Take the under construction notice down and publish one finished page this week: the work you take, the towns you cover, licence and insurance, the phone number as text and a short form. Add pages later, one at a time.

The site

An electrical contractor with two vans: the owner, a journeyman and an apprentice, doing service calls, renovations and small commercial jobs across a few suburbs.

The domain is painted on both vans and printed on the business cards. It opens a single page: the logo, a graphic of a striped construction barrier, and the words under construction, check back soon.

Below that sits a phone number, part of the same image as the logo. The footer says copyright 2013.

The page has looked like this for three years. The full site it was holding a place for was started, stalled waiting for photographs and text, and never finished.

The inference a visitor makes

Someone looking for an electrician wants to know two things: whether this one is competent and licensed, and whether the business is still operating.

The page answers both badly. Under construction suggests a business that has just started, or one that starts things and does not finish them, which is the fear people already have about trades.

The 2013 in the footer settles which. Check back soon, three years on, reads as a promise not kept.

For work that people associate with fires and failed inspections, doubt is enough. They phone the next electrician on the list.

What the holding page gets wrong

The third is what makes the rest expensive. The business paid to send people to this page, with its vans, its cards and its listing, and the page sends them away.

Nothing for search engines to read

Google ranks pages largely on what they say. This one says a handful of words, none of them about panel upgrades, rewiring, lighting or the towns the business covers.

So it cannot appear for those searches. The page title, under construction, is also what shows in the results, which means even someone searching for the business by name sees those words before they click.

Meanwhile, competitors with a page for each service appear for the searches this business never will.

Every route in ends here

People rarely type an electrician's address from memory. They read it off a van at a red light, find it on a card left after an estimate, or tap the website button on the Google listing.

On the listing, the website button sits beside the directions and the phone number, and many people tap it to check a business before they call.

Each of those people was halfway to calling. They wanted reassurance before picking up the phone, and found a page that offered none.

The vans and the cards only work as advertising if the address on them leads somewhere worth going.

No services, no area, no proof

A visitor cannot tell whether the business does houses or only commercial work.

Or whether it takes the job they actually have: a panel upgrade, a hot tub circuit, a car charger in the garage, wiring in an older house that the insurer has asked about.

Nor can they tell where it works. A contractor based two towns away may not come.

And nothing backs the business up: no licence number, no mention of insurance or warranty, no photograph of a single tidy panel.

A phone number nobody can tap

The number is part of the logo image. On a phone it cannot be tapped to dial, and it cannot be copied. Search engines cannot read it either, so it does nothing to connect the site with the listing.

It is also the only way to get in touch. People researching at work or late in the evening, when they cannot call, have no form and no email address to use instead.

Written as text in the header of every page, the same number can be dialled with one tap, and a short form catches the people who would rather write.

A worked example

The owner had paid for a full site in 2013. The build stalled because the designer needed text and photographs he never had time to provide, and the holding page went up while they waited.

Instead of restarting the large site, the business asked for one finished page within a week.

The owner spent an hour on the phone answering questions: what work they take, what they turn down, which towns they cover, what they guarantee. The apprentice photographed five recent panels and a kitchen lighting job on his phone.

The page went up with those answers, the photographs, the licence number, a line on insurance and warranty, the phone number as text and a three-field form. Its title names the trade and the main towns.

The barrier graphic and the old copyright line went on the first day. Nothing on the site says soon any more.

A page for each main service has been added every few weeks since, each written from notes taken during that same call.

The counter-case within the site

A holding page has its place. A new business with a domain registered and a launch planned within weeks can use one, provided it already names the work, the area covered and a phone number.

The logo, the phone number and the domain were worth keeping. They are what people already recognise from the vans.

A one-page site can serve a small electrician well for years. What it cannot be is unfinished: replace the notice with a page that is complete, however short.

What to change

  1. Take down the under construction notice.
  2. Publish one finished page this week.
  3. List the work you take and turn down.
  4. Name the towns you cover.
  5. Show your licence, insurance and warranty.
  6. Put the phone number in text, and add a form.
  7. Add a page for each service, one at a time.

Step two is the one that matters. A short page that is finished does more than a large site that is always about to be, and it can grow from there without ever saying soon again.

Another site that loses visitors on the way to the phone number is a roofer site with five social feeds in the sidebar.

Frequently asked questions

What do visitors conclude from under construction?

That the business is new, unfinished or closed. A copyright date three years old turns check back soon into a promise that was never kept.

Why does the page not appear in searches?

It has almost no text, so it cannot match searches for services or towns, and its title shows the words under construction in the results.

Why does it matter if few people visit?

The vans, the cards and the Google listing send people there when they are halfway to calling, and the page gives them no reason to.

What should a first page include?

The work you take, the towns you cover, your licence, insurance and warranty, a few real photographs, the phone number as text and a short form.

Why should the phone number be text?

When the number is part of a picture, phones cannot dial it with a tap and nobody can copy it. Search engines miss it too.

Is a holding page ever acceptable?

For a few weeks before a planned launch, as long as it already lists the work, the area covered and a way to get in touch.

West Coast Media Solutions Inc. provides web design, web development, hosting, digital marketing, and business consulting to organisations across Canada, drawing on more than twenty-five years in the field.

Your site still says check back soon?

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