Professional vs. DIY Handyman Websites

Your website has about five seconds to convince a homeowner you're worth calling. 

In this episode of the Home Hero Podcast, Jason Call and Coby McManaman break down the real differences between a DIY handyman website and a professional one, and why those differences directly affect whether your phone rings.

We get into:

• The four buckets that separate a working website from a digital business card (SEO, conversion, mobile, trust)
• Why cheap hosting kills your Google rankings before you even publish a page
• The honest math on DIY: how many hours you should actually spend before it costs you more than it saves
• What homeowners are really looking for when they land on your site (hint: it's not your service list)
• Conversion rate optimization explained without the marketing jargon
• The "first impression" rule that ties your website, your truck, and your handshake together

Whether you're a solo handyman running a Wix site or a growing crew thinking about your next website investment, this one will help you spend your time and money in the right places.

Have a question or topic you want us to cover? Email support@handymanmarketingpros.com or leave a comment.

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About Home Hero Podcast: Real stories and tactics to grow a profitable home service business. Hosted by Jason Call and Coby McManaman.

Learn more about Handyman Marketing Pros at handymanmarketingpros.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Any first impressions that are made for a brand and your website is a big one. And if you can align that with a professional experience where if they hire you or at the end of the day, they're like, wow, that was so easy. Found them online. Um, you know, easy process to get an estimate. Um, they showed up on time, great work, you know, fixed a, you know, fixed a little door hinge I didn't even ask them to do. And now I left them a do the review and saved them in my phone, and I'm gonna, you know, sing their praises to my friends and family and neighbors. All these things add up. And so at the great point about the first impression on the website, is that aligning with the impression you're making in your business? Hello and welcome to another episode of the Home Hero Podcast. Today we are going to be talking about the differences, the major differences between a professional website and a DIY site. And really, what this comes down to that we're gonna be we're gonna be uncovering is what are the most important attributes that go into making a website that actually works for your business, actually generates leads, uh, that captures your information, that is a great representation of your business. So we're gonna be talking about conversion optimization, SEO, mobile friendliness, the general layout and appeal. Um, so all that said, I'm gonna kick us off by tossing over to Kobe. Um, you know, getting your kind of firsthand handyman take on when you started using a professional website in your business. Did you have a DIY site to start with? Uh give us a little lay of the land on your experience uh in utilizing a website for marketing rust belt remodeling.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Yeah, so I I did start with a with a DIY website, like a you know, a Wix website, just a landing page of the contact form. I don't think anybody ever saw it. Um, but you know, I just wanted to have something, and I had that for a couple months before you know I started working with with anime and marketing pros. Um you know, I just I I think that a lot of people don't realize that having a website's one thing, having a website that actually shows up on Google so people can find it, a completely different thing. I mean then having a website where people, when they make it to the website, they do find it, even if you send them directly to the website, what does it communicate about you um as a business? Um does it represent you well? Does it build trust with the client? Um and does it represent does it match the quality of your work? Um is is is kind of the the important things. Um and so if you just build a website on Wix and you toss it out there and you never touch it again, chances are nobody's gonna find the website. Um and and the other thing that I think people don't think about is let's say you do have a website and it looks super nice, um, a professional website, for example, let's say it still doesn't show up on Google or people aren't finding it often organically, but you're directing people to your website, you know, past clients, um, things like that, it can be a really good sales tool um to be able to showcase password, again build trust with people. Um so that's kind of general overview. I don't know if that answered your question, Jason, but this is most definitely um kind of more more your realm. So um I'll toss it back to you. Um I would say what what are the what what are the like the the three biggest differences um between a a DIY website and a professional website um specifically when it comes to actually showing up on Google like at like SEO?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

Yeah, um well so SEO is definitely a huge bucket. Um like the the main kind of the main kind of buckets here that that we see a difference in the DIY and then a professional website um is one building trust and having personality like thoughtfully ingrained through the site, having it lay out really nice. You've got SEO, on-page SEO, that's a huge kind of bucket. We'll dive into the highlights as you can have some takeaways on um whether you have a marketer if you're doing it yourself, or of course, this is what we do professionally. So handymandmarketingpros.com will get you well taken care of. Okay, so that was kind of a lot of the, you know, just the highlights of really important on-page SEO elements. Um, you know, I didn't even mention like just the actual helpfulness of the content's really important, the ongoing content. That's more of an ongoing thing, just looking at the base website uh here. But Kobe, do you have any from the handyman contractor perspective, like what kind of questions, if if any, uh would you like to ask as far as the SEO of the site? And then I'll kind of continue through conversion, mobile friendliness, and just the overall kind of trust and professional design elements.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Yeah. Um, so not really from like a contractor perspective, but you said um, you know, the speed of your hosting matters. So is there a difference between, you know, where you host your your website? Like let's say you had a DIY one, like GoDaddy versus Bluehost or or some other one. Like are some better than others? Are they all the same? Do you just get the cheapest one?

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Absolutely. There's a huge difference. So go do not go with the cheapest one. Uh the site will load slow, it's not going to be secure. Uh, most of these big companies, like like GoDaddy, like Bluehost, they use shared hosting servers. As in your website is sharing a server with hundreds, thousands of other websites that might not be HTTPS secure. They might have an SSL certificate. Uh, the server itself is it's just there's so much different websites on there. They're, they're, you're not isolated. You're kind of somehow connected. You're connected in a way to all these other websites that who knows what they are. And it's just the security side is is definitely a glaring issue uh with the discount host. So going with the cheapest is not something I would advise. Uh, there are a handful of more premium options, of course. Handy Man Marketing Pros, we have our own proprietary hosting solution. So we take the technical side very seriously.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Yeah, that that uh I did I didn't know that. That's uh I I just kind of assumed even even when I was building my built building my DIY website, I was just like, well, this hosting's the the cheapest, I'm gonna get this one. I didn't know they were they were different, but it makes sense because your website, you know, it's it's it's data, there's gigabytes of data there, and the internet isn't some you know, ethereal thing up in you know like the cloud. So when we we build a website for somebody, that website, all of that data, files and code, is living on a computer somewhere that people access via the internet, and so the server is that computer that it's living on.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Yeah, and a lot of it's cloud-based now, but I don't want to get too bogged down in the technical, it's even you know, uh, there's only so much that marketers need to understand that, you know, as far as like the IT side of things, but just know to if you are self-hosting, um, don't go with some of the discount hosts. Uh the you're gonna suffer on site speed and site security. Um, and both of those are actual SEO elements. Um, so most people do not know that your site being with the little green padlock next to the browser, how fast it loads. These are elements that Google analyzes and they do factor in. Um, for example, a real practical use case here is first off, if your site is not secure, it doesn't have the HTTP S with the green little padlock, um, you're instantly getting a knock right there. Like these days, it's been forever since I've seen any site ranking that's not secured with an SSL certificate. Um, but you know, most notably, like a lot of like, you know, GoDaddy sites or Wix or whatever, like the site speed can really suffer, especially if you're using really heavy images, like images straight from your smartphone that are like two to five gigabytes. I mean, just or two to five megabytes, just massive file sizes. And if there's like tons of them, it slows down the site. So practically a user clicks a page or loads this is trying to load your site, it takes a while to load or it comes in all chunky before it reformats. And if it takes more than two seconds, three seconds, most people are just clicking back. And that's what's called a bounce. And Google knows this stuff because uh most sites are plugged into Google Analytics. They also are tracking behavior, people using Chrome browser, using Google. So they know, oh wow, like 70% of the visitors to this website, to jason's handyman.com, they're bouncing, they're leaving within seconds, five seconds, 10 seconds of hitting the website. That must mean it's not helpful. It's loading slow, whatever it is. It just says people are backing away. They don't want to be there. So that's not a good result. And because Google's business relies on quality results answering questions, uh, it's just a real use case of where your site speed can that does impact SEO. Uh, it does impact your user experience. So good question about the the hosting. Do not go with the discount hosts.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

Yeah. Yeah, that's that that's that's interesting. Um, you you you think it's almost like a a commodity. Um, but you know, back back to you know, SEO questions, would it be, in your opinion, would it be better if I if I had a DIY website, would it be better to not add pages to the website at all? Or go on Chat GPT and have it write up a bunch of like, you know, blog posts essentially and add them to my my my Wix website. Um is that gonna is that gonna help or hurt my SEO, or does it not matter? Am I wasting my time?

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, so uh I want to make a distinction here. There's ongoing content strategy that's part of SEO. I'm gonna answer this through the lens of we're talking about the website design, the base website, right? Like your homepage about services, service area, et cetera. Um, for a DIY site, whenever anything's DIY, it's always a function of your time. So my recommendation for people is if you're gonna spend more than five, certainly 10 hours designing your website, you just you're wasting your time. Because if you spent that same five, 10 hours equivalent in sales generating activities, sales related activities, networking, reaching out to property managers, stopping by real estate offices, going door to door, doing flyers, like getting out there to promote your business. The ROI is just massive. Like 10 hours of dedicated sales activity, that's so much impact that it'll have on your business. You will generate work from that hours, uh, from those hours. So anything DIY, you've got to balance this off. So, my recommendation for anyone on a DIY site is do the basics. Create a quick landing page, have a personal photo up there, a contact form, at least your phone number, um, keep it really straightforward, focused services, maybe a little bio about you. That's it. Do not spend more time than is necessary to create a basic informational landing page. It's not going to rank well on Google. Um, should tie it to your Google profile, but it's just this balance of what is your time worth? If you're you know billing, you know, $100 labor an hour, then and you spend 10 hours designing your site, you know, you're foregoing so much uh revenue. Uh in economics called opportunity cost. Like what are you foregoing to do something? So by spending all this time on something that really is like its own science, it's its own industry, right? Um you should really value your time and pay a professional or at least minimize your time investment in that until it makes sense where you can invest in your own professional site. So that's my top level theory to answer your question, Kobe. Uh, more directly, um, AI can absolutely write great content these days, but it needs good prompting and good context. If you don't really know how to use AI or have never taken any basic courses on prompting, um, we've got actual resources um on handymanmarketingpros.com/slash resources that you can check out. Um, call it the crit framework of how to properly prompt AI. That can be helpful. Um, but without good context and prompting, um, you know, the content's gonna be super fluffy and overall not helpful. You need content on your website that is helpful to the user because that is what Google, that's what AI is looking for. They're looking for helpful websites that answer users' questions based on the kind of appropriateness. They're on a handman website. What are they looking for? Looking for you know, work examples. What are their focus services? Are you in my service area? What is your pricing like? Like your website content needs to be helpful. So for any DIY site guys out there, um, create helpful content on the website, but also be real honest with your time investment into it because the ROI of a really nice site, as you know, we've experienced through our clients, um, is is a good investment. It just pays for itself. So just be cautious of your time invested.

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Yeah, that's that's great. Um another thing that just kind of came to mind was as I was, you know, kind of learning about SEO and getting my business spun up and and and you know, I wanted it to to show up on Google, um, you know, it got overwhelming like you know, meta tags and and making sure, you know, uh photos and files were optimized and H1 headings and and all of the nitty-gritty technical stuff. Um but at the end of the day, and please correct me if I'm wrong, because I very well could be, the it seems like the the best SEO strategy is to have the website and content on the website. Like the question you should be asking yourself is does this uh content help the intended visitor, the visitor of the website? Is it providing useful information? Does it tell the visitor and Google these are the things that I do, this is where I do them? Um, kind of as a core thing. It it just reminds me of, you know, a strat like the similar strategy with YouTube or content creation or any of these other things where it's like the most important thing is are you are you making good content? Not you know what's the thumbnail look like on your YouTube video. It's like is the content actually helpful and educational and tell people what you do and where you do it and all those sorts of things. So um either either correct me or if you could, you know, kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

So that's a good top-level guidance for business as a whole is uh you have to be helpful. You have how can you position yourself to be indispensable to your clients? And so for a handyman, when someone's looking up handyman near me and they hit your website, you want to communicate that you're local, that you're honest, that you can, that these are the jobs you can do. Here's my reviews and what people say about us. Um here is uh like about me and and my family and my history. Um you want to reinforce that you're trustworthy, that you're experienced, that you're gonna show up on time. Like, what are the attributes that a homeowner wants in an indispensable handyman where they can't imagine owning and living where they are without you as their handyman? Um, so the mind can wander at all these things that I just mentioned. Um, and zooming out, there was a huge study done on like home services. Uh, it was 2024, 2025. Um, and it was drilling into what is the most important attribute that a premium client, a premium honer, wants in their home service provider? And the overall attribute is they want to hire somebody that they are comfortable with in their house without them being there. So your website, how's your website communicating that? How's your Google profile, your reviews reinforcing that? So that's like the hot top level thing of being helpful, um, being indispensable. What are people looking for? So your website should reinforce all these positive attributes that people are yearning for uh for a professional handyman. Um and so that's kind of my top level kind of answer there, Kobe. And it leads into another important bucket. You know, we talked about SEO, um, on-page SEO, just the nitty-gritty elements there, uh, without going way too far in the weeds, but achievable ones. Um, and the second one that this naturally ties to is the trust and professionality that your website's communicating. There is a stark difference between a professional site, a hand-eman marketing pro website, to a GoDaddy, a Wix, um, an AI-generated website, and all the various platforms out there these days. Um, and so instilling that trust with people is so incredibly important because when we go back to what's the attribute people most long for, to trust them in their home without them being there. The home is a sacred place. People have kids, pets, their parents. It's a sacred place for our family, right? Um, so how is your website communicating trust? And so the way that it's designed, laid out, your branding, the colors all matching, really easy call to actions with you know, filling out an estimate request form, calling, texting, live chat, all these elements go into building trust that, hey, like your ideal clients, you want them to hit your site and be like, wow, they look really great, professional. They can help me with my project. I'm actually excited for them to get back to me. I really hope that you know they can help me. Like, how are how are you communicating on their website that creates this excitement and like this? Oh my gosh, I cannot believe I didn't know about you before. Um, so that's the second big bucket there is communicating trust um through a personal professional site. It ties in mobile optimization. Like, guys, over half your traffic is on mobile phones. Like a lot of markets, just 75, 80%. So your website loading really nice on mobile feeds into that trust professionality. It is an SEO element as well. Mobile optimization score is separately measured on Google. Um, the last thing I'll mention on this little building trust in your website is personality. Do you have a personal photo, headshot, family photo, you and the dogs? Uh, do you have photos of your work? Um, you know, you in front of your fence that you just built, all these different attributes that go into a website that builds trust with people.

SPEAKER_01 18:54

Awesome. Um so uh one one more question I have for you is let's say I'm a handyman just getting started. I can't afford a professional website right now. Should I bother with creating a DIY website, or should I just, you know, just do the grassroots stuff and um you know, focus on that, save my cash to to pay for a professional website? What would you do?

SPEAKER_00 19:22

Yeah, great question. Uh we get this all the time. Uh and like anyone that hasn't engaged with us and talked to Kobe, talk to myself, like we're truly here to help. You know, we'll give people the honest response of whether we're good fit for you or not. So there's plenty of people I've talked to over the years that they just in a tough spot, right? And are trying to get some traction. You need your Google business profile. You absolutely need to get that thing verified and start building reviews. You need a Facebook business page. I don't care if you're self-identified as in the living in the stone age, I'm only on Facebook because I own a business. It's the prudent, right thing to do. 99% of your ideal clients are on Facebook. They're in the groups. Um, that can act as kind of your starting website, if you will, to share your Facebook page. That's a really free, easy option. There's no design or anything that goes into that. So that's one option to consider. If you are somewhat technologically inclined and the idea of spending a few hours on, you know, Squarespace, Wix uh, you know, doesn't give you the heebie jeebies, then that's a viable option. And my encouragement there is be absolutely super greedy with your time. Be prudent with it. Do not spend more than two hours sitting down in front of that computer trying to throw this thing together. Get the absolute bare bones essentials up on a landing page. And by that I mean a one-page website. That is all you'd need to get some initial traction. Because at the end of the day, to start a handyman business, there's such a huge demand for a professional that shows up on time, does quality work. Your network, um, referrals, Facebook groups, um, networking going door to door, these are free activities that you can do to generate business and get traction. So when you're generating consistently, if you start in part-time, you know, one, two, three, four, five thousand dollars a month in revenue, within that realm, you can invest um like our programs that I don't want to shoot myself in the foot, but uh with pricing changes that might happen in the future, but about $300 a month. Um, you know, so within that part-time range, it's absolutely worthwhile investment. So to someone just getting started on a shoestring budget, um, be reasonable with what your capabilities are and how much time you're dumping into your website versus what sales generating activities are you doing to build real clients, real referral networks, real repeat clients that are gonna actually create that financial foundation that you need to then invest in the business, start raising your prices, look more professional, et cetera.

SPEAKER_01 21:52

Super, super great advice. Um, and just to kind of quantify it a little bit, if let's say hypothetically you're you're You're a handyman and you're making thirty dollars an hour. Let's say you got thirty bucks an hour you're putting in your in your pocket. Um if you're spending ten hours or more a month, you know, trying to trying to do this marketing thing on, you know, your website and that sort of thing, um you could you could have paid uh you know a professional to to do your website for you with you know most likely better better results um at the end of the day, having more time out in the field actually generating revenue.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

Yeah, and well, if anyone's out there at 30, you need to double your rate. Like uh even in the most rural areas, like a no overhead handyman business. I mean, if you're not charging at least 60 bucks an hour, it's just gonna be tough going.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Um I just mean thirty thirty bucks in your pocket. Certainly gotta be charging more than okay. Oh, gotcha. Um, but even more so if you're charging appropriately, you know, let's say you're paying yourself 50 bucks an hour, it's like you got less hours a month you can afford to spend on doing your own website. Yeah, definitely don't charge $30 an hour. Or do you want to problem on a website for sure?

SPEAKER_00 23:07

Gotcha. Okay, so uh the last element here that I wanted to touch on, um, you know, the big difference between a DIY site and a professional site that actually works, like that actually has leads that get pumped out through an estimate form. You get generate phone calls from it, um, is something called conversion rate optimization. C-R-O, it's a fancy marketing $5 word that basically means how are we taking website visitors and turning them into prospects, to leads, phone calls, like real opportunities? Um, imagine hitting like the classic 90s, early 2000s, fully text-based website, just blogs of text, and you just don't even know what's going on. Your conversion rate's gonna be incredibly low. Um, so how do you build conversion from a website where, say, you get a hundred site visitors and your DIY site does like two website leads a month to a professional site that can be churning out, you know, six to 10, 6 to 10% conversion rate. There's a lot of elements that go into that. It's kind of like an art form, there's a science of conversion rate optimization. Uh and my guidance here is one, it needs to be mobile friendly. All these things kind of overlap. Um, you know, click to call buttons, click to text, so they can just click and it pulls up your phone number. Um, personal photos that really instantly build trust with people. Of course, the site needs to load fast. Um, so there's all these overlapping elements that go into this conversion optimization. Like it's one thing to get a visitor, it's another thing to get the right visitor to fill out that contact form. Um, and so how you how the site's laid out, easy call to actions, clear call to actions, consistent call to actions. And by call to action, I mean for most, it's get a free estimate or get a quote, click to call, um, call today, whatever that may look like. Um, having a couple consistent call to actions for getting a free estimate through the form or calling to kind of get a quick estimate on the phone. These are all important things that tie into the headshot and personality. Having real project photos, having the site easy to navigate, showcasing your customer reviews is a huge one. So at the top of all our sites, uh, like you don't have to go very far to see five-star reviews that are flooding in from Google, Facebook. We kind of integrate with all the major platforms. So there's all these elements that go into turning the visitor into an actual phone call, into an actual website form that gets uploaded to your CRM. And that whole bucket is called conversion rate optimization. Obviously, like any DIY handyman, like when you first fired up your Wix site, Kobe, you weren't like, okay, what am I doing for SEO? What am I doing for conversion optimization? Oh, yeah, I need my conversion optimization. Let me kind of plug in my wizardry into Wix. Like all these elements are lacking uh for DIY. And DIY has its place, absolutely. Um, that's why there's Wix, that's why there's Squarespace. But the the opportunity cost and what could be turned out from a professional site, most people underestimate, especially when you are putting the elbow grease into your business and you're really you care to provide a great service. Um, and that's where handy made marketing pros having a professional site is going to get more bang from your buck. Uh, it's gonna get more output from the inputs you put into your business. Um, because at the end of the day, your website, people are landing there every single day. And if we can turn out an extra one or two uh prospects, you know, five, 10 over a week, like that adds up into real tangible revenue dollars that to cover a service like that, you'd just be looking at raising your rates like a dollar or two per hour on the back end. Um, so those are the main buckets, man, the differences for DIY site, professional site. Uh, there's a lot that goes into it that kind of all magically works together to be an effective product, an effective tool uh within your business. So the main buckets to recap SEO, on-page SEO. Um, we'll have to have another episode about ongoing SEO and content, off-page. I mean, there's a whole industry of SEO. You got your conversion rate optimization, you got your mobile responsiveness, and then you've got the general just building trust through a professional, nicely laid out website. So those are my four main buckets of differences that I'll add up to be a great investment for most people that are serious about their business.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

That's that's awesome. Um, a lot of good stuff there. Um, one last thing, you know, I wanted to say is oftentimes the your your website and your online presence is the first impression that you make with a potential customer. Um and so what do you what do you want that to say? So this is you know not just about getting leads and and people to to um you know to to to to call you or submit the contact form. Um but that first impression translates into what does the sales process look like? Like how how quick are they to accept an estimate, how much trust do you build, and how quickly do you build that trust? Um and and how does this this homeowner view you? Do they view you as a professional and as a business, or do they view you as you know, a guy with some tools that they can, you know, negotiate prices with and um you know all the things with? So what first impression are you making? Because a lot of times it's not the impress the first impression that you make at the front door, even though that's also important, but that website is that first contact point with the customer. Um and so it needs to match the quality of work, it needs to match your personality, um, it needs to match where you want the business to to be. Um, you know, because negative first impressions, you know, they they uh they say something also.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Yeah. And it reminds me of the email newsletter that you wrote uh last month about brand silence tells a story. Like you not having a nice website, it's telling a story. It's telling a story of can I negotiate on price, right? Um so we're we're we've got another episode too, talking about the first impression that you make in person. In the same way, your website, your online presence, your the amount of Google reviews, how frequent you know they are that come in that you've got at least a few in the last month, that tells a story that sets makes a first impression. So most people listening, they're pretty confident in their first impression in person, right? Like that's where most people's confidence is uh because you know, they're just boots in the ground. They've been doing this. I've been doing this for years, you know. I don't need a website or whatever the kind of narrative might be, but you're showing up and you're instantly creating that great first impression, professional, high-quality work, showing up on time. But does your online presence match that? Does it come correct to reinforce that? Uh, it's a great point, Kobe. Uh, there's first impressions, there's many first impressions that are made for a brand, and your website is a big one. And if you can align that with a professional experience where if they hire you, or at the end of the day, they're like, wow, that was so easy. Found them online. Um, you know, easy process to get an estimate. Um, they showed up on time, great work, you know, fixed a, you know, fixed a little door hinge I didn't even ask them to do. And now I left them a do the review and saved them in my phone. And I'm gonna, you know, sing their praises to my friends and family and neighbors. All these things add up. And so it's a great point about the first impression on the website. Is that aligning with the impression you're making in your business?

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Great, great, great stuff.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Awesome. Well, if you guys have any questions about websites, about uh any topic ideas you you'd like to hear from us about, uh shoot us a message at support at handymanmarketingpros.com or uh leave us a comment. We are you know actively out here. Um, thank you guys for tuning in. See you on the next episode.

SPEAKER_01 31:08

Thank you for joining us for another episode of the Home Hero Podcast, brought to you by Handyman Marketing Pros.