Alwan TechnologiesTwo people land on a roofer's website, and they could not be less alike.
The first has water coming through a bedroom ceiling. They are on a phone, standing up, and they will ring whoever answers. They are not reading anything. They want a number, a sense that someone will actually come, and roughly when.
The second is planning a full re-roof. It is a five-figure decision they have been putting off, they are on a laptop, and they are looking at four roofers. They are not ready to ring anybody. They want to know whether they can afford it before they have a conversation about it.
Most roofing websites are built for neither. They open with a stock photo of a tiled roof, a paragraph about being family run since whenever, and a contact form at the bottom. The emergency caller has to hunt for the number. The re-roof buyer learns nothing they can act on and leaves to find someone who will tell them something.
Serve the emergency in the first screen
The urgent visitor needs three things above the fold and nothing else: the number, tap-to-call so it dials rather than copies, and a plain sentence about response — whether you cover emergencies at all, what hours, and what area. If you do not do emergency call-outs, say that too. Being told no in five seconds is a better experience than a form submitted into silence.
Everything else on the page can wait, because this visitor is already gone — ideally onto your phone.
Give the re-roof buyer a number to work with
The considered buyer is the one worth designing for, and the thing they want is the thing most roofers are least willing to put on a website: an indication of cost.
The reluctance is understandable. Roofs vary enormously — pitch, access, whether it is a scaffold job, tile against slate, how much of the timber turns out to be rotten once you are up there. No honest roofer wants to be held to a figure quoted off a web page.
But refusing to say anything does not make the question go away. It moves it to a competitor who will answer it. And the answer does not have to be a fixed price. A range, tied to what actually drives the cost — roof type, rough size, whether scaffolding is needed, whether it is a repair or a full strip and re-cover — tells someone whether they are in the right ballpark without committing you to anything. Then the enquiry that comes through has those details already in it, and the survey you do is a real survey rather than a fact-finding call.
What that looks like built
We have not built a roofing quote tool yet, so I am not going to point you at one and pretend otherwise. What exists is the same machine pointed at other trades.
The closest in shape is the glazing estimator on our examples page: five products, priced per unit or per metre depending on which one, showing a range rather than a spot figure, and handing the enquiry over with the specification attached. Roofing prices differently — mostly by area and access rather than per unit — but the structure is identical: ask the two or three questions that actually move the number, show a range, pass the detail on.
If you are a roofer and you want the first one, that is worth saying out loud. The first build in a trade tends to be the one the trade gets designed around.
What it costs
Right now that is £99 to build and £35 a month to run — about £8 a week. That is a launch price for the first ten trades who take it, not a standing rate, and the site and the domain are in your name from the day it goes live rather than after some qualifying period.
The build includes the quote tool, your photos, your copy, your domain and going live. We build it before you pay anything, so what you are deciding on is a finished site rather than a description of one.