We built a page for tradespeople in five days. What we left out.
The tradespeople landing page went live at the end of August. Five days, start to finish, from the first conversation about it to the thing being on the internet.
Five days is a fun number to put in a headline. It is also the least interesting fact about the build. What we spent most of those five days on was deciding what the page would refuse to say, because a page aimed at trades is surrounded on all sides by claims that other companies make freely and we are not willing to make.
So this is the list of what got left out, and why.
What actually shipped
A landing page for electricians, plumbers, joiners, roofers, gardeners, and everyone else who spends the working day with their hands occupied and the marketing job waiting in the van. It explains what Inkie does for a trade specifically, what the Get Set Up session covers, and how to book one.
That is the whole scope. It is a page. It explains a service and lets you book a call.
The cap on sessions is real
We take three Get Set Up sessions a week. Not as a scarcity tactic on the page, and you will not find a countdown or a spots-remaining line anywhere on it, because there isn't one.
Three a week is simply what we can do properly. A Get Set Up is ninety minutes of real conversation followed by several hours of building the profile, the voice and the first month of content behind it. Doing four of those in a week means doing all four slightly worse. We would rather book you in a fortnight and do it well.
What is still unfinished
1. The headline scope question
We have not settled what the page is actually for, at the top level. One reading says it should speak to every trade at once and let the reader recognise themselves. Another says a page that speaks to electricians specifically will outperform a page that speaks to all trades vaguely, and that we should build several. That argument is live and unresolved, and the current headline is the version we could defend on day five.
2. The mailing list
There is a mailing list feature in flight. It is not live. Anyone who books through the page gets a real reply from a real person and nothing else, because the automated follow-up does not exist yet. When it ships, we will say so.
Three things this page does not claim
1. We will not promise near-me search
Nobody can promise you the top result for "electrician near me". The mechanism is not for sale and anyone selling it is selling you their guess. What we do is make your details consistent, current and specific enough that you are findable when someone looks. That is a different sentence and we are careful to keep it different.
2. We will not guarantee leads
Inkie does not generate enquiries. It makes you visible and legible, and visibility is upstream of enquiries in a way we cannot put a number on for your particular postcode and trade. A guarantee would be a nice line on a landing page and a lie in a contract.
3. We are not a directory
You are not buying a listing, and you are not being placed in a ranked pool alongside four competitors who paid more. There is no lead fee and no per-enquiry charge. If you have used a directory service you will know the difference in your bones already.
Where the £449 tier comes in
Most trades who land on that page want the Get Set Up session and then to run things themselves on the £49 platform tier. That works, and plenty do it.
Managed Marketing at £449 a month is for the trade who reads the list of what marketing involves, recognises none of it as a thing they will ever do at nine at night, and wants it handled. Monthly call, four videos, four posts a week, weekly blog, newsletter, Google profile kept current. It is the same work either way. The question is only whose hands do it.
The page will change. The headline question above will get answered, probably by testing rather than by arguing, and the mailing list will land. When it does, that goes in a post like this one, alongside whatever we got wrong in the meantime.