working on designing a template for a “tradesman website” that would be the basis for all the designs. By using a standard design template the pricing could be kept to a minimum, and the turn-around to get a site created and online would be greatly reduced.
Pricing
But how much should the price be? I know my brother-in-law was paying $300 per month for a very basic solution, that to me made no sense. After all, if you are willing to pay $3,600 per year for a website, you could get yourself a pretty decent custom design for that amount.
I must admit that the pricing was the thing I struggled with the most with this idea. I knew I wanted the service to be a low-cost monthly subscription. I didn’t know what the initial set-up cost should be. Each site would need to be manually set-up, managed and maintained over time.
I finally decided that by using a standard template as the basis of all the sites, that I wouldn’t need to charge a large set-up fee, if the monthly subscription rate was kept at a realistic level to cover the website hosting, maintenance, backups and updates. So at this stage I have settled on $44 per month, with an initial $99 Set-up fee.
The Tradie Engine website
There’s no point saying too much about the site itself, when you can just see the final design here at TradieEngine.com.au.
I’d love to hear any thoughts and feedback from tradesman that are looking to launch a website, and even any that have gone through the process already.
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