Two-thirds of UK sole traders — a huge share of the trades workforce — still don’t have a website at all, even though 76% of UK consumers now research a business online before hiring one (BrightLocal, 2024). For a tradesperson relying purely on word of mouth or a Facebook page, that’s not a small gap — it’s most of the market never finding out you exist.
Why So Many Tradespeople Are Invisible on Google
Even tradespeople who do have a website often lose the visibility battle to directories. Checkatrade alone ranks for over 518,000 keywords — more search real estate than any individual trades business could realistically compete with head-on. That’s exactly why a tradesperson’s own website can’t just exist; it has to be built and optimised specifically to rank in local search, working alongside a directory listing rather than instead of one, or it just sits there unseen while the directory keeps the enquiry.
At Rankaleey, every website we build for a tradesperson is bundled into an ongoing local SEO package — Google Business Profile, service area pages, local citations — because a site with no local SEO behind it rarely outranks a directory with more than a decade’s head start. Website Design for Builders covers the same system in more depth for building and construction specifically; this page covers every other trade.
