Cheap site, free site, custom site: what I told a plumber who called me on July 14

I'm writing this as someone who sells websites, so take it with the appropriate pinch of salt.

He called me on July 14, just before seven, while I was still on my coffee. A plumber, some thirty kilometres outside Sibiu. He'd got my number from a mutual client who'd recommended us a bit too enthusiastically. What bothered him was that his site — built himself, on a free platform, about two years ago — "doesn't bring anything in".

I opened it while we talked. It honestly wasn't bad. Photos from real jobs, not stock. Phone number up top, big. Services written in his own words, comma mistakes included, plus "we install in winter too", which probably sells better than anything we'd have written.

Two things made me stop: the address had the platform's name in it, and when I searched his company by name on Google, the first result was a business directory page, not his site.

I told him not to change anything yet.

What I asked him

Three things, on pretty much every call like this:

1. Have you ever paid for traffic to the site, or do you plan to in the coming months?
2. When a new client searches for you by name on Google, do they find you or something else?
3. If a price on the site has to change tomorrow, who makes the edit and how fast?

His answers: "no", "no" and "me, when I have time".

With those answers, a custom site solves nothing for him. His jobs come from referrals, the site does the job of a business card and does it well. The only thing that struck me as worth money was the domain: getting the company name into the address instead of the platform's, so Google doesn't get confused when people search for him. That's all I recommended. He came back three weeks later to ask how you connect a domain, I explained it on the phone, free, and that was the end of it.

The table, with the awkward rows first

The first two rows are good reasons not to work with us. I put them first because those are exactly the objections that come up on the phone and there's no point dodging them.

What "free" actually includes

An editor, hosting with limits, a subdomain of the platform. What you pay monthly, depending on the platform: the domain, removing their ad, forms that send email properly, sometimes access to the tracking code for ads. I haven't catalogued them all and they change their plans from one year to the next anyway — check your platform's pricing page, not my article.

(What annoyed me last time I went into two of them: they've stuffed AI everywhere, in the editor, in the copy, in the images. Nothing to do with what you pay, but it took me ten minutes to find the button I was looking for. Their business.)

For someone testing an idea this month, the free option is fine. I've recommended it a few times, including to people who had asked us for a quote.

Where the saved money goes

Mostly into hours. A site you maintain yourself is never finished — you move a section, the phone layout breaks, you fix it. The plumber told me he lost two evenings on a form that wasn't sending him anything. I don't know whether it was the platform or an unchecked box. The hours were his either way.

The Google part is messier than people make out. A platform doesn't penalise you as such. What matters is what you have access to: how you split the pages, what you write in titles, how fast it loads, how much content there is. On some free plans you don't get to half of them. In low-competition niches I've seen platform sites ranking fine, so it isn't a rule.

On credibility I have no numbers, only lines from clients after a relaunch, along the lines of "now they ask me less often whether we're a serious company". That's anecdote, not measurement.

When the maths changes

You start paying for traffic. Google Ads, Facebook, a collaboration with someone who has an audience. From then on every visitor costs money, and a site that doesn't convince turns that cost into a loss. This is where I've seen the biggest differences after relaunches, though I'm wary of crediting the site alone: usually the ads change too, and the offer, sometimes the person answering the phone.

The second moment, rarer: when you sell something the client compares. Then the page has to answer objections, not just exist.

What we do on every project

We look at what people search for on Google before we draw the structure. We write the copy starting from what you tell us on the phone. We install conversion tracking and test it with a fake lead. We check the site on the worst phone in the office. Hosting, SSL, GDPR pages — those get ticked off, they aren't merits.

What we don't promise: clients in the first month.

If you're already paying for traffic, send us two lines about what you sell and to whom, and we'll send back a quote with what would go into it and how long it takes. If you're not there yet, this article is enough.