The bathroom remodeler website: seven things it has to do before it does anything else
What a bathroom remodeling website must do to turn a visitor into an estimate request: speed, tap-to-call, project pages, real photos, price ranges, proof.
- 1. Load in under three seconds on a phone
- 2. Tap-to-call and a short form, both above the fold
- 3. One page per project type
- 4. Real photos, labeled
- 5. Price ranges on the page
- 6. Financing with a monthly number
- 7. Proof: reviews, license, and a face
- The things that do not matter much
- A note on builders and cost
- Frequently asked
A homeowner comparing bathroom remodelers opens four websites in four tabs on a Sunday night. She gives each one about eight seconds. One has a slideshow that is still loading. One says "Your Dream Bathroom Awaits" over a stock photo. One wants her to fill out a six-field form before it shows any work. One has a photo of a tiled walk-in shower, "Tub-to-shower conversions from $9,500", and a phone number she can tap. That one gets the call.
20.4% of the 8,145 bathroom remodelers on Google have no website at all. Many of the rest have one that does not do the seven things below. Companies with a website have a median of 15 reviews against 1 for those without; the site is a marker for the whole operation.
1. Load in under three seconds on a phone
More than half of remodel research happens on a phone. Test yours with Google's PageSpeed Insights. If the mobile score is under 60, the usual culprits are a dozen 4 MB photos straight off the camera, three fonts, and a chat widget. Resize every image to 1600 pixels wide and under 250 KB. Drop the slideshow. A site that loads in two seconds with eight sharp photos beats one with forty that loads in nine.
2. Tap-to-call and a short form, both above the fold
On the phone, the number at the top of every page should be a link that dials. Next to it, a button to a form with three fields: name, phone, what are you thinking about (a dropdown: tub-to-shower, walk-in shower, full remodel, other). Every extra field drops completion by a noticeable amount. You can ask about budget and timeline on the call.
Put the form on every page, not just a contact page. The person reading the walk-in shower page is ready right there.
3. One page per project type
A home page that says "we do bathrooms" ranks for nothing and answers nothing. Build a page for each:
- Full bathroom remodel
- Tub-to-shower conversion
- Walk-in showers and aging-in-place (curbless entries, benches, grab bars, comfort-height fixtures)
- Shower tile replacement and regrout
- Half bath and powder room
- A comparison page: tiled shower vs one-day acrylic bath system
Each page opens with two plain sentences naming the project, your towns, a typical timeline and a price range. Then four to six photos of your own work on that project type, a short description of the process, financing, and the form. The comparison page is the one your competitors will not write; it wins the homeowner who has already heard the franchise pitch.
4. Real photos, labeled
Stock photos cost you more than they save. Homeowners recognize them and franchises use the same ones. Every photo on the site should be a bathroom you built, shot from the doorway in daylight, with the project type and town in the file name and the alt text: "walk-in-shower-conversion-naperville.jpg". Google reads both. Eight great photos beat forty mediocre ones.
Add a before-and-after pair to each project page. Nothing sells a remodel like the 1992 almond tub next to the finished shower.
5. Price ranges on the page
"Call for a quote" is the most expensive phrase on a remodeler's website. It gets you calls from people with $3,000 and scares off people with $18,000 who assume you are more. Put ranges on every project page:
"A tub-to-shower conversion typically runs $9,500 to $16,000 depending on tile, glass and whether we move plumbing. A full bathroom remodel runs $18,000 to $35,000."
Use your own numbers. The range filters out the wrong calls and reassures the right ones. The pricing guide covers how to structure the ranges and what to show on the estimate.
6. Financing with a monthly number
If you offer financing, say so on every page with a real monthly figure: "$14,000 at 0% for 18 months is about $778 a month." Link to the lender's application if they provide one. A homeowner who sees a monthly payment in her range stops shopping. Make sure the disclosure matches your lender's terms.
7. Proof: reviews, license, and a face
Pull five Google reviews that name a project and a town onto the home page and the matching project pages, with first name and town. Show your license number, insurance, and years in business in the footer. Put a photo of the owner and the lead installer on the About page with two sentences each. People are letting you into their house for three weeks; they want to see who is coming.
The reviews guide covers getting reviews that are worth quoting.
The things that do not matter much
A blog, unless you will actually write it. An Instagram feed widget. Animated counters. A chatbot. A "request a brochure" download. A mission statement. If the budget is tight, spend it on the seven items above and on photos.
A note on builders and cost
A site that does all seven can be built on any mainstream platform. A fair price from a freelancer or small shop for a 10 to 15 page remodeler site with your photos and copy is $2,500 to $7,000. Anything over $12,000 should come with a very specific explanation. Monthly hosting and maintenance of $30 to $150 is normal; $500 a month for a site that is not changing is not. The agency guide has more on fair prices.
Check your current site against this list on a phone, tonight, timing the load. Then look at the benchmark report for your state to see how many competitors have no site at all.
Frequently asked
Should the site show my address? If you have a showroom, yes, prominently, with hours; a showroom is a conversion advantage in this trade. If you work from home, show the service area and towns instead.
Do I need a page for every town I serve? For your three to five biggest towns, a short page each with a project photo from that town, a sentence about the neighborhoods, and the form helps with "bathroom remodel [town]" searches. Twenty thin town pages with the same text hurt more than help.
What should the home page headline say? What you do, where, and a number. "Bathroom remodeling in Chattanooga. Tub-to-shower conversions from $9,500, full remodels from $18,000, financing available." Not a slogan.
Website design and rebuilds are one of the services in the free 14-day trial: a working draft you can click through before you pay anything.
Steven has spent the last several years running growth campaigns for local service businesses, bathroom remodeling companies among them, and builds the benchmark datasets on this site from public Google listings. About the editor