What a construction company website actually needs

Construction is bought on evidence. Whoever is choosing between you and two other contractors is trying to answer three questions quickly: have they done work like mine, are they big enough to handle it, and have they been around long enough to still be here at handover.

Most Kenyan contractors can answer all three convincingly and have no way to show it. Twenty years of completed projects sit on phones and in a WhatsApp group, while the website is one page that has not changed since it was built.

What belongs on it

• Completed projects, organised by type and scale - not a single gallery. A client shortlisting for a forty-unit development needs to see one, not scroll past twelve bathroom refits to find it.
• How long you have been trading. In this sector longevity is a credential, and it is the cheapest trust signal you own.
• The kinds of work you take on, stated plainly, including what you do not do.
• Enough company detail for prequalification: registration, capability, the things a procurement officer will ask for anyway.
• A direct way to reach a human, because a referred client is calling three contractors this afternoon.

What does not matter as much as people think

• Elaborate animation. Nobody chose a contractor because the homepage scrolled well.
• A long company philosophy section. It reads as filler next to a photograph of finished work.
• A blog, unless you will actually write it. An abandoned news page dated three years ago is worse than none.

The referral moment

Most construction work still comes by referral, and that is exactly where the website earns its cost. Someone is given your name, looks you up, and finds either a portfolio that confirms the recommendation or nothing at all. They are usually looking up two other names at the same time. What they find decides who gets called first.