What does a one-person home service business need from a website?
Less than most website companies try to sell you. A solo cleaner, handyman, lawn care operator or pressure washer needs a site that does four things well:
- Works on a phone first. Most people looking for local help search on their phone, often in the middle of a problem.
- Makes calling or texting you one tap. A button at the top of every page, and a short form for people who would rather not call.
- Says exactly what you do and where. A page for each service you want more of and the towns you cover, so Google can match you to those searches.
- Proves you are real. Your name, your photo, real job photos and your reviews. A one-person business wins on trust, and showing your face is an advantage, not a weakness.
What you do not need: a blog you will not write, a dozen pages nobody visits, or a booking system you will not keep up to date while you are on a ladder.
Option 1: Build it yourself with a website builder
Builders like Wix, Squarespace or GoDaddy let you build a site in a weekend for roughly $15 to $50 a month. It is the cheapest option in cash. The cost is your time: picking a template, writing every page, taking photos, setting up the phone button and the page titles. Most solo owners get a homepage live and never finish the service pages, which are the pages that bring in search calls.
It fits if you enjoy it, have the evenings, and mainly need somewhere to send people who already know your name.
Option 2: A template you set up yourself
A paid theme looks more professional out of the box, but the work is the same: you still write every page and set up the SEO. Our guide to construction website templates covers what to check before you buy one.
Option 3: A freelancer or an agency
This saves your time, and a good freelancer can build exactly what you need. Prices range widely, from a few hundred dollars to several thousand, often with a monthly plan. Before you sign, check three things: who owns the domain and the site, whether there is a contract you cannot leave, and whether they have built sites for businesses like yours that get calls. Our guide on how to compare home service website quotes has a checklist you can send them.
Option 4: Sloan's Websites
Sloan's Websites fits a one-person home service business because you see the finished site before you pay anything: the first step is a free 5-page preview, built by hand and emailed within 24 hours. It also fits a solo budget, because the build is a flat $750 plus $25 a month for hosting and maintenance, with no long-term contract, and the domain, the code and the hosting account are yours.
It suits an owner with no spare evenings, because we write the pages, set up a page for each service and area you serve, connect your Google Business Profile, and most sites go live in under a week. If missed calls are your problem, the $1,250 plan adds a text back to every missed call and follow-up on every lead, which matters when you cannot answer the phone mid-job.
It is not the cheapest option in cash; a builder you set up yourself is. It is the option for an owner whose time is better spent on paid work. Prices are on our pricing page.
What a finished site does for an owner-run business
The builder pages all promise a site in an hour. What they don't show is what happens when the service and town pages are actually finished, because that is the part most solo owners never get to. Two examples from our own clients:
- An owner-operated basement remodeler in Louisville went from not showing in the map pack at all to number one for basement remodeling and basement finishing, with 2 leads in the first two weeks (rankings checked by hand in Google). See the remodeler case study.
- A small Shelby County landscaper went from 3 to 166 organic visitors and 6 new customers after we rebuilt the site and ran its local SEO (Google Search Console, before and after). See the landscaping case study.
In both cases the work that moved the numbers was the unglamorous part: pages for each service and area, and a connected Google Business Profile. That is what a solo owner should judge any option on: will those pages actually get finished?
Which option is best for a one-person business?
If your calendar is already full from word of mouth, a simple builder site is enough, and your time is better spent on your Google Business Profile. If you want more calls from people who do not know you yet, you need service and town pages done properly, and that is where most do-it-yourself sites stall. Pick the option you will actually finish.
Whatever you choose, link the site to your Google Business Profile. For a solo business, the map listing and the website work as a pair: the profile gets the call, and the site is where people check you out first. Our answer on what a home services website should include lists the pages in more detail.