Can I put you in front of my client
The first question a main contractor asks is whether your paperwork will survive their client's scrutiny. Certification, insurance and method statements are read before capability.
For contractors who win work by tender, not by van livery
A commercial installer with ISO certification, scheme membership, certified designers and project managers is selling to a buyer who reads all of that before they read anything about capability. Most contractor websites have nowhere to put it, so they end up looking like a sole trader with a website, and getting priced like one.
- Bespoke builds from £3,900
- Survey first, no published price
- One commercial installer built
- Cabling, security, fire, fit-out
What I have actually done in this sector
One commercial infrastructure installer working across London and the South East. Accreditation and certification held as structured content rather than a badge strip, services organised by what a buyer procures and then by the sector they procure it for, a survey-first enquiry path with no published pricing, and area coverage built so each page has something real to say.
One client. I was the developer on it during four years at a web studio in East Sussex, so the build predates Kestrel. I have deliberately not listed that company’s certifications here: they lapse and renew, and a stale certificate quoted on a third party’s marketing site is worse than no claim at all.
How the buyer actually reads your site
Three questions, in this order, before anyone looks at a photograph of an installation.
Have you done this exact thing
Not web design terms. A hospital, a school, a listed building, a live trading floor. Sector experience is the shortlist filter and it is usually buried.
Who is actually doing the work
Directly employed teams or subcontracted, who designs it, who manages it, and what happens when the programme slips. Named roles beat a stock photo of a hard hat.
What a trades template cannot do
01
Hold a certificate as data
A number, a scope and an expiry date, held as fields rather than baked into a logo strip. That way a lapsed certificate is visibly lapsed, and the reader can check rather than trust.
02
Separate procurement from marketing
A facilities manager and a main contractor's buyer want different documents in a different order from a business owner. A template has one about page and one contact form.
03
Carry chartered and scheme credentials properly
Designers with professional certification and project managers with a recognised methodology are the reason a tender gets shortlisted. On most contractor sites they appear, if at all, as a sentence.
04
Do service by sector
Cabling in a data centre and access control in a school are different reads with different compliance context. One combined services page serves neither.
05
Make a survey the obvious next step
Commercial work is scoped, so the conversion is a site visit rather than a price. That is a different call to action from a quote form, and it needs to cost the reader nothing.
06
Cover a region without forty thin pages
Coverage claimed is not coverage earned. A page per town only works where there is something true to write about that town, which is a discipline rather than a feature.
The one sector where I say do not publish prices
I publish my own rates and argue for it on nearly every other page of this site. Commercial installation is the exception. The work is surveyed and scoped, a number without a site visit is meaningless, and a published day rate invites exactly the enquiries a commercial installer does not want.
What replaces it is a survey that costs the reader nothing and is obviously the next step. That is a different conversion from a quote form and the page has to be built for it: the survey is the offer, the accreditations are the reassurance, and the sector pages are the proof you have done this exact thing before.
On covering a region
Contractors work across counties and the temptation is a page per town with the name swapped. Search engines have penalised that for years and a buyer can spot it in one scroll. Forty thin pages do not demonstrate coverage; they demonstrate that nothing on the site was written for anywhere in particular.
I care about this enough to have built a tool for it: a WordPress plugin that generates service-area pages from a blueprint, scores each one against thin-content rules, and refuses to publish anything below the threshold. You can try that mechanism on the work page. It is the same discipline applied to your coverage claim.
What to read next
The build itself is a bespoke site; anything that has to talk to a CRM or job-management system is a web app. Figures are on pricing, the service-area gate is the plugin on the work page, and the other sectors I have built for are listed together.
Questions people actually ask
Why not just use a trades website template?
Because it prices you like a sole trader with a van. A commercial installer with ISO certification, a scheme membership, chartered designers and project managers is selling to a buyer who reads all of that before they read anything else, and a template has nowhere to put it. The mismatch costs tenders.
Where do accreditations belong?
Structured, current, and near the top rather than on a badge strip in the footer. Each one wants its number, its scope and its expiry held as data so it can be checked and so a lapsed certificate is visibly a lapsed certificate. A procurement reader who spots one out of date stops reading, and that is the correct response.
Should we publish prices?
Usually not, and this is the one sector where I say that. Commercial installation is surveyed and scoped, so a number without a site visit is meaningless and invites the wrong enquiries. What replaces it is a survey-first path that makes the next step obvious and costs the reader nothing.
How should the service pages be organised?
By what the buyer is procuring, then by sector, then by geography, and only where each page has something real to say. A facilities manager searching for structured cabling in a data centre and one searching for access control in a school are different readers, and one combined services page serves neither.
We work across several counties. Does that mean a page per town?
Only where there is something true to write about that town. Forty thin location pages is a pattern search engines have penalised for years, which is exactly why I built a plugin that scores a page against thin-content rules and refuses to publish it below a threshold. Coverage claimed is not coverage earned.
How many contractors have you built for?
One, a commercial infrastructure installer working across London and the South East. One client is one client, and I would rather write that than imply a specialism. The accreditation structure, the service-by-sector shape and the survey funnel all come from that build.
What does it cost?
A bespoke site with service-by-sector structure and a survey path is £3,900. Add a service-area matrix built properly and it moves toward the upper bespoke figure. Anything that needs to talk to a CRM or a job-management system is a web app and starts with paid discovery at £950.
Tell me what you install and who you install it for.
Get a quote in four questions
hello@madebykestrel.co.uk · replies inside one working day
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Your deviceLCPMeasuring…
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How long until the main content appears. Google wants under 2.5 seconds.
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How quickly the page answers when you tap. Under 200ms is the target.
CLSMeasuring…
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How much the layout moves while loading. Under 0.1, ideally zero.
Real numbers from your device and connection, not a screenshot of a score I chose. Nothing is sent anywhere. The measurement happens in your browser and stays there. If one of these ever reads amber on my own site, you will see it, which is rather the point. I audit these for £650.