Filling Out Your Content Form

Three to five sentences, and the biggest blank-page moment on the form. You're not writing a mission statement. You're answering the question a customer is actually asking, which is "are these people any good and do they deal with problems like mine."

The easiest way in is to answer these four things in order, one sentence each: who you help, what you do for them, how you got into it, and why people stick with you.

An example. "We've been doing residential plumbing across Broward County since 2011. Most of what we do is the unglamorous stuff — leaks, water heaters, repipes on older houses that were never done right the first time. I started out working for my father-in-law and took over the business in 2016. People call us back because we show up when we say we will and we tell you what it'll cost before we start."

Backstory genuinely helps. Why you started, who taught you, what you did before. It's the part that makes you a person instead of a listing.

List everything you actually do, not just the headline services. Each one can become its own page, and those pages are what people find when they search for their specific problem. Someone searching "water heater not heating" doesn't land on a page called Plumbing Services.

If you'd take the call, list it. Then flag the two or three that make you the most money, because those get the strongest treatment on the site.

Be honest about how far you'll actually drive. Listing towns you'd turn down gets you calls you don't want. Listing too few loses you work you'd have taken.

List your main location first, then the surrounding cities, suburbs and counties by how often you work there. Up to fifteen. If you're not sure whether somewhere counts, ask yourself whether you'd take a job there on a Tuesday.

This one's optional and plenty of people leave it blank. It's worth filling in, though, because it's one of the few places you can quietly separate yourself from everyone else in your trade.

Walk through what actually happens, from a customer calling you to the job being done. Four to six steps, plain language, from their point of view rather than yours.

An example. "You call or message us and we'll usually get back to you the same day. We come out and look at the job, then give you a written price before anything starts. If you're happy, we book it in — most jobs within a week. We do the work, clean up after ourselves, and walk you through what we did before we leave."

If your process includes something most people in your trade don't do — a written quote, a follow-up call, a warranty — that's the bit worth spelling out.

Credentials belong here — years in business, family-run, veteran-owned, fully insured, manufacturer certified. Put all of them in.

But credentials aren't really what makes you different, because the next three companies list the same ones. If you want this section to do real work, add one or two things that are true of you and awkward for a competitor to copy. Some prompts:

A strong answer. "Fourteen years, family-run, fully insured. The main thing is we answer the phone — call five plumbers on a Saturday and see how many pick up. If we can't get to you same day we'll say so straight rather than booking you in and cancelling Friday afternoon."

A weak answer. "We pride ourselves on quality workmanship and outstanding customer service at competitive prices."

One offer that makes choosing you easy. The best ones are valuable to the customer and cheap for you — they lower the risk of calling rather than cutting your margin.

What tends to work: a free estimate or inspection, no trip charge, a fixed discount on a first visit, a warranty on the work, or a real dollar amount off a big-ticket job. What doesn't work is a bare percentage with no boundary — "10% off" raises more questions than it answers.

If you'd rather not run one, leave it blank. No offer beats a bad one, and we'll build the site to convert without it.

Both optional. If you have a tagline you already use on your van or your cards, give us it so everything matches. If you don't, leave it — we'll write one.

For licences, include the number if your trade requires one. It's a small thing that quietly settles a lot of doubt, and it costs you nothing to display.

The single most useful thing on the whole form for the design. Two or three sites, with one line each on what you liked. They don't have to be in your trade — often it's better if they aren't, because you'll notice the design instead of the competitor.

"Liked how clean it was" or "the photos are huge and it feels expensive" is enough. You don't need design language.

If you have a logo, we'll pull your colours from it and you can leave this blank. That's usually the right answer.

If you want something specific, plain words are fine — "dark blue and orange, same as the van" or "clean, mostly black and white with one accent." Hex codes if you have them, but nobody expects you to.

Worth knowing: two strong colours plus a neutral is what works. Sites using five colours look homemade regardless of which five.

People skip this one and it's genuinely as useful as the question before it. Anything you've seen and hated. Colours you can't stand. A competitor's site you don't want to resemble. Stock photos of people in suits shaking hands.

One clear "not that" saves more time than three vague "something like this" answers.

Say yes if customers come to you — a shop, a showroom, an office people walk into.

Say no if you're mobile or working from home. Your service area still shows, you still rank locally, and your home address stays off the internet.

You already get home, about, services, service area pages, and contact. This is for anything beyond that — a team page, careers, financing, a gallery, certifications. Leave it blank if nothing comes to mind; we can add pages later.