What a Restoration Company Website Needs (and What It Can Skip)

The plumber has capped the line, handed the homeowner your card, and driven off to the next call. The homeowner looks at the card for a second. Then they do what nearly everyone does with a business card now: they type your name into their phone to see whether you're real.

That moment is what your website is for. However they found you, most visitors are checking the same few things, quickly, on a small screen, while something in the house is still wet. A restoration company website doesn't need to be clever. It needs to answer their questions before they hit the back button.

Picture the visitor first

Before anyone touches a layout, picture who's holding the phone. It's Saturday evening, there's water on the laundry room floor, and whoever is searching is doing it standing up, between trips back to look at it. They aren't browsing. They want a phone number, a sign that you work in their town, and a reason to believe you'll show up and do it right.

Every decision below comes back to that person. If a part of the site doesn't help them call you, trust you, or understand what happens next, it can probably go.

A number you can tap, at the top of every page

• Put the phone number at the top of every page, on mobile as well as desktop, and make it tap-to-call. Nobody should have to copy digits out of a footer with a mop in the other hand.
• Use one number everywhere. Whatever is printed on the truck door should ring the same phone as the website.
• Make "24/7" mean what the reader thinks it means. To someone with water on the floor at night, it means a person answers and a crew can come tonight. If that's how your nights work, say so. If after-hours calls get a callback in the morning, say that instead. A plain promise beats a big one with an asterisk only your office knows about.
• Offer a short form as the second option, for people who can't talk right now. Keep it to a few fields, say when you'll respond, and route it to someone who checks it after hours. A form that sits unread until the office opens is worse than no form, because the sender may stop calling around while they wait for you.

Show where you work

"Serving the greater area" tells a visitor nothing. Name the towns, cities, and counties you actually reach on a service area page, and mention the main ones on the homepage. Town names written out in plain text are easier for people and search engines to read than a map image.

Draw the area honestly. If you'd rather not drive to a town, leave it off the list.

One page for each service you actually do

Water, fire and smoke, mold, and contents each get their own page, if you do them. Each page should cover, in plain language:

• What the service is and when someone needs it.
• What the first visit looks like, from arrival to the first piece of equipment.
• What the homeowner can safely do before you arrive, and what to leave alone.
• Photos from your own jobs.

Write these pages for a stressed person, not for a keyword. Explain why the crew might cut the bottom of the walls, as our post on flood cuts does, or what happens when a ceiling starts to stain, as in our roof leak guide. Plain explanations answer questions before the phone rings, and they show you know the work. On the mold page especially, describe what you do and how you do it, and leave health claims to doctors.

Real photos of real people

The model in the spotless white hard hat, smiling at a clipboard in a room with no water in it, has never pulled a wet pad in his life. Homeowners can tell. So can the plumber who referred you.

• The people who will show up, in their real uniforms, wearing PPE the right way.
• A truck from your own lot, clean enough that the name on the side is easy to read.
• A real setup, with tidy cord runs and equipment placed with care.
• Before-and-after work, posted only with the customer's written permission.

Before any job photo goes up, look at it the way a neighbor would. If anything in the frame, from the mailbox to a framed picture on the wall, could tell someone whose house it is, crop it or choose another shot.

Reviews, honestly

Show real reviews and link to where they were posted, so visitors can read the rest. Don't edit a customer's words, don't write reviews yourself, and don't pay or reward anyone for one. A wall of glowing quotes with no source looks invented even when it isn't.

The insurance page homeowners actually read

For a lot of people, this is their first claim, and the process scares them more than the water does. A plain-language page called something like "How insurance claims work with us" can be the most useful page on the site. Walk through it in order:

• You call us, and we come out to stop the damage.
• We document everything: photos, moisture readings, and notes on what we find.
• You report the claim to your insurance company, if you haven't already.
• Your adjuster determines coverage. We share our documentation and work with them on the scope.
• You sign a work authorization before we start, and a certificate of completion when the work is done.
• Payment terms are spelled out in writing, including any deductible your policy has.

Be careful with promises here. Describe how you work with adjusters only as far as it's true, and never write "Insurance will cover it," because that isn't yours to say. Some states limit what contractors may say or do about a customer's claim, so have your attorney review this page, especially anything about your contract or payment terms. Define the words that trip people up, like mitigation and supplement, in a sentence each; our restoration glossary is a handy starting point.

Fast on a phone, or it doesn't count

The visitors who matter most will see your site on a phone, sometimes on one bar of signal in a basement. Test it that way.

• Load it on your own phone over cellular data, not the office Wi-Fi. If you notice the wait, so will they.
• Shrink the photos. Huge image files are one of the easiest ways to slow a site down and one of the easiest things to fix.
• Keep the call button visible. Chat bubbles, cookie banners, and pop-ups love to sit right on top of it.
• Make the text readable without zooming, and the buttons big enough for a thumb, on every page.

What it can skip

Plenty of things that impress in a design meeting do nothing for the person in the wet laundry room.

• Autoplay video, especially with sound. Nobody needs an inspirational soundtrack while they hunt for your number.
• The long mission statement. One honest sentence about who you are is plenty. Your values can show up in how the crew treats the house.
• Rotating banner sliders. The slide with the phone number is never the one showing.
• Jargon on the homepage. Category 3 and Class 4 are useful words on a job site and confusing ones on a homepage.
• Claims you can't back up. "Fastest response in the state" invites a test you may not pass on a busy night.
• Newsletter pop-ups. Someone with water on the floor is not ready to subscribe.

The five-minute test

Hand your phone to a friend or relative who doesn't work for you and give them a scenario: water under the dishwasher, they live in one of your towns, and they've never filed a claim. Then watch without helping. Can they find the number in a few seconds? Can they tell you serve their town? After a minute on the insurance page, can they explain what happens next?

Wherever they hesitate is your to-do list. And once the calls and forms start coming in, each one should be tracked from the first contact; to see how riivet handles that, see a demo.