Your reviews are doing their half.

Start with what you’ve already earned

That last number is Google’s own count, not ours. Google reads every review and tallies what people actually talk about. For your business the word that comes up most is punctuality — more than twice as often as anything else.

For comparison: the biggest electrical outfit in Canberra sits at 4.8 from 665 reviews. They have the fleet and the sixty-year history. They do not have a 5.0.

“I’ve worked with Tom on a number of projects. He’s an exceptional tradesman and I really respect his attitude. I was hesitant to leave this review because I didn’t want him to get busier, (I want to use him for every project) but alas, here it is.”

Lach Richardson · Google review

You cannot buy that. It is the hardest thing in this trade to earn and you have already done it.

Now here’s what Google shows when someone looks you up

Someone gets your name from a mate. They do what everyone does and search “Reflex Electrical”. Google shows your reviews on the right — and these links to your website on the left.

None of that is written by you. It is text left over from the website template, and Google is repeating it under your name because there is nothing else on those pages for it to use.

Open your own Contact page and you’ll see where it comes from: the page still carries the template’s instructions to whoever was building it — “Let people know what to reach out about … Don’t forget to choose a storage option for submissions” — followed by email@example.com and (555) 555-5555. That’s an American phone number, on the contact page of a Canberra electrician.

Your About page is the same story: it still says “You might talk about your origin story, your team … Tap into your creativity. You’ve got this.”

What that actually costs you

Not in theory. Here’s the mechanism, in plain terms.

• Someone checking you out after a recommendation. They already want to use you. Then the page they land on shows a fake email and an American phone number. Nothing on that page tells them you’re the person their mate described. That’s an enquiry you’d already won, given back.
• Someone searching for the job, not for you. Four of your service pages are titled “General 1” in Google — that’s the blue headline people click. Somebody searching “switchboard upgrade Canberra” sees “General 1” next to a competitor whose headline reads “Electrician Canberra”. Twelve of your thirteen pages also have no description at all, so Google writes one for you — which is exactly how the template text ended up under your name.
• Your 41 reviews. They’re on your reviews page inside a plug-in that Google can’t read, badged “Free Google Reviews Widget”. Your single strongest asset is invisible to the search engine and labelled “free” to anyone who looks.
• Photos. Every photograph on your website came with the template — they’re stock images from another account entirely. Meanwhile your Google listing has real photos of your actual switchboard work. People are hiring you. Nothing on the site shows them you.

None of that is a reflection on your work. The site is about seventy per cent built. The missing thirty per cent just happens to be the part customers and Google read first.

So we built you the other thirty per cent

This is a concept, not a live site. It’s your logo, your colours, your words, your licence number and your real reviews — nothing invented. Have a look on your phone; it’s built for that first.

What changed:

• Your reviews are on every page, as real text a search engine can read, placed next to the work each one is about.
• A page for each job you do — emergency and fault finding, switchboards, rewiring, lighting, new installs and data, safety checks — so each one can be found by someone searching for that exact thing, instead of six services sharing one page called “General 1”.
• Your story on the About page, written from what you’ve already said about yourself.
• One phone number, everywhere, tappable on a phone, and one enquiry form that goes to you.
• Answers to the questions people actually ring and ask — do you charge a call-out, will it be you who turns up, does a forty-year-old house need rewiring.
• Marked spaces for your own photos. We haven’t filled them with stock. They’re waiting on you.

Some things on it are our best guess and need your correction — the suburbs you actually cover, whether the 24-hour claim is right, and what you’re happy to publish about pricing. Those are questions, not decisions.

Five things worth fixing either way

Whatever you decide about the rest of this, these are quick and they’re yours. Any web person can do them, or you can do them yourself in Squarespace in about an hour.

1. Replace the Contact page placeholder text.Delete the template sentence, and swap email@example.com and (555) 555-5555 for your real email and 0407 624 757.
2. Put your homepage story on the About page.The paragraph starting “Hi, I’m Tomas Czehowsky” is already written. Move it across and delete the template text.
3. Rename the four “General 1” pages.In Squarespace each page has an SEO title. Make them say what the page is: “Switchboard Upgrades Canberra”, “House Rewiring Canberra”, “LED Lighting Canberra”, “Data Cabling Canberra”. While you’re there, add a one-line description to each page so Google stops writing them for you.
4. Fix two spelling mistakes in headings.“Electrical maitenance” should be “maintenance”, and “House Re-Wirnig” should be “Re-Wiring”. They’re the biggest text on those pages. Also “AS300” on the rewiring page should be AS/NZS 3000 — you have it right further down.
5. Turn off the shopping cart.There’s a cart icon with a “0” in your header on every page. It’s a Squarespace commerce setting that’s switched on and doesn’t need to be.

If we rebuild it, nothing you’ve earned gets lost

Your website already turns up in Google under your name, with links through to your individual pages. Every one of those page addresses gets pointed at its new equivalent before anything goes live, so nobody lands on a dead page and Google keeps crediting you for what the old site earned.

It is the step most cheap rebuilds skip, and it’s why people say their phone went quiet after a new website. We do it first, not last.

What it costs

The site, the domain and everything on it are yours. If you ever want to walk, you take the lot with you — we don’t hold anyone’s assets hostage.

Why we’d point you at Nothing Missed: the website isn’t your expensive problem. You’re one person, on the tools all day, advertising a 24-hour emergency service. The call you couldn’t answer because you were up a ladder is the expensive problem. That’s worth a conversation before you decide anything.

What we’d like to understand

Next step

Have a look at the concept when you’ve got a spare five minutes. If it’s worth talking about, fifteen minutes on the phone or over a coffee and we’ll go through the rest of it and answer the questions above.

And if it’s not for you, keep the list in section five. Those five fixes are worth doing regardless, and they cost nothing.