In short and in plain language
Nearly every visitor sees your homepage. Many read it on a phone, from top to bottom. That is why the order matters.
Your phone number goes right at the top. People can tap it to call. It stays in view as they scroll.
Then come your services, your area, examples of work, your business and the enquiry. Each part is short. It leads on to its own page.
Show your own photos from your own area. A few good pictures do more than a big gallery.
Say where you work. Then fewer people call from too far away. We build your website at a fixed price.
The homepage is the one page nearly every visitor sees — the neighbour looking for a number, the client comparing three businesses, and the journeyman wondering whether an application is worth writing. All three arrive with different questions and read from top to bottom, on a phone, in a single column, with a thumb. What sits at the top gets read; what sits at the bottom often does not. So it is not the amount of content that decides whether a trade homepage works, but the order of the sections and the length of each individual floor. This article walks the homepage from top to bottom: seven floors, each with what belongs on it, a note on its length, and the mistake that happens most often in exactly that spot. At the end comes the difference between a homepage that explains everything and one that passes people on.
Key takeaways
- The homepage of a trade business carries seven floors: header with phone number, opening, services, service area, examples of work, the business, and the enquiry — in exactly that order from top to bottom.
- The phone number belongs in the header as a tap-to-call link and stays visible while scrolling. Hidden away in the legal notice it costs calls, because nobody goes looking for it at half past seven in the evening.
- A homepage that passes people on answers one question per section in a few sentences and links to the relevant page. One that explains everything writes it all out and turns into an endless scroll on a phone.
- Examples of work only carry weight with your own photographs from your own service area: a manageable selection with short captions goes further than a large gallery of stock motifs with no link to the business.
- The service area belongs on the homepage because travel eats the margin. A stated radius and a list of the towns served save calls from distances the business would turn down anyway.
The homepage is a signpost, not a brochure
A website of one's own has long been the norm in the trades: 94 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses run one, and with 1.038.126 (ZDH 2025) businesses registered in Germany that means a prospective customer in almost any town can put several sites side by side. So the difference no longer comes from whether a website exists, but from how quickly it answers the questions somebody opened it with. That is precisely the job of the homepage.
A homepage has three jobs, and only three. First: make clear within a few seconds which trade works here and in what area. Second: take the visitor to the page that matches their question — a service, the service area, past work, a vacancy. Third: offer a way to get in touch before anyone has to search for one. Everything else is a bonus. Arrange those three jobs in the wrong order and you lose visitors not to a competitor, but to the middle of your own page.
The second reason for a fixed order lies in the device. On a phone every floor is stacked one below the other: what sat side by side on a screen sits in sequence there. A three-column section becomes three full screen heights. Anyone who plans the homepage on a large screen and only then looks at a phone is planning around the device on which most enquiries begin. More on the basic structure of a trade website is on our services page.
Top to bottom, not left to right
Floor one: the header with the phone number
Four things belong at the very top and no more: the business name or logo, a short note on trade and town, the phone number as a tap-to-call link, and a menu with only a few items. The number is not decoration but the shortest route to a job. 85 percent (Bitkom 2025) of businesses report that customers expect constant availability — and someone standing in their own kitchen at half past seven in front of a dripping radiator does not look for a contact page, they tap a number.
In technical terms that means the number sits as text in the header, is set up as a call link, and stays visible while scrolling or returns as a slim bar. It is not baked into a graphic, because then it cannot be tapped. Next to the number belongs a statement of availability that is true: a business reachable until 5 pm writes 5 pm, not around the clock.
The most common mistake on this floor is a menu that fills half the screen with fourteen items, and a phone number that only appears in the legal notice. The second most common is a header that keeps a third of the phone's height while scrolling — the visitor then reads the rest of the page through a letterbox slot. The header bar of a trade business may be slim; it only has to carry the number.
- Business name or logo on the left, phone number on the right, both recognisable without searching
- Number set up as a call link, not as an image and not only in the footer
- Trade and town in one line under or beside the name, for example electrical work in Söhlde and the surrounding area
- Menu limited to a few items, everything else moved into the footer
- Slim header bar while scrolling, taking up only a small part of the screen height
- Availability hours beside the number, with the hours that actually apply in the business
Floor two: the opening that answers in five seconds
Directly below the header lies the first screen. It answers three questions: what this business does, where it works, and how to reach it. A headline, one explanatory sentence and two buttons — call and write an enquiry — are enough for that. Anyone who puts a paragraph about company philosophy here is giving away the one area practically every visitor sees.
The headline contains the trade and the town, because together they carry the decision. Plumbing, heating and bathrooms in Söhlde and the Hildesheim district says more in eight words than any formula about quality and tradition. The sentence below it names the service that brings in the most revenue, or the case that is most urgent — storm damage for a roofer, a January breakdown for a heating engineer. How this level looks in design terms is covered on our services page.
Headline with trade and town
One short line naming the trade and the main town. It is also the only main heading on the page and therefore the most important line for search engines as well.
One sentence of context
What the business does, for whom and since when. A few lines, no bullet list, no chain of adjectives. This sentence spares the visitor the question of whether they are in the right place.
Call button
Large enough for a thumb, with the number written out rather than just a symbol. Beside it the hours when somebody answers, so nobody dials into the void.
Enquiry button
The second route for everyone who would rather not phone. It leads to the form further down the same page or to the contact page, not to a bare email address.
Line of proof
Master craftsman status, guild membership, year of founding, number of staff. A few brief details that can be checked, instead of general statements about reliability.
Your own picture, not a stock motif
A photo of your own van, your own workshop or one of your own sites. It need not be perfect, but it has to be the business and not a purchased motif.
Floor three: the services overview in tiles
The third floor is the junction. It shows in tiles what the business does and leads from each tile to a service page of its own. The number of tiles follows the service areas; they should fill the grid completely and be taken in on a phone within a few swipes. Too many tiles dilute the junction, too few waste it as soon as the business covers several areas.
Each tile consists of a title, a few lines of explanation and a link. Nothing more. Those lines decide whether somebody clicks through, so they name concrete work rather than umbrella terms: not electrical installation, but consumer unit, charging point, testing of portable appliances. 89 percent (Bitkom 2025) of businesses report that customers expect individual offers — a tile that names only the umbrella term reads, against that expectation, like an off-the-shelf catalogue.
The most common mistake on this floor is completeness. Businesses list everything they could theoretically do and end up with fourteen items in a bullet list without links. The second most common is the tile that goes nowhere: it looks like a link, leads nowhere, and the visitor clicks twice before giving up. Which service pages make sense per trade is set out on our services page.
| Tile | Weak version | Version that carries |
|---|---|---|
| Title | Electrical installation | Consumer unit and service connection |
| Explanation | We offer you all services around electrical work | Replacement, metering position to current standards, registration with the network operator |
| Scope | Fourteen items in a bullet list with no links | One tile per service area, each with a service page of its own |
| Destination | Tile leads back to the homepage | Tile leads to the service page with process and price range |
| Image | One symbol from a set, the same for every tile | One symbol per tile that makes the service distinguishable |
| Order | Sorted alphabetically | Sorted by share of revenue, the most frequent service first |
Floor four: the service area, before anyone calls in vain
In the trades the radius decides the margin. An enquiry from eighty kilometres away costs half a day of travel before the first screw is turned. That is why the service area belongs on the homepage and not on a subpage nobody opens: one sentence with the radius, a list of the main towns, plus a note that work beyond that is possible on request.
The list of towns has a second use. 88 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses are listed in online directories, and the details there should match those on the website — same business name, same address, same number. Keeping the list of towns up to date on the homepage also produces the template for those entries. How that fits together is covered on our services page.
A map only with consent, a list of towns always
Floor five: examples of work that sell the job
The fifth floor decides whether interest becomes an enquiry. A manageable number of your own photographs is enough: one finished job per service area, plus before-and-after pairs where the trade allows it. Every picture gets a caption with town, trade and one distinguishing detail — roof covering in Söhlde, above-rafter insulation on an occupied house. That line does more than the picture alone, because it establishes the link to your own area.
The reason for this floor is in the figures: 74 percent (Bitkom 2025) of businesses find that customers have become more critical, and 72 percent (Bitkom 2025) see online customer reviews as a great opportunity to win new work and build trust. Anyone examining a business critically is looking for evidence. A purchased motif of a gleaming show kitchen is not evidence. A slightly crooked photo of your own site with an explanatory line is.
The most common mistake is a gallery of forty pictures with no order, no captions and no connection. The second most common is motifs from stock libraries that hang in exactly the same way on twenty other trade websites in the same region. What matters in your own photographs, and how they succeed with a phone, is covered on our services page.
- A selection of pictures on the homepage, the full collection on a dedicated portfolio page
- One line per picture with town, trade and what was distinctive about the job
- Before-and-after only from the same viewpoint, otherwise the comparison looks arbitrary
- No customer names and no addresses without written agreement from the client
- Deliver pictures at web size so the page stands in under two and a half seconds on a mobile network
- Give every picture a descriptive alternative text so it can also be read aloud
A homepage that explains everything forces every visitor through text that was written for somebody else.
Floor six: the business and the people behind it
The sixth floor is short and still often becomes the longest. It needs three sentences: how long the business has existed, who runs it, how many people work there. Plus a picture — the team in front of the van, the master craftsman in the workshop — and a link to the detailed page about the business. The homepage carries no more than that here, because by this point the visitor already knows whether they want to call.
This floor has a second audience that many businesses underestimate. 75 percent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses see the shortage of skilled workers as a central problem, and 80 percent (Bitkom 2025) use digital channels to address young talent directly. A business with vacancies puts a line here linking to the vacancies page — not hidden in the footer, but where the business is being talked about anyway. What belongs on a vacancies page is covered on our services page.
The most common mistake on this floor is mission-statement prose: three paragraphs about values, tradition and closeness to customers that appear in the same form on every second trade website. The second most common is a group photo on which half the workforce no longer works there. A current, simple picture beats an old, elaborate one.
Three sentences, one picture, one link
Floor seven: the enquiry at the end of the page
The last floor takes the enquiry. It consists of three parts: a short form with only a few fields, the phone number with availability hours, and the postal address of the business. The fields are name, way of getting in touch, town, matter at hand and one free field. Everything else is settled faster by a call back than any form could manage. A sentence underneath says what happens next and within what period somebody replies.
Usability includes one point many notice late. Under the German Accessibility Strengthening Act, a micro-enterprise is one that employs fewer than ten people (BFSG) and reaches at most two million euros in annual turnover or annual balance sheet total; such businesses are exempt from the accessibility obligation when offering or providing services. That is not an exemption from the legal notice and privacy policy, and no licence for a form that cannot be filled in with a keyboard. For an individual case, legal review remains the right route.
The number appears at the bottom too
Explaining and signposting homepages compared
There are two ways to build. The explaining homepage writes out every service, tells the company history and answers frequent questions — all on one page. The signposting homepage answers one question per section in a few sentences and sends the visitor to the appropriate subpage. Both have their place, but they suit different businesses.
As a rule of thumb: a business with one clearly defined service and a service area of a few towns manages with an explaining homepage. As soon as several trades, several towns or several audiences come into play — private customers, property managers, applicants — the explaining homepage turns into an endless scroll. Then only the signpost carries. With an existing site that is often the trigger for a relaunch, which we cover on our services page.
| Floor | Explaining homepage | Signposting homepage |
|---|---|---|
| Services | Every service written out in full on the homepage | Tiles with a few lines each and a page of their own |
| Service area | A detailed section on every town | One sentence, a list of towns, links to the location pages |
| Examples of work | Complete gallery with every project | A selection of pictures, the rest on the portfolio page |
| The business | Company history across several paragraphs | Three sentences and a link to the page about the business |
| Length | Many screen heights on a phone | A few screen heights on a phone |
| Suits | One trade, few towns, one audience | Several trades, several towns, applicants as well |
How long each floor may be
Length is hard to measure in words, but easy to measure in screen heights on a phone. A good trade homepage gets by with only a few of them — a few swipes and you reach the form. Anything beyond that has usually built one floor twice, or pulled a subpage onto the homepage.
- Header: one line, reduced to a slim bar while scrolling
- Opening: one headline, a few lines of text, two buttons, one picture
- Services: one tile per area, each with a title and a few lines
- Service area: one sentence, a short list of towns
- Examples of work: a selection of your own pictures, each with one caption line
- The business: three sentences, one picture, and a line on vacancies where relevant
- Enquiry: a few form fields, phone number, postal address, one sentence on response time
The second measurement is loading time. A homepage with seven floors and nine pictures can easily weigh several megabytes if the shots come straight out of the camera. On a rural mobile network that is the difference between a page that stands in under two and a half seconds and one the visitor closes. Pictures belong at web size before they go in, delivered in a modern format.
Building the order: a five-step approach
Building a homepage does not begin in a design tool but with a list. Writing down in advance which question each floor answers avoids the later discussions about whether the portfolio belongs before or after the team. The order then follows from the questions rather than from taste.
The approach below has proved itself with trade businesses coming from an old site or having one built for the first time. It costs some preparation in the business and saves rounds of corrections afterwards (project experience).
Collect questions, not sections
Write down ten questions most often asked on the phone in the business. Do you do that as well? Do you come out to us? Roughly what does it cost? When could you come? Those questions are the floors of the homepage, just not yet in order.
Sort the questions by urgency
Which question has to be answered before anybody reads on? As a rule that is trade and town, then the service, then the area. That order is the order of the sections from top to bottom.
Give each floor one destination
Every floor gets exactly one destination: call, click through, or fill in the form. A floor without a destination is decoration and can go. Two destinations on one floor split the attention and work less well than one.
Fix the length before the text is written
Set the permitted length per floor in advance, in lines, sentences or tiles. Text written later otherwise fills whatever room it is given. Setting the limit beforehand saves cutting afterwards.
Proofread on a phone
The last step does not happen on a monitor but on the device most visitors arrive with. If it takes more than a few swipes to reach the form, shorten a floor. After that, two people from the business who did not write the text read it through.
Write down ten questions most often asked on the phone in the business. Do you do that as well? Do you come out to us? Roughly what does it cost? When could you come? Those questions are the floors of the homepage, just not yet in order.
Which question has to be answered before anybody reads on? As a rule that is trade and town, then the service, then the area. That order is the order of the sections from top to bottom.
Every floor gets exactly one destination: call, click through, or fill in the form. A floor without a destination is decoration and can go. Two destinations on one floor split the attention and work less well than one.
Set the permitted length per floor in advance, in lines, sentences or tiles. Text written later otherwise fills whatever room it is given. Setting the limit beforehand saves cutting afterwards.
The last step does not happen on a monitor but on the device most visitors arrive with. If it takes more than a few swipes to reach the form, shorten a floor. After that, two people from the business who did not write the text read it through.
What the homepage costs and who maintains it afterwards
A website for a trade business is available from us at a fixed price from 1,490 euros net, a relaunch of an existing site from 2,900 euros net. That covers building the homepage with the floors described, the service pages per trade and the legally required pages. The full breakdown is on our services page.
After the build comes the upkeep. Website care starts at 49 euros per month, cancellable monthly, with no minimum term; hosting in Germany from 15 euros per month, cancellable monthly, with no minimum term. For the homepage, upkeep mainly means adding new examples of work, keeping availability hours current, and showing or hiding vacancies. What comes up on an ongoing basis is covered on our services page.
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