As the public face of your construction company or general contractor company, your website must immediately convey a sense of professionalism, trustworthiness, experience, quality, and competence. This begins with following the most important general best practices for professional websites. But beyond that, there are specific web design best practices for construction company websites that help you clearly send the right message and stand out from the extensive competition.
By meeting the expectations your site visitors have about what your site should look like, how it should work, and what it should provide them, you take a critical step toward building a positive relationship with them. And this is, of course, the foundation of how your website turns visitors into leads, and leads into new building contracts.
So, whether your firm is building or redesigning a new website in-house, or you’re hiring a web design agency to create a professional site, make sure it follows these web design best practices for construction company websites and general contractor websites.
Tips for Designing a Great Construction Company Website
- Make it obvious what type of construction projects you do, or if your company has any particular specialties.
- Use large, clear, high-quality photos of your completed projects—especially on your Home page—to quickly establish credibility and convey a sense of accomplishment.
- Address your experience and qualifications on the About page. If you can include an impressive list of past clients, do so. Citing a high number of completed projects is also reassuring and convincing to site visitors.
- In addition to giving some history and/or facts about your company on the About page, explain your value proposition—why someone should contract with you rather than your competition. But it’s not convincing when you just say stuff that everyone says, like that you provide top quality work, conduct yourself with integrity, are dedicated to cost-effective solutions, etc. Dig a little deeper and find what truly makes you stand out.
- Create landing pages for individual types of construction projects that you do and major services you offer. This is great for your SEO, and also helpful to site visitors. For example, you might have landing pages for project like residential homes, office buildings, commercial retail developments, restaurants, historic building renovations, etc.
- Include a well-populated portfolio of your completed projects, using professional-caliber photographs. Make it its own page on the website, easily found via the top-level navigation. Aim to show variety, even if you specialize in certain core competencies or project types.
- Consider adding case studies in addition to the portfolio if you can highlight how your firm has successfully tackled certain planning, design, or other construction challenges.
- Prominently display key industry trust signals, such as licenses, insurance, certifications, trade organization memberships, safety protocols, etc. Use official logos, as most are easily recognizable to site visitors. Testimonials are also a powerful type of trust signal, but make sure they’re attributed to real people.
- Outline your company’s process. This usually fits in best on the About page or the Services page. Potential clients appreciate the opportunity to get an overview of how their project will proceed should they contract your services.
- Have a simple, easy-to-use online form on the Contact page that allows potential clients to quickly ask you questions or request a bid or quote. Remember, this is the most actionable lead-generation page on your website.
- Don’t forget to develop some written content on every web page. A minimalist look can be nice, but words are what Google and other search engines use to determine what your website is about, how relevant it is to search queries, and how much value it provides its users. In other words, quality content that helps clearly identify the purpose of every site page is important to ranking high in search results and driving targeted traffic.
- Never provide an unbranded email address on your website (e.g., one ending in @gmail.com, @hotmail.com, @yahoo.com, etc.). When you’re trying to win contracts worth tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, credibility is everything, and these free email addresses immediately strip you of it.
