In short and in plain language
Are orders getting fewer? Then your website itself can bring in new enquiries.
Put the jobs first that you can plan at short notice. That means repairs, servicing and renovation work.
Keep the way to an enquiry short. A small form with a photo upload on the service page helps.
Count your enquiries each month. Note where they come from. A simple table is enough.
Talks about price often get harder. Your website can prepare them without promising a price. We build your website at a fixed price.
For years, many trade businesses did not need a single enquiry from their own website. The calendar filled up through recommendations, regular customers and the developer they had been working with for ten years. The website was a business card: address, phone number, a few photos of the team. In 2026 that situation has changed noticeably for many businesses. According to the short report of the German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) on the second quarter of 2026, the order backlog indicator has fallen from minus 3 points in spring 2025 to minus 15 points, and capacity utilisation stands at 76 percent. That is no reason to panic, but it is a reason to use the website differently: not as a business card, but as an enquiry source of its own that brings in exactly the jobs that can fill gaps in the calendar. This article sets out a plan in five steps - which services belong up front, what the enquiry route for smaller jobs looks like, how to check the service area and how to tell after three months whether anything is moving. On top of that comes the price conversation, which becomes more frequent and more difficult as selling prices rise.
Key takeaways
- According to the ZDH, the order backlog indicator for the skilled trades fell to minus 15 points in the second quarter of 2026 (spring 2025: minus 3), and capacity utilisation stands at 76 percent. The order backlog of 8.7 weeks is an average and says little about your own calendar.
- Gaps in the calendar are rarely filled with the next large project, but with services that can be scheduled at short notice: repairs, servicing, work on existing buildings. These are exactly the services that belong up front on the website.
- An enquiry route built only for the large project puts off small jobs. A short form with photo upload directly on the service page opens it up.
- If you count enquiries per month by source and service, after three months you can see which route carries weight - without an analytics tool, with a spreadsheet.
- According to the ZDH, the selling price indicator is at a four-year high, and according to Bitkom 87 percent of businesses observe significantly higher price sensitivity. The website prepares the price conversation without promising a price.
What the figures mean for a single business
Every quarter the ZDH surveys trade businesses on their business situation, turnover, orders and prices. The short report on the second quarter of 2026 was published in August 2026, and its core statement on the order situation leaves little room for interpretation:
Whereas the order backlog indicator stood at a weak minus 3 points in spring 2025, it has now fallen to minus 15 points.
Added to this is a sentence that matters more for planning than the figure itself: according to the report, the assessment of the order situation is deteriorating in all trade groups. So it is not one single trade that is struggling while the others are fully booked. Capacity utilisation drops by one percentage point to 76 percent, and the average order backlog, at 8.7 weeks, is roughly at the level of the previous year (ZDH).
For a single business these are averages. An average order backlog of 8.7 weeks can mean that one business is booked up until Christmas while the business next door has nothing to do in November. The figures describe the direction, not your calendar. The direction is clear enough, though, to take a look at your own website now - and with a different question from before: does it bring in the enquiries I need right now?
| Indicator according to the ZDH report | Second quarter of 2026 | What follows for the website |
|---|---|---|
| Order backlog indicator | minus 15 points (spring 2025: minus 3) | make services with short lead times visible |
| Capacity utilisation | 76 percent (1 percentage point lower) | fill free weeks deliberately with smaller jobs |
| Order backlog in weeks | 8.7 weeks (previous year: 8.6) | count enquiries per month to know your own backlog |
| Selling price indicator | 28 points (up 8, four-year high) | prepare the price conversation on the page |
The macroeconomic causes named in the report cannot be influenced from a website. What can be influenced is which enquiries reach you, how well prepared they are and whether you know where they come from. That is what the following five steps are about. None of them requires rebuilding the website, and none of them promises a particular number of jobs.
Step 1: Decide which services should fill the gaps
A business that lives on recommendations gets the jobs it is known for. That is often the large project: the new build, the complete refurbishment, the job via the developer. When these jobs stay away, the gaps can rarely be filled with the next large project, because its lead time is too long. They fill up with services that can be scheduled at short notice and that arise in existing buildings anyway: repairs, servicing, inspections, the refurbishment of individual rooms or building components.
Before anything on the website changes, there is therefore a decision to be made within the business: which two or three services should receive more enquiries over the coming months? The answer depends on your people, your equipment and your pricing, not on an industry list. Three questions help: can we schedule this service within a few weeks? Does it pay for us even when the single job is small? Does it tend to lead to follow-up work?
| Type of service | Why it fills gaps | What the website needs for it |
|---|---|---|
| Repairs | short lead time, often urgent | own page, short enquiry route, photo upload |
| Servicing and inspection | plannable, recurring, builds customer loyalty | scope of service, interval, appointment request |
| Work on existing buildings | individual rooms or components instead of new builds | process, before-and-after photos, note on tax relief |
| Small jobs | fill single days between larger sites | state the minimum scope openly, give a response time |
| Retrofits | occasion in the existing building, such as security or energy | describe the occasion, answer typical questions |
For work on existing buildings there is a point many customers are not aware of: for trade services for renovation, maintenance and modernisation measures, income tax is reduced on application by 20 percent of the expenditure, up to a maximum of 1,200 euros (Section 35a(3) of the German Income Tax Act, EStG). Only labour costs qualify, not materials (Section 35a(5) EStG). How to phrase this on the page without giving tax advice is covered in the article on tax relief for trade services.
The question for the next team meeting
Step 2: Move these services forward on the website
On many trade websites the services are listed in the order in which they were once written down. At the top is what the business is known for, further down what it also does. In a slow period that is the wrong order. The services that are now meant to fill gaps belong in the first screen of the home page and in the menu, not in a bullet point at the bottom of the page.
Moving them forward does not mean rebuilding the home page every time the calendar thins out. It means giving the chosen services their own page, their own heading and their own enquiry route, and linking to them visibly from the home page. A repair service that only appears as half a sentence on a combined page is neither found nor asked for. Why separate pages carry more weight is explained in the article on service pages instead of one combined page, and the right order of sections in the article on home page structure.
- In the first screen of the home page: the two or three services that are now meant to receive enquiries, each with one sentence and a link to its own page.
- In the menu: the same services with the word people search for, so boiler servicing instead of service.
- On each service page: what exactly is done, for whom, within what radius and how quickly an appointment is usually possible - without a fixed deadline.
- A question-and-answer section with the questions that are actually asked on the phone about this service.
- Photos from your own jobs instead of stock images, for repairs ideally with the damage before the work.
- Links to the home page and the contact page with anchor texts that name the service.
For these pages to be found, they have to be written in the language of the people searching. Someone with a leaking gutter does not search for sheet metal work, but for the problem and the place. The words people in your service area use to search, and the question of how a service page becomes visible in local search, are part of what we mean by SEO for tradespeople.
Step 3: Open the enquiry route for smaller jobs
Many enquiry forms in the trades are built for the large project. They ask about budget, building plans, schedule and architect. For someone with a leaking gutter or a sticking patio door this looks like a sign that the business does not take on small things like that. The person then does not write, but calls the next business instead.
Repair and small jobs need a second, shorter route: few fields, a photo upload, a preferred callback time. The photo often replaces the first site visit and turns a vague description into an enquiry that can be assessed. What matters is that this route sits on the service page itself and is not only reachable via the general contact page. Every additional click costs more enquiries for small matters than for large ones.
{
"service": "Repair",
"town": "Peine",
"whatIsBroken": "Gutter leaking, dripping above the front door",
"sinceWhen": "since the last heavy rain",
"photosUploaded": 3,
"timeframe": "within the next two weeks",
"callbackTime": "weekdays from 4 pm"
}The example is deliberately plain. It shows which details make a small enquiry workable and leaves out everything that plays no role for a job of this size. Which fields a form in the trades can carry and which ones let it run dry is covered in the article on enquiry form fields.
Short form
Service, town, a description in one or two sentences and the callback time. A repair enquiry needs no more than that for a first assessment.
Photo upload
Three or four photos of the damage or the component often replace the first trip and make the reply more reliable.
Response time
One sentence on when you usually get back to people - as a guide, not as a promise. That takes the uncertainty out of pressing send.
Minimum scope
If there is a minimum scope or a call-out charge, it is stated alongside. That spares both sides a conversation that leads nowhere.
A second point concerns availability. Anyone placing a small job decides quickly, and anyone who hears nothing for days after sending an enquiry asks elsewhere. How businesses lose calls and enquiries before anyone even picks up is described in the article on why trade businesses lose calls.
Step 4: Check the service area
In busy years, many businesses draw their service area tighter. Anyone who is fully booked does not drive 40 kilometres for a repair. In a slow period the opposite question is worth asking: are there towns where we used to work that no longer appear on the website? Are there services for which a longer journey pays off because the job is large enough? And is the radius we actually cover stated anywhere at all?
The service area belongs in three places: in the text of the service pages, on a page of its own about the area, and in the business profile in map search. According to Bitkom, 94 percent of trade businesses use their own website and 88 percent rely on online directories. Having a website therefore hardly sets anyone apart; the difference arises where website and profile name the same services and the same towns. How to present the area on the page is described in the article on showing your service area.
- The towns you actually cover are named in the text - not just as a postcode in the legal notice.
- For services involving a longer journey, the page states from what job size you travel.
- The business profile names the same services as the website, in the same order.
- The category in the profile matches the service that is now meant to receive enquiries.
- The photos in the profile come from jobs in recent months, not from the year the business was founded.
In a slow period, the business profile is often the quicker lever than the website, because changes there become visible without a rebuild. How we align profile and website is set out on our page about the Google Business Profile. According to Bitkom, 72 percent of businesses also see online customer reviews as a great opportunity to win new jobs and build trust. How to ask for reviews without pressuring customers is covered in the article on collecting reviews in the trades.
Step 5: Count enquiries per month
Whether the changes work can only be said if you count beforehand. Many businesses know roughly how many jobs they invoice per month, but not how many enquiries there were and where they came from. Yet it is exactly this figure that shows whether the website carries weight as an enquiry source or whether the calendar still depends on recommendations alone.
No analytics tool is needed for this. A spreadsheet with five columns is enough, kept by the person who takes enquiries: date, source, service, size and outcome. The source is asked once with every call - How did you find us? - and taken from a drop-down field for form enquiries. After three months there is a picture that is more accurate than any gut feeling.
| Column | What is entered | What it is for |
|---|---|---|
| Date | day of the enquiry | compare enquiries per month |
| Source | recommendation, website, business profile, regular customer, other | see which route brings enquiries |
| Service | the service requested, as it is named on the website | check whether the services moved forward are being asked for |
| Size | small, medium, large by your own classification | see whether the short enquiry route is being used |
| Outcome | quote, job, declined, no response | see which enquiries turn into jobs |
The process behind it is simple and fits any business that keeps an appointment calendar anyway. Only the order matters: count first, then change, then keep counting.
Record a baseline
Count for one month before changing anything on the website. Without this value nothing can be compared later.
Change pages and enquiry route
Move services forward, add the short form, align service area and profile - in one go, not spread over half a year.
Keep counting for three months
Same spreadsheet, same columns. A change usually only shows after a few weeks, because new pages need time in search.
Adjust
Check services that are not asked for despite having their own page: wrong word, wrong town or the wrong service for this area.
Count for one month before changing anything on the website. Without this value nothing can be compared later.
Move services forward, add the short form, align service area and profile - in one go, not spread over half a year.
Same spreadsheet, same columns. A change usually only shows after a few weeks, because new pages need time in search.
Check services that are not asked for despite having their own page: wrong word, wrong town or the wrong service for this area.
Why a spreadsheet is enough
Prepare the price conversation without promising prices
Alongside the order situation, the ZDH report contains a second figure that affects every business: the selling price indicator rises by 8 points to 28 points and is thus at a four-year high. According to the report, the pressure on selling prices is increasing mainly because of rising energy costs and, in part, material costs. At the same time, according to the Bitkom study report, 87 percent of the trade businesses surveyed observe significantly higher price sensitivity among their customers.
Every business knows the result from everyday work: quotes are compared more often, renegotiated or left without a reply. The website cannot conduct this conversation, but it can prepare it. It explains what a price is made up of, what is included in the quote and what is not, and why an on-site survey is sometimes necessary. Anyone who has read this on the page comes into the conversation with different expectations.
- What determines the price of a service: scope, accessibility, materials, disposal, travel.
- How the quote is structured: individual items instead of a lump sum, so that quotes can be compared.
- If guide prices are given, then with the date they apply from and a note that the quote applies after a site visit.
- How additional work is handled that only becomes visible during the job.
- The note on the tax reduction for labour costs in existing buildings, factual and without advice.
Whether prices belong on the website at all is a separate decision that depends on the trade and the type of service. The arguments for and against are set out in the article on showing prices on a trade website.
What does not belong on the page in a slow period
When the website needs rebuilding and when it does not
Most of the steps described can be implemented on an existing website: a new service page, a revised home page, a second form, an aligned profile. A relaunch is only the right route if the website does not allow these changes - if new pages can only be created by a service provider, the form is hard-wired or the site is barely usable on a phone.
A relaunch in a quieter phase has an advantage that is rarely spoken about: it falls into a time when the business has room for photos, copy and coordination. Anyone taking it on should redirect the existing addresses so that the visibility already built up is retained. How we go about it is set out on our page on the trade website relaunch.
- New pages can be created without programming: extending the existing website is enough.
- The form can be extended with fields and a photo upload: extending is enough.
- The site is hard to use on a phone or loads noticeably slowly: consider a relaunch.
- The credentials for domain and hosting are not held by the business: clarify that first, then decide.
- Copy and photos no longer match today's range of services: consider a relaunch.
What it costs and where we start
An additional service page and a second enquiry route are building blocks of the website, not a project of their own. With us, a trade website is built for a fixed price from 1,490 euros net, after which we maintain it from 49 euros per month, with hosting in Germany from 15 euros per month. Both are cancellable monthly, and there is no minimum term. Prices as of September 2026. What is included in maintenance is set out on our pricing page.
If you would like to know which of your services now belong up front on the website, we start with a simple question: which jobs could you additionally take on over the next eight weeks? The answer shows which pages are missing, which enquiry route needs to be opened and what needs adjusting in the business profile.
Sources for this article
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