How much information actually fits above the fold?

Less than most people assume, and more than many trade sites carry. On a mobile phone a main headline with the trade, one line with the town and service area, three to five services, two buttons for call and form plus three short pieces of proof are enough. Together that is rarely more than forty words. Anything further gains nothing and instead displaces one of the four answers.

Does a large picture have to sit at the very top?

No. A picture can help when it shows the actual work rather than a symbolic motif, but it must not obscure the four answers. A calm image as a background or as a narrow band, with text and buttons remaining legible over it, has proven itself. If in doubt, check with the six-second test: if the trade is not named, the text wins and not the picture.

Does the price belong on the home page?

In the trades rarely, because a serious price almost always requires an inspection. What helps is a classification without a figure: a free initial consultation, a fixed price after measuring, travel within the service area at no separate charge. If a price is named it has to hold, and the quote must not turn out surprisingly higher.

Is a single page enough for a small business?

For first contact a well-sorted single page can be enough; for being found in search it usually is not. Anyone who wants to be found for a particular trade and a particular town needs dedicated pages with content of their own. As a start a lean page is still more sensible than an extensive site that never gets finished.

How often should the home page be revised?

The structure usually holds for years when it follows the four questions from the outset. What changes is the content: new services, an extended service area, a changed phone number, current work photos, open positions. A fixed date once a quarter is generally enough; more important than the rhythm is that somebody is actually responsible.

How do I tell whether my home page really produces calls?

Most reliably through two independent observations: the number of calls that begin with a reference to the website, and the number of form enquiries in the same period. Anyone who notes both over three months and then changes the first screen will see the difference. A single good week is not yet a result.

What matters on a trade business website

In short and in plain language

This article is about the home page of your firm. Having a website alone no longer sets you apart. What people see first counts.

This means the part you see without scrolling. It says what you do, where you work, how to reach you and why you.

Your town belongs at the top of the page. Then people see fast if you come to them.

Your phone number belongs at the top of every page. People should be able to tap it on the phone.

We build websites for trade firms at a fixed price.

Somebody who lands on the website of a trade business is rarely looking for entertainment. They have a problem that should have been solved yesterday, and two other businesses are open in other tabs. In that situation a few seconds decide whether they tap the number or go back. 94 per cent (Bitkom 2025) of trade businesses run a website of their own — so having one no longer sets a business apart, while what is visible on it in the first seconds very much does. This article opens our series on the trade website and starts where everything else hangs: the first screen. It shows which four questions have to be answered there, why their order in the trades differs from retail, what has no place between the header and the fold, and how a simple test settles the matter in ten minutes without any tools.

Key takeaways

94 per cent of trade businesses run a website of their own (Bitkom 2025). Having one no longer sets a business apart — the difference is made in the first seconds, when somebody decides whether to call.
Above the fold a trade home page must answer four questions: which trade, which service area, which route to contact, and which reason to call here rather than elsewhere. Everything else can wait.
The town belongs in the header, not the footer. Somebody living outside the service area should see that within seconds instead of writing an enquiry that has to be declined — which costs both sides time.
The phone number belongs in the header of every page as a tappable entry, never inside a graphic and never only on the contact page. On a phone a single tap decides whether first contact happens at all.
Micro-enterprises with fewer than ten people and no more than 2 million euros turnover are exempt from the accessibility obligation of the German Accessibility Strengthening Act when they provide services. Legal notice and privacy policy are unaffected.

Everybody has a website — the first screen makes the difference

In Germany 1,038,126 (ZDH 2025) businesses are entered in the trade registers and in the register of trade-like occupations. Of the businesses surveyed, 94 per cent (Bitkom 2025) run a website of their own and 88 per cent (Bitkom 2025) are listed in online directories. In practice that means: anybody searching within thirty kilometres for an electrical, heating or roofing business does not find one, but a dozen. The question is long past whether a business has a website; it is whether its website does the job it exists for in the first few seconds.

That job is narrowly defined. A trade website does not have to build a brand, tell a story or entertain anyone. It has to move a person who already has a concern into a phone call or an enquiry as quickly as possible. Everything that serves this route belongs at the top. Everything that delays it belongs further down or on a page of its own. This plain sorting rule is the actual subject of this article, and it explains why many handsome trade websites still produce few calls.

The term fold comes from newspapers: what lay above the crease decided the sale at the kiosk. On a screen the fold is where the first view ends without anyone scrolling. On a mobile phone that is roughly six hundred pixels of height depending on the device, and on many trade sites it holds a large photo, a word of welcome and nothing else. The visitor then has to scroll to find out what they are looking at — and some do not scroll, they return to the results list. How a website for a trade business is built instead follows a clear order.

The fold is not a fixed number

There is no screen height that holds for every device. As a working assumption it is enough to take about six hundred pixels as visible on a common mobile phone before anyone swipes. Cutting your home page mentally at that height shows immediately which answers you are leaving the visitor without.

Four questions that have to be answered above the fold

In the first seconds a visitor always asks the same four questions, even if they never say them out loud: What does this business do? Where does it work? How do I reach it? And why should I take this one rather than the next on the list? When all four are answered, a decision follows. When one stays open, a query follows — and nobody answers a query online, they go back one page.

The four answers take no space at all. One sentence for the trade, one line for the area, one button for the call and three short pieces of proof are enough. Whoever spends that space on a stage set pays for it not in design but in calls. In practice this is the most common reason why an elaborate site produces less than a plain but correctly sorted one (from our project experience).

What: the trade in plain words

Not „your reliable partner for everything around the house“, but „electrical work“, „plumbing and heating“ or „roofing and sheet metal work“. The visitor wants to know in one word whether they are in the right place.

Where: town and service area

A town name and a radius, visible without scrolling. That sorts out anyone living too far away — and anyone inside the area gains trust immediately, because they recognise the neighbouring village.

How: the route to first contact

The number as a tappable entry, next to it a second route for everyone who would rather not call. Both belong at the top, not at the end of the page and not inside an image.

Why: proof instead of claims

Master business, year of founding, fault service, number of staff, reviews. Three brief facts carry more weight than a paragraph about a commitment to quality.

Why the order in the trades differs from retail

In retail the route runs through product, price and availability. Location plays no part, because shipping cancels it out, and the decision may take days because nothing is dripping. In the trades almost every one of these assumptions is wrong. Location decides the journey and therefore the margin, a serious price cannot be quoted before an inspection, and the decision is often taken in a situation that allows no time to think.

A different ranking on the home page follows from this. First the trade and the area, because they make the enquiry possible at all, then the route to contact, and only afterwards the reasoning. Whoever reverses this order and opens with mission and company history demands patience the visitor does not have at that moment.

A second difference concerns the device. Enquiries to trade businesses often arise in the evening on a phone, standing up, with one hand. What sits side by side on a large screen sits underneath on a phone, and a visible home page turns into three screen heights. That is why a trade home page is designed on the phone first and only then carried over to the large screen, never the other way round.

First seconds on the page	Usual in retail	Sound in the trades
What is shown first	Product and price	Trade and service area
Most important call to action	Add to basket	Call
Role of location	Secondary, shipping covers everything	A knock-out criterion in the first line
Usual time to decide	Days, comparing several providers	Minutes, often out of an urgent situation
Proof of trust	Reviews of the individual item	Master business, trade, work from the region
Second route	Newsletter and repeat visits	Short form with a callback request

Question one: what does this business do

The most common weakness on trade websites is the headline that wants to say everything and therefore says nothing. „Your reliable partner in every situation“ fits an undertaker as well as a tiler. The visitor reads it and afterwards knows no more than before. The headline of a home page has a single job: to name the trade, in the words a customer would use.

Below it belong the three to five services that carry the turnover — not the full catalogue. An electrical business names installation, solar, charging points and the fault service; the statutory inspection can sit a line further down. The full scope belongs on dedicated service pages that also stand a chance in search results.

The trade appears as a word in the main headline, not only in the logo or the page title.
The headline works when read aloud: a stranger understands the subject after one sentence.
Three to five load-bearing services sit visibly below it, without a drop-down menu.
Technical terms appear only where customers use them themselves; everything else is translated.
No sentence begins with „we are“ while it is still unclear what the business does.
There is exactly one main headline on the page, not a second one of the same size.

Question two: where does this business work

In the trades location is not a marginal detail but a decision taken in advance. A business based in Söhlde drives to Hildesheim, Peine and Salzgitter, but rarely to Göttingen. If that is stated nowhere, the visitor has to guess — and they guess in their own favour, write an enquiry and receive a refusal. That costs them a week and the business a reply that helps nobody.

Two pieces of information are enough in practice: the base and the radius, both in one line below the main headline. Anyone wanting to show a map is better off leaving out embedded map services and writing out the place names instead — that saves data, loads faster and is even clearer for search engines. The full list of towns belongs on a page of its own about the service area, not on the home page.

The town in the footer is too late

On many trade websites the location appears only in the legal notice or right at the bottom next to the postal address. Anyone who has to scroll that far has already decided. The town name belongs at the same screen height as the trade, and it may well appear twice — once in the subtitle and once in the header next to the phone number.

Question three: how do I reach somebody

85 per cent (Bitkom 2025) of the businesses surveyed report that customers expect constant availability. A trade business cannot meet that expectation while standing on a roof — but its website can make the route to contact so short that trying costs no effort. In concrete terms: the phone number as a tappable entry in the header of every page, not as text inside a graphic and not written with spaces a phone cannot read.

Besides the call there has to be a second route for everyone who would rather not phone or who writes at eleven in the evening. A short form with the concern, the town and a callback request is enough; every additional mandatory field costs enquiries. What matters is an honest statement of when an answer will come. A sentence such as „we usually reply on the next working day“ prevents more chasing calls than any styling.

The same space should carry what applies in an emergency. A fault or emergency service that appears only on the third sub-page does not exist for the visitor with water in the cellar. A business that offers no emergency service writes that down as well — it saves calls at unwelcome hours and looks more serious than silence.

One tap, not three

First contact on a phone should begin with a single tap. Tap the number, it rings — with no contact page in between, no menu, no form as the only route. Every extra step costs a share of the callers, and in the trades the call is usually the most valuable first contact, because it is settled within the same conversation (from our project experience).

Question four: why this business in particular

74 per cent (Bitkom 2025) of the businesses surveyed find that customers have become more critical. Critical here does not mean suspicious but examining: people compare, read and check before they call. That is exactly what the first screen needs proof for — short, verifiable facts instead of adjectives. A sentence about reliability convinces nobody; a year of founding and a master craftsman title do.

72 per cent (Bitkom 2025) of the businesses surveyed see online customer reviews as a major opportunity to win work and build trust. Reviews therefore belong at the top as a count and an average, not as selected quotes. Where the reviews come from matters less, as long as they are genuine and the visitor can read them at the source. Which details still need clarifying is best settled in a short conversation via our contact page.

Year of founding or number of generations — a number, not an adjective.
Master business, guild membership, entry in the trade register.
Number of staff, where it matches the size of job the business wants.
Review average and count, linked to the source rather than typed out.
One or two genuine photos of work from your own area instead of stock motifs.
Details of the emergency service or the usual response time, provided they are kept.

A visitor believes no quality a business attributes to itself — but they do believe a year, a title and a photo from the building site next door.

Guiding principle for proof of trust on trade websites

What has no place above the fold

The space above the fold is the scarcest area of the whole website, and yet many trade sites put the opposite of what the visitor needs there. The most common space-eaters are quickly named and can be removed in half an hour, often without any loss to the design. Good pictures lose nothing by sitting one screen height lower — they are then even looked at more often, because by that point the visitor has actually made a decision.

Particularly expensive are elements that cost not only space but time: large films, automatic image sequences and fonts from external sources delay the build-up of the page. Anyone on a mobile network out in the district then stares at an empty area for seconds. As a target for the largest visible element a load time under 2.5 seconds applies; anything beyond that loses visitors before the content is read at all. Which pictures are worth the space is covered on our services page.

Automatic image sequences: they show one after another what should be visible at once, and are rarely watched to the end.
Welcome text without content: „welcome to our homepage“ costs a line and answers none of the four questions.
Large quote areas with a mission statement: that belongs on the page about the business, not in the first screen height.
Consent windows that cover the content: a site that manages without third-party services often needs no such window at all.
Films that start by themselves: they cost data, delay the build-up and say less than a good still image.
Price lists without context: figures without a description of the work create queries rather than trust.

Delete first, design second

Before redesigning a home page the reverse exercise pays off: delete everything that does not belong to one of the four questions. What remains is almost always less than what stood there before — and it usually reads better.

The test: six seconds on somebody else's phone

You cannot check your own home page with your own eyes, because you know what it says. The following test takes ten minutes, needs no tools and produces a result you can work with. It works with any person who does not know the business — neighbours, relatives, a customer in the waiting area.

Discipline about the time matters. Six seconds feel very short when you watch, but they match roughly what a visitor spends before moving on. Whoever relents and grants ten or fifteen seconds is no longer measuring the home page but the politeness of the test person.

Step 1

Somebody else's phone, cold start

Open your home page on a device that has never been on the site, over mobile data rather than the office network. Only then does it show how long the build-up really takes and what appears first.

Technology and obligations that carry the four answers

The four answers are of little use if the page shows them too late or falls apart on a phone. Three technical points carry the rest: a layout designed for narrow screens, a loading behaviour without heavy external parts, and buttons a thumb can hit. Around 44 by 44 pixels has proven itself as a guide for tappable elements; below that a phone usually becomes unreliable. Whether that is achieved with a website builder or with a supported solution is a decision of its own — our services page sets out what is included.

Legally two things are indispensable on every page: a complete legal notice under section 5 DDG and a privacy policy that matches what the site actually does. Both must be reachable from every page, usually through the footer. Anyone running a contact form should also settle how long enquiries are kept. These points are to be clarified factually and, in case of doubt, examined for the individual case by a lawyer; this article does not replace legal advice.

Accessibility: what the act requires of whom

The German Accessibility Strengthening Act exempts micro-enterprises that offer or provide services from the accessibility obligation. Under section 2 no. 17 of the act a micro-enterprise is a business with fewer than ten people and an annual turnover or balance sheet total of no more than 2 million euros. Many trade businesses fall into that group. That is no reason for an unusable site, though: sufficient contrast, operation by keyboard and legible type sizes cost nothing extra and help every visitor. How the case falls in detail remains a question for professional review.

What it costs and what comes afterwards

A website for a trade business is a fixed-price service with us from 1,490 euros net; a relaunch of an existing site starts at 2,900 euros net. For the running site there is website support from 49 euros per month and hosting in Germany from 15 euros per month, both cancellable monthly, with no minimum term. Anyone who also wants to work on visibility will find local visibility from 290 euros per month and search support from 490 euros per month, likewise cancellable monthly, with no minimum term. The full list is available on request via our contact page.

More important than the amount is the order of the work. The first screen is put right first, because it decides every further click. After that come the service pages per trade, then the service area, then the careers page. That order is also the plan for this series: the next articles take on the individual page types, each with the same four questions in the background.

This article is based on data from: Bitkom, Digitalisation of the trades — study 2025; German Confederation of Skilled Crafts, key figures of the skilled crafts (as of 2025); German Accessibility Strengthening Act, section 2 no. 17 and section 3 para. 3.

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