Web design agency, Glasgow. Building for service businesses across the UK.
A website that brings in enquiries, not just compliments.
We design, write and build websites for tradesmen and service businesses. Fast on a phone, clear about what you do and where, and set up so the visitor’s next move is to ring you or ask for a quote. You own every bit of it.
10 years in business · Rated 5.0 on Google · No minimum contract
Fix it, or replace it?
Most business owners who ask us about a new website don’t actually know whether they need one. What they know is that the site isn’t bringing in work, it looks dated on a phone, or the last person who built it has disappeared.
Sometimes the answer is a rebuild. Just as often it’s a smaller job: fixing the speed, rewriting the main pages, putting a proper call button on mobile, or adding the service and area pages that were never built. A rebuild costs more and takes longer, so we’d rather tell you honestly which you need.
Send us your web address and we’ll tell you which it is, free. If your site is sound, we’ll say so and point you at SEO or Google Ads instead.
What you get
Built around one job: getting you more work.
A website for a service business has one purpose: turn someone who’s searching into someone who’s ringing. Every decision below comes from that, and from ten years of watching which sites bring in enquiries and which just sit there.
Designed to get enquiries
Your phone number where a thumb can reach it, a short quote form on every service page, reviews next to the button, and a clear next step at the end of every page. Not a brochure that looks nice and leaves the visitor wondering what to do.
Fast on phones
Most of your customers find you on a mobile, often on a weak signal, often while standing in the room with the problem. We build for that first: light pages, compressed photos, no slow page-builder bloat, and we test it on real phones before it goes live.
We write the words
You don’t need to send us pages of text. We write it in plain English from a conversation with you about what you do, who you do it for and what people ask before they book. You read it, correct anything we’ve got wrong, and approve it before it goes live.
Set up to be found on Google
A page for each service and each area you cover, written the way people search, with the page titles, headings and structured data Google and AI tools read. The site is SEO-ready on launch day, not something we have to go back and fix later.
Easy to change, and yours
Built on WordPress, in an account in your name, with your domain and hosting under your control. Change a price or a photo yourself, or send the change to our team. If you ever leave us, you take the whole site with you and nothing stops working.
You see what it brings in
Every call from the site and every form sent is tracked from day one. You’ll know how many enquiries the website produced this month, which pages they came from, and whether Google, Maps, ads or a recommendation sent them. No guessing whether it was worth it.
What we build
Three kinds of website.
Business websites
The right site for most roofers, electricians, plumbers, decorators, landscapers, cleaners and any other local service business. Services, areas, reviews, photos of your work, accreditations and an easy way to get in touch. Usually eight to twenty pages, built to grow as you add services and towns.
Online shops and bookings
Sell products, take deposits, or let customers book and pay online. Built on WooCommerce so you’re not locked into a platform that takes a cut of every sale, with a checkout that’s quick on a phone and stock, orders and payments you manage yourself.
Custom builds
When you need more than pages. Instant quote calculators that price a job from a few questions, guarantee certificates customers can verify online, customer portals, job booking systems. Built around how your business actually runs. More on custom software.
How a website project runs
From first call to live site, without it taking over your life.
You’re running a business, so we’ve built the process to need as little of your time as possible: one proper conversation at the start, a look at the design, a read of the words, and then it’s live. Most business websites take four to eight weeks from start to launch.
1
Audit and plan
We review your current site, your competitors and what people in your area search for. Then we agree the full list of pages with you and what each one has to do, so there are no surprises later.
2
Design
You see the homepage design first, on a phone and a desktop, and tell us what to change. We don’t build the other pages until you’re happy with the look, so changes are cheap to make.
3
Build and write
We build every page, write the content, add your photos and reviews, and test it on phones, tablets and desktops. You get a private link to read through and send corrections.
4
Launch and measure
We handle the switch-over, redirect every old address so you don’t lose rankings, set up call and form tracking, submit the site to Google, and check it’s all working. Then we show you what it’s bringing in.
Been burned before?
Why this won’t be like the last web designer.
We audit a lot of websites that other people built, and the same problems keep coming up: sites that were never told to Google they exist, call buttons that go nowhere, forms that don’t send, and owners who can’t log in to their own site because it’s in someone else’s name.
“A gas engineer in Edinburgh came to us after paying another agency for a new website and six months of marketing. The main call button on his site had a competitor’s phone number coded into it. We found it, helped him get around £5,500 refunded, and built him a site that was actually his.”
Yas, Director
You own everything
Domain, hosting, website, content, logins. All in your name from day one. No “we’ll keep the domain to make things easier”. We’ve seen too many businesses held to ransom over a website they thought they’d paid for.
Launched properly
A new site can wipe out years of Google rankings if it’s launched carelessly. We keep your old page addresses or redirect them, carry over your page titles, check nothing is hidden from Google, and test every button and form on a real phone before we call it done.
One supplier, not three
The site, the SEO and the ads are built by the same team, so the website is set up for what comes next rather than fighting it. No web designer blaming the SEO company and the SEO company blaming the web designer.
Built by people who run a service business
ISTRATAGEM was started by a service business owner who built his own company’s website and enquiries before doing it for anyone else. We know what a customer standing in a flooded kitchen wants from your site, because we’ve taken those calls.
What our clients have seen.
30+ jobs quoted in a week
Essential Roofing, Perth, after their new website went live, and off MyBuilder for good
A major contract won
The same Perth roofing company landed its biggest job on the strength of the website alone
£100k to £2 million
Roofing company, Glasgow, turnover over five years, with the website as the foundation for SEO
A website on its own won’t bring in work.
This is the bit most web designers don’t tell you. A good website is the shop. It still needs people walking past the door.
Google Ads sends people to it within days of launch, and tells us quickly which pages turn visitors into calls. SEO builds on the pages we’ve already written so that, within a few months, the enquiries keep coming without paying per click.
You don’t have to do all three at once. But the site is built so that when you’re ready for the next step, nothing needs rebuilding. That’s the difference between a website and a marketing system.
Website questions
What business owners ask before a new website.
How much does a website cost?
It depends on where you’re starting from and what the site needs to do. A ten-page site for a one-van plumber is a different job from a thirty-page site with a quote calculator for a roofing company covering three counties. We review your existing online presence and your niche first, then give you a clear figure and what you can expect for it. We don’t quote blind, because a number without context is meaningless.
How long does it take?
Most business websites take four to eight weeks from the first conversation to launch. The thing that slows a project down is usually waiting on photos, logos or approvals, so we’ll tell you exactly what we need from you at the start and chase gently if it’s holding things up.
Do I have to write the content?
No. We write it for you from a conversation about your business, your services and the questions customers ask you. You read it and correct anything we’ve got wrong before it goes live. If you want to write some of it yourself, that’s fine too, and we’ll tidy it up.
Will I lose my Google rankings if I change my website?
Not if it’s done properly, and this is where a lot of rebuilds go wrong. We map every page on your old site to a page on the new one, keep the same addresses where we can and redirect the ones we can’t, carry over your page titles, and check Google can see the new site the day it launches. Done right, rankings usually improve because the new site is faster and better structured.
Can I update the site myself?
Yes. It’s built on WordPress, so changing text, photos, prices or adding a review is straightforward, and we’ll show you how. If you’d rather not touch it, send the change to our team and we’ll do it for you.
What happens to my domain and email?
You keep them. If your domain is currently registered in someone else’s name, we’ll help you get it moved into yours. Email keeps working through the switch-over; we plan it so nothing bounces.
What about hosting and ongoing costs?
Your site needs hosting, a domain renewal and someone keeping WordPress updated and backed up. We can look after that for a small monthly amount, or you can host it wherever you like. Either way there’s no lock-in and we’ll be clear about the ongoing costs before you commit.
I don’t have good photos. Does that matter?
It matters more than most people think. Real photos of your work and your team outperform stock photos every time, especially for trades. If you don’t have any, phone photos of recent jobs are a good start, and we can arrange professional photography or video if the site warrants it.
Is your website costing you work?
Send us your web address and we’ll review it for free. You’ll get a plain-English rundown of:
- How it loads and reads on a phone
- Where visitors are dropping off instead of calling
- What’s stopping Google from showing it
- Whether to fix it or replace it, and what that would involve
Over 30 jobs quoted in a week
Essential Roofing in Perth stopped using MyBuilder and quoted over 30 jobs in a single week after their new site went live. Michael, the director, says so on video on our Results page.
Rated 5.0 on Google
Prefer to talk? Call 0141 378 0881, WhatsApp 07542 737977 or email hello@istratagem.co.uk.