A towing company website exists to put a stranded driver through to a real local dispatcher in one tap, then answer where you go, what you tow, what it costs and how to pay.

What the site is actually for

A towing company's website is usually opened at the side of a road. The car will not start, it has slid into a ditch, or there has been a collision.

The person holding the phone is cold, shaken and short of battery, and wants to know whether you will come, how soon, and roughly at what cost.

Other visitors are less urgent: a fleet manager, a body shop, somebody moving a classic car across the province, or a driver whose car was towed from a parking lot.

The site's first job is to put the stranded driver through to a person in one tap. Its second is to serve everyone else without getting in the way.

The questions people arrive with

The last is particular to this trade. Map listings that route calls to a distant dispatcher are common in towing, and a driver who has been caught once checks before calling again.

A phone number before anything else

Put the number in the header of every page, in large type, set up so that a tap dials it: not in the footer, not behind a menu, and not as an image a phone cannot dial.

Say 24 hours only if a person answers at three in the morning. A voicemail at that hour, after a promise of round-the-clock service, sends the driver to the next listing.

A contact form suits somebody booking a long-distance move for next week. It should never be the first thing a stranded driver sees.

If you accept text messages, say so. A location pin travels faster than a description of an unfamiliar stretch of highway in the dark.

The area you cover, in drivers' words

Name the towns, highways and stretches of road you cover the way a stranded driver would describe them: between which exits, as far as which summit, which side of the bridge.

Say where your area ends and what happens beyond it: a higher rate, a longer wait, or the number of somebody closer. Drivers remember that kind of honesty.

Services, named plainly

List what you actually do, with a line on each: light-duty towing, flatbed, heavy-duty, winching out of ditches, accident recovery, long-distance transport and storage.

Roadside service deserves its own detail, since many calls are not tows at all: a boost for a flat battery, a lockout, a tire change, or fuel for an empty tank.

Say which vehicles need a flatbed, and that you have one. Many all-wheel-drive cars should not be towed with two wheels on the ground, and owners who know it ask first.

Prices and payment, before the truck arrives

Few towing companies can publish one price, and nobody expects it. Drivers want the structure: a hook-up charge, a rate per kilometre, and extras for after hours, winching and storage.

Say how people can pay at the roadside. Somebody stranded at midnight with no cash needs to know the truck takes cards before it leaves the yard.

If you work with insurers on accident claims, or take calls through roadside assistance plans, explain what the driver pays on the day and what is billed elsewhere.

A worked example

A towing company with four trucks in a small Interior city had a website built around a stock photograph of a wrecker at sunset, with the phone number in small type in the footer.

On the map, its listing sat beneath several invented ones, each named after the city with towing and 24 hour tacked on, and all answered by a dispatcher elsewhere.

Drivers who did reach the company asked the same questions at all hours: whether the truck took cards, whether a flatbed was free, and whether it covered the next town.

The rebuild moved the number into the header as a tap-to-call button, listed the towns and highway stretches covered, named each service, and explained pricing and payment.

Photographs of the company's own trucks, with its name on the doors, replaced the stock wrecker, and the same photographs went onto its Google My Business listing.

Looking local in a trade full of fakes

A real towing company has things a dispatch operation cannot copy: a yard, trucks with its name on them, drivers, and years of work in one area.

Show them: photographs of the trucks and yard, the street address, and who answers the phone, if it is your own dispatcher. Then match the name, address and number on the site to your listing exactly.

When the car was towed without the driver

Some visitors are not stranded at all. Their car was towed from a lot while they were in a shop, and they are angry and in a hurry.

Give them a page with the yard's address, release hours, what to bring, such as identification and proof of ownership, and how fees are worked out. It saves a run of difficult calls.

Built for a phone at the roadside

The page has to load over a weak highway signal on a phone with little battery left. No video background, no slider, no pop-up.

A short line on what to have ready speeds up the call: the nearest exit or landmark, the vehicle's make and model, whether it can be driven, and how many passengers need a ride.

The counter-case

A company working mostly through contracts with insurers, roadside plans and dealerships gets fewer calls from its website, so its site leans towards credibility with partners and the towed-vehicle page.

A single-truck operator may need one well-made page rather than a full site, as long as the number, the area and the prices are on it.

Neither changes the order: the phone number first, then the area and services, then everything else.

What to build first

  1. Put the phone number in every page's header.
  2. List the towns and highways you cover.
  3. Name each service and the vehicles it suits.
  4. Explain how pricing works and what you accept.
  5. Say who pays when an insurer is involved.
  6. Add a page for towed vehicles with release hours.
  7. Replace stock photographs with your own trucks.

Step one is the one every other step depends on. A driver standing in the snow who cannot find the number within a few seconds calls the next listing, real or not.

A business people visit for pleasure rather than in a hurry is covered in what a pumpkin patch or u-pick farm website needs.

Frequently asked questions

What should a towing website show first?

Your number, set up so one tap dials it, in every page's header. Most visitors are at the roadside on a phone and want a person, not a form.

Should towing prices be on the website?

Explain how pricing works: the hook-up charge, the rate per kilometre, and extras for after hours, winching and storage. Drivers trust a company that is specific about cost.

How should a towing company describe its area?

By the towns, highways and stretches of road it actually covers, including where the area ends and what happens when a call comes from beyond it.

What payment details do stranded drivers need?

Whether the truck takes cards, debit or cash at the roadside, and what they pay on the day when an insurer or roadside assistance plan is involved.

How can a towing company look genuinely local?

Show the yard's address, photographs of your own lettered trucks, who answers the phone, and a name, address and number that match your Google listing exactly.

Why add a page for towed vehicles?

People whose car was towed from a lot need the yard address, release hours, fees and what to bring. Answering that online saves a run of difficult calls.

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.

Phone number hidden in the footer?

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