Plastering website: what to put on it

A homeowner hires a plasterer for a result they can only judge afterwards: a flat ceiling, a crisp corner, a wall ready to paint. The website has to show that result before the job starts and make it easy to describe the job. This guide goes page by page, then covers three things specific to plastering: how to word Artex work, what UK law expects on the site, and how to set up your Google profile if you work from home.

Plasterer is one label for several jobs

Say plasterer, then lead with the jobs. The official UK standards from Skills England give the occupation two routes: the solid plasterer, who works on site, and the fibrous plasterer, who makes ornamental components in a workshop and fits them. Skills England lists plastering as "Regulated occupation: No". Most sites only need the solid route. If you also cast cornices or ceiling roses, give that its own page.

The pages a plastering website needs

Ten pages cover it, and ten is the page limit on Scale Start. Give each job its own page. Someone with a cracked ceiling and someone planning a whole-house render are searching for different things, and one list of services answers neither of them well.

Before and after photos that do the selling

Photograph your own jobs from the same spot, before and after, and sort them by job type. A plaster finish is judged on flat surfaces and clean lines, and a stock photograph cannot show yours.

• Stand in the same spot, in the same light, for both shots, so the only thing that changes is the wall or ceiling.
• Photograph the plaster at the stage you hand it over, ready for decoration, so the picture shows your work and not the paint on top of it.
• Add a close-up of a corner or a join. It is the detail a homeowner cannot judge from a wide shot.
• Caption each pair with what the job was (for example, a ceiling re-skim after a leak repair) and the town.
• Get the homeowner's agreement first, and crop out house numbers, post and valuables.
• Compress and size every image before it goes on the page.

Google's image guidance says alt text is the most important attribute for describing an image, that short descriptive filenames give light clues (it prefers my-new-black-kitten.jpg to IMG00023.JPG), and that alt text should be useful rather than stuffed with keywords. It also says images are often the largest contributor to page size, so speed matters as much as quality. Something like "Living room ceiling after re-skim, ready for decoration, south London" does the job.

An enquiry form that asks what the job is

Ask for the job type, which rooms or walls, roughly how big, whether the surface is textured, and the postcode, so the enquiry arrives ready to price. If your form allows a photo, ask for one. Put a tap-to-call number beside the form for anyone who would rather ring.

Artex and textured ceilings: say what you do

Whichever way you handle textured ceilings, say so on the page, and treat older coatings with care. The Health and Safety Executive says textured decorative coatings can contain asbestos, normally 2–5% chrysotile (HSE guide L143), and that asbestos was widely used in buildings until it was banned in 1999. Its asbestos FAQs say that if you come across a suspect material you should stop work, confirm what it is or assume it is asbestos, and carry out a risk assessment.

• A risk assessment must be done before any work on asbestos begins, and non-licensed work needs the right information, instruction and training.
• Removing a small area of textured coating, about 1 square metre, is a non-licensed task with its own HSE method sheet (sheet A28). The sheet says never to scrape through or sand down textured coatings, and not to use power tools to cut through them.
• Steaming or gelling for anything beyond maintenance preparation, such as fitting a smoke alarm or light, is notifiable non-licensed work, and the sheet says it is not for large areas.
• If the coating covers asbestos insulating board, the sheet says to use an HSE licensed contractor.

For your page, that means saying plainly whether you skim over textured ceilings, strip them, or pass the job to a specialist, and whether you test first. Do not promise a quick, no-fuss strip. This is general information, not safety advice: follow HSE's guidance for the job in front of you.

What UK law expects you to show on the site

Short answer: your name, a geographic address and an email address, with more if you are a limited company or VAT-registered. This is general information, not legal advice.

• Everyone: your name, the geographic address where you are established, and contact details including an email address that let people reach you quickly, all easy to find (Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, regulation 6).
• VAT-registered: your VAT number. If you are on a public trade register, the register details and your registration number too (regulation 6).
• Limited company: the part of the UK where it is registered, the registered number and the registered office address (Names and Trading Disclosures Regulations 2015, regulation 25).
• Prices: if the site mentions a price, regulation 6 says it must be clear whether it includes tax and delivery.

If you work from home you can hide your address on your Google profile (more below). That is a Google setting. It does not change what your own website has to show under regulation 6.

On insurance and memberships: if you employ anyone, family members aside, GOV.UK says you must hold employers' liability insurance covering at least £5 million from an authorised insurer, and display the certificate where employees can access it, for example on your website. Anything else you show is your choice: list only the cover and memberships you actually hold, say who issued them, and keep the certificates to hand. One real example is FIS, the not-for-profit body for the finishes and interiors sector, formed in 2015 from the Federation of Plastering and Drywall Contractors and the Association of Interior Specialists. It says members are vetted on application and, for contractors, that includes an audit of a construction site. Its members are contractors, manufacturers and distributors, so check it suits a firm your size before you apply.

Prices: say what the price is based on

You do not need a full price list, but say how jobs are priced and what moves the price. State whether you quote per room, per square metre or per day, and what changes the figure: ceiling height, the condition of the existing surface, access and preparation. A visitor who knows the basis can compare your quote with another one fairly.

Getting found when someone searches for a plasterer nearby

Short answer: a verified, complete Google Business Profile and a website that names your jobs and the towns you really cover. Google says local results are mainly based on relevance, distance and prominence, and that there is no way to request or pay for a better local ranking. For service-area set-up, Google's help page says:

• If you do not serve customers at your business address, remove the address and use a service area instead.
• You can list up to 20 service areas, by city, postcode or other area (not a radius).
• Be specific and accurate. The whole area should not be more than about 2 hours' driving time from where you are based.
• A service-area business can have only one profile for the whole area.

Mirror that on the website. Name the towns you work in and add a sentence or two about real jobs there. Google's spam policies list "blocks of text that list cities and regions that a web page is trying to rank for" as keyword stuffing, and pages "targeted at specific regions or cities that funnel users to one page" as doorway abuse. A few honest town mentions beat a list of forty. On Scale Up, use the 5 local-area pages for the five areas you most want work in, and give each its own jobs and photos rather than the same text with a different town name.

Briefing someone to build it: what to ask any provider

Searching for web design for plasterers turns up one-off builds, monthly plans and everything between. Whichever you pick, get the answers to these in writing so you can compare like with like.

What a plastering website costs

Scale Start is £45 a month and Scale Up is £79 a month, with £0 upfront and no VAT to add.

Both plans run on a 12-month minimum term, then continue month to month: here is why. A domain and business email are not included. If you already own your domain we connect it free, and otherwise the domain and business email extra is £15 a month (a .co.uk in your name and one Google Workspace mailbox). For the full UK price range across providers, see the tradesman website cost guide.