Website for locksmiths that answers the callout question first
Somebody standing outside their own front door at midnight is not comparing five firms; they want a callout charge, a phone number and the words out of hours. If those three things are not on the screen in about ten seconds, they are already scrolling to the next name on the list.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.
Three things that decide whether they ring you
Locksmithing is two businesses wearing one van. The panic at midnight and the letting agent's lock change on Tuesday have almost nothing in common except you.
The first question
It is never what lock is it. It is what will this cost me, and the caller asks it in the first ten words because they have heard the stories about the man who turned up, drilled everything and left an invoice for the whole door.
If your page does not answer it, you answer it forty times a week on the phone, standing in the rain outside somebody else's job.
The wrong postcode
Half past two in the morning and you are awake, dressed, and finding out it is a village forty minutes past the edge of where you actually go. Nobody wasted this call on purpose. The site said locksmith and gave a town name, and to somebody locked out at two in the morning that reads as anywhere near here.
The honest answer costs you the sleep either way.
The job that could have waited
A letting agent wants five properties done between tenancies, all British Standard, all with three keys, before the new tenants move in on the first. That is a real week of planned work at a proper rate, and it arrives as a voicemail with a list read out too fast to write down.
You ring back twice. By then it has gone to whoever picked up.
What actually belongs on a locksmith's site
Four parts, and the first two exist purely so the person on the doorstep stops looking.
Callout charge at the top, priced the way you really charge
A callout is a from-price because the lock decides the rest. A euro cylinder swap is a fixed price. Working hours and out of hours are two separate lines, because pretending they are the same is how the argument on the doorstep starts.
Seeing that on a page tells somebody in a panic that you are the sort of firm that writes its charges down, which is most of the reason they pick you.
The midnight questions, already answered
Will you drill my lock. Can you get in without damaging the door. Do I have to prove I live here. Do you cover my area. How long will you be.
Those five sit on the page as a proper question and answer section, so the person outside reads them at the moment they need them. It also means the answers are the same every time instead of whatever you manage to say half asleep.
Planned work arrives in writing
The emergency side is a phone number. The other half of the business is not, and it should not be: a landlord replacing locks between tenancies, an office wanting a master suite, a homeowner upgrading to anti-snap cylinders after a break-in nearby.
They fill in a form with the address, the number of doors and the date they need it by, and you read the list instead of trying to transcribe a voicemail.
You find out what people actually landed on
If the emergency page gets read at two in the morning and the security review page gets read on a Sunday afternoon, that tells you where the next hour of your own effort belongs.
It is plain visitor statistics with no cookie banner attached, so the person in a hurry gets your phone number rather than a consent box over the top of it.
A locksmith's price list, in the shape the system uses
Your charges, your wording. What the list gives you is the difference between what you can state and what depends on the door.
Keep emergency and planned work in separate categories with separate prices. They are read by different people at different hours and they should not share a page.
What locksmiths want to know before they commit
You do not have to, but it is the question that decides the call. A from-price with the out of hours line stated separately answers it without tying you to a figure for a lock you have not seen.
Say where you go, by town and by the roads people actually recognise, and repeat it near the phone number rather than burying it on a coverage page. The area pages also mean somebody searching for a locksmith in their own town finds you rather than a national number.
That is the point of splitting them. The emergency page is a charge and a number with nothing else on it, and the planned work page is a form with the address, the doors and the date, because nobody in a panic fills in a form.
Yes. The form takes free text, so an agent can paste five addresses with the dates the tenancies end, and it lands as one enquiry you can read at the kerbside instead of a voicemail you have to replay.
The plans run from £49 to £199 a month plus VAT. Site on your own domain, SSL, hosting, nightly backups and support are in every one of them, and the enquiry form and price list are in the plans from £99.
No. It gets imported first, so your number, your area wording and anything you have written stay put, then the builder adds the price list and the questions section around it. You edit the lot by clicking pencils on the page.
More trades
- Solar installersThe roof survey as the first bookable step.
- Heat pump installersHome visit, quote and service plan in one place.
- BuildersQuotes with cost lines, approved online.
- PlumbersThe emergency line, unburdened by prices and an FAQ.
- ElectriciansFixed prices for small jobs, quotes for the rest.
- Painters and decoratorsQuoted per room and surface, sold on photos.
- All trades
Put the callout charge where people can see it
Say what you charge, what hours you work and how far you go, and you get a first version with an emergency page, a planned work form and a question section written for somebody reading it on a doorstep. Then change it by clicking the pencils.
The site runs on your own domain, with SSL, hosting and nightly backups in every plan. From £49 to £199 a month, excluding VAT.