Web Design in Austin, TX

A trade business here may not stop at the city line. A pool company might clean pools in Bee Cave and fix a pump in Pflugerville, and a homeowner in each town may search with that town's name.

I'm Carter Fletcher, a website designer for the trades: HVAC, plumbing, electricians, roofing, tree service, pools, landscaping and installers. I design each site around one goal: making it easy for a homeowner to call you or ask for a quote.

Below: how a spread-out metro shapes your website design, what working with one person is like, and where your Google profile fits.

I'm based in Austin and build websites for home service businesses wherever they are. It all happens online, so working together is easy from anywhere.

The city itself crosses county lines. Its City Clerk handles election contracts with Travis, Williamson and Hays counties. The wider metro is bigger still: the Bureau of Labor Statistics counts five counties in it, adding Bastrop and Caldwell.

The roads tie it together: I-35, MoPac, SH 130, US 290, SH 71 and US 183. TxDOT names each of them a strategic corridor for its Austin District.

With those roads, your service area may cover more than one town. An HVAC company based off I-35 might take calls from Round Rock, Pflugerville, Manor and Buda.

So every plan includes pages for your main services and towns. Each main service gets a page of its own, and so do the first few towns you name after your home base. If Round Rock is one of them, a homeowner there finds a page that speaks to their town, not one general page about everything you do.

The area is growing, too. The City of Austin says the city passed a million residents, and counties across the metro added new housing units. Older houses in historic districts like Hyde Park and newer ones across the metro all need repairs, upgrades and someone to call.

Fletch SEO is a one-person web design company, so you're hiring me, not an agency. When you work with Fletch, you work with me, one-on-one.

I'm the person you talk to first, the person who designs and builds your site, and the person who answers your messages after it launches. No hand-offs, and no one new to explain your business to.

I keep the rules plain, too. Reasonable small edits are part of every plan: new text, hours, prices, photos or a new service. Bigger jobs, like a new section or a redesign, get a quote first, and nothing extra is charged without your OK.

Every plan is built for Google with basic SEO, but a good-looking site is only the start. For a roofer or an electrician, I focus on an easy next step for the homeowner: a call button on every phone screen, and a quote form for jobs that need a price first.

Search for a plumber or a tree service on your phone, and Google often shows a map with a few businesses pinned on it, above the regular results. People call that the map pack. For a homeowner with a leak, it's often the first thing they see.

The businesses on that map come from Google Business Profiles. Your profile is the listing with your name, service area, hours, photos and reviews. You don't need a storefront to have one: if you go to your customers, Google lets you show a service area and leave your address off.

Your profile and your website work as a pair. The profile links to your site, and the site tells Google, and the customer, what you do and which towns you cover. Your real Google reviews can show on your site too, with your OK.

Google decides who shows up on the map, and I can't promise you a spot. What I can do is look after your profile with you. On Website + Google, I add posts with photos to your profile every month, answer every review and send review requests to your customers.