The person who needs a painter has usually already seen your work. A neighbour’s hall, a friend’s Instagram story, a van parked on their road. What they do next is search, and the search is something like “painter and decorator Dublin 12” or “exterior painter near me”. If we are honest about websites for painters and decorators in Dublin, most of them fail at that moment: no site, or a site with no prices, no areas and a gallery that has not changed in years. A page that says what you do, where, and roughly for how much, with last month’s work on it, is all it takes to be the one they ring.
Interiors in the dark months, exteriors when it dries
Decorating has two seasons and your site should know which one it is in. From October to March the work is indoors: halls, stairs and landings before Christmas, rental flats between tenants, the sitting room that has been “next year” for three years. From April onwards people look at the front of the house in daylight and start searching for exterior painting, railings, fascia and masonry.
Your page should lead with whichever season is coming. In February that means an exterior section near the top with a note like “taking bookings for exteriors from May”. In September it means interiors, and a line about getting the hall done before the visitors arrive. You change that line yourself on the edit page in a minute, or send it to us.
The grid is not the whole story
Plenty of decorators run their whole business from Instagram and feel the site is a formality. The grid is good at one thing: showing the finish. It is bad at everything else a customer wants to know before they message you. Do you do exteriors. Do you do wallpaper. What area. How much, roughly. Are you booked till June.
Google will not send a search to your grid, and a fair number of your customers, especially the ones with older houses and bigger budgets, are not on Instagram at all. The site carries the facts and links to the grid for the pictures. We have written more about this in whether you need a website if you have Instagram.
What to photograph, and what to write under it
Painters undersell their work in photos because a well painted wall looks like a wall. What sells is the pair: the same room, the same angle, before and after, taken in daylight with the lights off. The hall with the scuffed skirting and the hall with the fresh gloss. The front of a house in tired magnolia and the same front in a proper colour.
Under each pair, two lines: the area, the colours if the customer is likely to ask (the door is a dark green, the walls a warm white), and anything awkward you solved, like a tall stairwell or wallpaper over old lining paper. Those lines are what people search for.
The questions that come in at half ten at night
A decorator’s phone is quiet while they are on the ladder and busy when they have sat down. Messages come at night: how much for a three bed, do you do just ceilings, can you start Monday, do you supply the paint.
Put the answers on the page. A from price per standard room, or a day rate and how many rooms a day you get through. Whether you supply paint or the customer does, and which brands you prefer. What is included: filling, sanding, caulking, moving furniture, dust sheets, clean-up. Your minimum job. Where you work. Half the night time messages stop, and the other half arrive already knowing the answers, which means they are serious.
What we need to build it
Ten before and after pairs, your price approach, the areas you cover, whether you do exteriors and wallpaper, and your busy months. If you work alongside a plasterer who skims before you paint, tell us, because people often want both and the two pages can point at each other.
What it costs
Essentials does the job for almost every decorator: €499 to set up, €50 a month, no contract, VAT on top. Firms with a few crews that want ads in exterior season or a chat box for the late messages can look at Complete on the pricing page.