Construction website design starts with the first thirty seconds
Two people arrive on your site. One was referred by an architect and is checking whether you are the real thing. The other found a guide about sloping blocks and is still deciding whether their project is possible at all. Both want the same three facts straight away: what you build, where you build it, and what happens if they make contact.
Most builder home pages supply none of them. “Quality craftsmanship, delivered on time” is true of everyone holding a licence. “Custom homes and large renovations on established blocks in Brisbane’s inner south, from around $900k” is true of you. Half the visitors will leave. The right half will stay.
Put the proof next to the claim. The licensed name and QBCC licence number, which Queensland advertising rules require of you anyway. Named reviews rather than initials. Awards with the year and the category. A photograph of a difficult detail with one sentence explaining how it was solved.
The pages, in order of how hard they work
A builder’s site can be eight pages and outsell a forty-page one. Give every page a job and be able to name the decision a reader can make after reading it. If you cannot name that decision, delete the page.
- Process. What happens before you give a price, what you need from the owner, when design, estimating and construction decisions are made, and what any paid preliminary stage costs. Flascon publishes eight steps with the deposit and the construction start timing stated plainly.
- Projects. The brief, the site constraint, your scope and the response. The area, the photography credit, and whether you ran design and construct or built from an architect’s documentation.
- The enquiry. Not a contact form.
- Services. One page for each kind of work that needs different proof: knock-down rebuilds, challenging sites, renovations. Not one page per suburb.
- About and proof. The people who will be on site, the licence, HIA or Master Builders membership if you hold it, and awards named accurately.
- Careers. A builder’s website has to hire as well as sell.
An enquiry that qualifies beats a contact form
A blank message box asks a nervous person to compose an essay and tells you nothing before you ring back. Replace it. Flascon’s site leads with a free four-step site feasibility check: the project type, the block, the budget, the timing, and then the person.
People finish it because the trade runs both ways. They get a phone consultation, an information pack and a straight answer about whether the budget suits the block. You get enough to know, before you give up a Saturday morning to a site visit, whether it is a job you want. Fewer enquiries arrive and more of them are worth having.
Ask only for what you will use, and say why you want it. Do not demand a survey or a soil test from a family who settled on the block three weeks ago; give them a way to say they do not know yet. Confirm the enquiry on screen, name who will call and by when, and test from a phone that the email lands in an inbox somebody watches.
Photography: shoot every job, not just the finished one
Most builders own one folder of hero shots from a professional and nothing else. That folder cannot explain a sloping site, a narrow block or a retained facade, which are the things a prospective client is worried about. Take the extra frames while the crane is still there.
Shoot the levels on a sloping site. Shoot the side setback on a narrow block. Shoot the junction between old and new on a renovation, and one honest progress photo per stage. Get a wide frame and an upright one of each, and note what every image is meant to demonstrate so whoever writes the page knows what to say about it.
Settle usage rights and credits before the files go into the build. Then describe each image in plain words in the alt text, on a page whose surrounding copy gives it context. Google reads images largely through the page around them, and so does anyone using a screen reader.
Templates or custom: what you actually give up
A construction website template is a sensible base for a small builder with a clear scope and good words. What you give up is fit. Templates have firm opinions about how a project page works, and those opinions were usually written for a photographer or an interior designer.
Before you buy, make the supplier put one of your real projects into the proposed template: the full brief, ten images, the constraint, the credits. If it takes three workarounds to fit, the cheap start is the expensive option.
Custom design earns its money when you need something a template cannot do: separate pathways for different project types, a feasibility check that branches, a portfolio of twenty-five projects that has to stay filterable. It does not earn its money by making your office ring a developer to add a photo. Ask to be shown how you will publish the next completed home, then do it yourself while they watch.
What a builder’s website costs in Australia
Three bands, from our own research on the Australian market. $2,500 to $8,000 buys a tightly scoped freelancer build, usually with you supplying the words. $6,000 to $15,000 buys a boutique project with interviews, written project stories and a real enquiry process. $15,000 to $40,000 buys a larger custom engagement. Brisbane trades a little under Sydney and Melbourne, and GST, copywriting and photography are often quoted separately.
The bands overlap, so compare scope rather than headline numbers. Chillybin’s Brisbane page advertises custom WordPress sites from $6,000, which tells you where a starting price sits and nothing about what your finished site would cost. An $8,000 quote covering interviews, six written project pages and redirects from your old addresses beats a $5,000 quote where you write everything and every change is billed.
Give two suppliers the same list and make them price the same thing: how many project stories, who writes them, how many revisions, image preparation, redirects, the enquiry, training and launch support. Add twelve months of hosting, licences, maintenance and the edits you know you will want. Ask who owns the site and how you would export it. A monthly plan you cannot leave with your own website deserves a flat no.
Frequently asked questions
Do builders need a website? Yes, even when every job comes by referral, because a referral goes to your website to be confirmed or quietly lost. A referred owner will search your name before they ring. Three-year-old projects and no reviews will cost you the job without you ever finding out why.
What should a builder’s website include? What you build and where, a process page explaining what happens before a price, project pages with the brief and constraint written down, the people and credentials including the QBCC licence number, current named reviews, and an enquiry that asks about the block and the budget.
How much does a website cost for a construction company? Around $2,500 to $8,000 from a freelancer, $6,000 to $15,000 from a boutique studio and $15,000 to $40,000 for a larger custom build. Confirm whether copy, photography, migration and GST sit inside the number, because that is where two quotes for the same site diverge.
Where to start this month
None of this needs a rebuild to begin.
- Open your own site on a phone and try to enquire. Time how long it takes to learn what you build and where.
- Pick the three projects closest to the work you want next, and gather the photos, permissions, credits and brief for each.
- Write the process from first call to construction start, including any paid preliminary stage and the deposit.
- Replace the contact form with four questions: project type, block, budget range, timing. Then test that it delivers.
- Add the licensed name, QBCC licence number, named reviews and awards to the home page.
- Send two suppliers the same page list and ask for the full first-year cost and the handover terms.