The seven things a home inspection website has to do
Sample reports, online booking, speed, tap-to-call, service and county pages, and pricing, for a home inspection site that wins a 48 hour decision.
- 1. Load in under two seconds on a phone
- 2. Tap-to-call above the fold, on every page
- 3. A redacted sample report, on its own page
- 4. One page per service, with prices
- 5. Real county and town pages
- 6. Online booking that works at 10 p.m.
- 7. Proof, in the header and the footer
- What to cut
- The whole build
- Frequently asked
35.4% of home inspection companies list no website on their Google profile. Inspectors with a site have a median of 16 reviews; inspectors without one have 0. The site is not causing the reviews, but the two travel together, and a firm with nowhere to send a buyer is fighting the comparison blind.
The comparison is the point. A buyer under contract has two or three names and a day or two. They open all three sites on a phone, usually in a parking lot. Your site has about eight seconds to answer three questions: is this person real, what does it cost, and can I book it right now.
Here is what the site has to do, in the order it matters.
1. Load in under two seconds on a phone
Most inspector sites are built on a template with a full-screen video header, four carousel images and six tracking scripts. On a phone over cell data that is a five second first paint, and roughly half the visitors leave before it finishes.
Targets: under 1.5 seconds to first contentful paint, under 500KB on the homepage, images served as WebP at the size they display. Kill the video header, kill the carousel, kill any script you cannot name a reason for. Test on a real phone on cell data, not on your office wifi.
2. Tap-to-call above the fold, on every page
The phone number as a tappable link, in the header, at the top of every page, not just on a contact page. Add a sticky bar on mobile with two buttons: Call and Book. A buyer with a contingency deadline does not scroll to find a contact form.
Put your hours next to the number. If you answer until 8 p.m. and work Saturday mornings, say it there. Only 31.6% of inspectors list Saturday hours anywhere, so it reads as an advantage.
3. A redacted sample report, on its own page
This is the page that decides the job, and most inspection sites do not have it.
The buyer has never seen an inspection report. They are quietly afraid of a 90-page document they will not understand. The agent, meanwhile, wants to know whether your report will kill the deal over cosmetic items. One page solves both problems:
- The full report as a PDF or a shared link, with the address and client name removed
- A two-minute video of you scrolling through the summary section, explaining how findings are prioritized
- A sentence on tone: "Findings are ranked. Safety items first, then major defects, then maintenance. Nothing gets flagged to look thorough."
- A sentence on delivery: "In your inbox by 9 p.m. the day of the inspection."
If you use modern report software, link the interactive web version rather than a PDF. A buyer who can click through a real report on their phone has already decided.
4. One page per service, with prices
Not a single "services" page listing nine things. One page each for: pre-purchase inspection, pre-listing inspection, new construction phase, 11-month warranty, radon, sewer scope, mold sampling, wood-destroying organism, pool, and whatever else your market needs such as four-point or wind mitigation.
Each page: what it covers, what it costs, how long it adds to the appointment, one photo of the work, and a booking button. "Radon testing, $150 added to any inspection, 48-hour continuous monitor, results in the same report" is a complete page and it will out-earn 800 words of filler.
Prices belong on the site. Inspectors resist this because they fear being shopped on price. They are being shopped on price already; the only question is whether they are in the conversation. A range with the variables named ("$395 to $650 by square footage and age") pre-qualifies the caller and cuts your quoting time.
5. Real county and town pages
One page per county or metro area you actually serve, with the towns named and something specific about the housing stock: post-war homes with Federal Pacific panels, 1990s builds hitting their first roof replacement, coastal properties needing wind mitigation. Two hundred words of real local knowledge beats twelve near-identical city pages with the name swapped, which Google and the AI answer engines both discount now. The reasoning is in the AI search guide.
6. Online booking that works at 10 p.m.
The single highest-return feature on an inspection site. The decision window is 24 to 48 hours and a lot of it happens after business hours, when the buyer is home from work reading the contract.
Booking should show real availability, take the property address and square footage, price the job automatically including add-ons, take a signed agreement, and confirm by text. Most inspection platforms do all of this out of the box and most inspectors leave it turned off because they want to talk to every client first. That instinct costs jobs to the firm whose calendar is open.
If you will not automate booking, at minimum put a request form that texts you instantly, and pair it with missed-call text-back as described in the missed calls guide.
7. Proof, in the header and the footer
Credentials answer the "is this person real" question before the price does:
- Your certifying body and certification number, InterNACHI or ASHI
- State license number where your state licenses inspectors
- Errors and omissions and general liability, stated as covered
- Inspections completed, an honest count
- Your Google rating and review count, pulled live if your platform supports it
- Your face, in a real photograph, not a stock image
On the review count: 66.6% of rated inspectors show a flat 5.0, so the stars alone prove nothing. The count is the signal. Where you sit against the field is in the benchmark report.
What to cut
Testimonial sliders that auto-rotate. Chat widgets that pop up after three seconds and cover the phone number. A blog with two posts from 2021. "Peace of mind" as a headline. A contact form with nine fields, when four will do: name, phone, property address, closing date.
The whole build
Ten to fourteen pages, a week of work, and it does not need to be expensive. Homepage, sample report, about with your face and credentials, contact and booking, four to six service pages, two or three county pages, and an FAQ.
Frequently asked
Do I need a blog? Only if you will keep it running. Three defect posts a month with real photos help. Two abandoned posts hurt, because a stale site reads as a closed business.
Can I just use a page from my report software? The booking and agreement pages are fine. The marketing pages are not; they are identical for every inspector using that platform, which gives the answer engines nothing to distinguish you with.
Wix, Squarespace or WordPress? Any of them, if it loads fast and you can edit it yourself. The platform is not what is holding inspection sites back.
Website design is one of the services in the free 14-day trial, with a first draft in about a week. Text or call (385) 832-6175.