22 September 2026 · 7 min read · Oscar Markham
How to get more customers as a tradesman in Ireland
When work slows the instinct is to start advertising. Frequently that is the third thing to do rather than the first, because two free things usually produce more and cost nothing but an afternoon. Here is the order we would work through it.
First: your Google Business Profile
For a local trade this is worth more than a website and it costs nothing. Most profiles are half-finished — one category, no services listed, three photographs from four years ago and a description nobody has read since.
Fill in every service separately, add photographs of recent jobs, get the categories right and post occasionally. For a trade with a genuine local catchment this frequently produces more calls within a month than a small advertising budget would.
Second: reviews
Between you and the next firm, reviews usually decide it. Ask every customer you finish with, send the short link rather than asking them to search, and ask a few every week rather than twenty at once.
Trades consistently underestimate how willing satisfied customers are to do this. The reason most have few reviews is not reluctance — it is that nobody asked.
Third: make it easy to contact you
A tappable phone number on every page. A WhatsApp button, because a great many people would rather message than ring. A form that asks four questions, not twelve.
If people are finding you and not making contact, more advertising only buys you more people who will not make contact.
Then, and only then, advertise
Once the free things are done, paid advertising works considerably better, because the profile and the site you are sending people to are now worth landing on.
Start with one channel. Search if your work is urgent, social if it is visual and discretionary. Give it a month and judge it on enquiries you could actually serve, not clicks.
The things that rarely work
Shared lead-buying sites, where the same enquiry is sold to four firms and the job goes to whoever rings first and quotes lowest.
Leaflet drops with no way to tell whether they worked.
Posting on social media with no budget behind it and expecting reach. Organic reach for small business pages is a fraction of what it was, and the content is necessary but no longer sufficient.
What good looks like after three months
A profile that appears in the map results for your own area. Enough recent reviews that you are the obvious choice locally. A site that turns a reasonable share of visitors into calls. And one advertising channel producing enquiries at a cost you have worked out you can afford.
That is an unglamorous list and it is what actually fills a diary.
Written by Oscar Markham, founder of Dublin Growth Digital. We run lead generation for Irish estate agents and trades, reported every Friday in enquiries and booked work.