Someone searching for a tree surgeon is usually a bit worried. The ash at the end of the garden has died back, the conifer is leaning over the neighbour’s shed, or the storm last night left half a sycamore on the lawn. When they compare websites for tree surgeons in Dublin, the questions in their head are about safety before price: is this crowd insured, do they know what they are doing, and will they leave our garden in a state. A site that answers those, with photographs of a real crew doing real work, gets the visit. Price comes up later, and by then they trust you.
Dangerous now, or dangerous eventually
Tree work arrives in two speeds. After a night of wind there is the urgent call, a limb hanging over a footpath or a tree across a driveway, and the person ringing wants someone today. The rest of the year it is planned work: a crown reduction to let light into a kitchen, a removal before an extension, a hedge brought down to a height the neighbours can live with.
The urgent page is short: a phone button, the areas you cover, a line that says you do emergency work and roughly how you prioritise it, and an enquiry form that takes a photo of the tree. The planned-work page is longer, with the photos and the explanation of how you quote. Google sends the urgent searcher to one and the planner to the other, as long as the pages are built that way.
Insurance and tickets on the page, not just in the van
Every tree surgeon carries the insurance certificate in the van and nobody puts it on the website. A homeowner with a big beech near a neighbour’s roof is thinking about what happens if something goes wrong, and the firm that says, in plain words, that it holds public liability and employer’s liability cover, and names the level, has answered the question before it is asked.
The same goes for training. Say that you and your crew hold chainsaw and aerial rescue certificates, that the climbers are trained and the ground staff are too. People are not checking the acronyms. They are checking that you thought to mention it, which tells them what kind of outfit you are.
Photographs of people in trees
Tree surgery is one of the few trades where a photo of the work in progress sells better than the finished job. A climber roped into a crown with the groundie clearing below says more about competence than any paragraph. Take those photos. Then the pair that matters for planned work: the tree before the reduction and after, from the same spot in the garden, so a homeowner can see it still looks like a tree. Then the garden afterwards, swept, with the timber stacked for the owner or gone.
Put the area under each job. Someone in Castleknock wants to see you have taken down a big tree in a tight suburban garden, not a conifer in a field in Wicklow. If the job involved a crane or a tight drop over a conservatory, say so, because that is the detail that makes the next nervous customer ring.
Licences, preservation orders and nesting season
You answer the same three questions on every quote. Do we need permission. Can you do it in June. Who takes the wood. A careful section on the site covers them without giving legal advice: that some trees need a felling licence and some are protected by preservation orders, that you check before any work and tell the customer what applies, and that you plan around nesting season and will say when a job should wait. It saves the call, and it shows you know the rules.
Timber, chip and the questions that follow every quote
Say whether you take the timber away, leave it cut into rings, or chip it for the beds. Say whether stump grinding is included or quoted separately and what it starts from by stump size. Say what you do about access through a house, and about the neighbour’s side of the hedge. Half of your quoting conversation disappears when it is written down. For the hedge and garden work you would rather not do, point people at a gardener or a landscaper and they will do the same for you. Getting the map listing right, so the urgent searcher sees you first, is covered in how to get your business on Google Maps.
What we need from a tree surgeon
A dozen photos of the crew at work and of finished reductions with befores. Your insurance details and certificates. The areas you cover. How you handle emergencies and what hours. What you do with timber and stumps. Ten minutes on the phone, when you are on the ground.
The plan
Essentials covers nearly every tree surgery outfit: €499 to set up, €50 a month, no contract, VAT on top. A firm that wants ads switched on after a storm or a chat box fielding “can you come today” should look at Complete. The comparison is on the pricing page.