Ten seconds to show you have dug through limestone before
The visitor's first question is whether their site conditions are familiar to you, and a hero image cannot answer it.
Much of the Nashville area sits on shallow limestone, which frequently makes excavation a rock problem rather than a soil problem. Homeowners here hear about it early, from a neighbor or from a first bid, and it is the thing they are quietly worried about.
So put it above the fold. One line saying you work in rock, a photograph of an actual excavation in progress, and a link to the page that explains how it affects price and schedule. Do not diagnose anyone's property, and say conditions vary considerably from one street to the next.
The rest of the first screen belongs to three things: where you work, what you build, and one obvious way to start. Everything else can wait for a scroll.
A rendering of a finished pool at dusk sells a fantasy to someone who already believes you can build a pool. It does nothing for the buyer trying to decide whether their sloped lot in Bellevue is a project you would take.
Ask about the driveway, the gate and the slope before you ask for a budget
The inquiry form is a qualification tool, and in this trade access decides more than budget does.
Capture the county first, since a project in Williamson and a project in Davidson County involve different processes and different travel. Then capture the address or at least the neighborhood, because access is site specific.
Ask what machine access looks like. Gate width, driveway, slope, whether a truck can reach the back yard or whether everything comes through a side alley. Ask whether the yard is fenced and whether trees are in the way. Those answers are the difference between a workable job and a wasted drive.
Ask what they are trying to do, in their words, with a short set of options: new build, full renovation, resurface, deck, equipment, spa. Then ask about timing and whether anyone else is part of the decision.
Keep the field count honest. Every extra question costs you inquiries, so cut anything you would not actually act on. Access, scope, county and timing earn their place. A dropdown for how they heard about you can go on the confirmation page instead.
A page that explains rock pricing honestly without quoting a number
Buyers here do not expect a fixed price online, they expect to understand what could move it.
Write a page that explains how a pool project is generally priced in this area, what an allowance is, what typically triggers a change order, and why excavation is the line most likely to move once work starts.
Say plainly that ground conditions vary block to block and that only a site evaluation on the property can tell anyone what they are dealing with. Recommend the evaluation. Do not publish figures you cannot support.
That page is what people forward. Sustained relocation into Middle Tennessee means a steady share of buyers have no contractor to ask and no referral network, and the plain explainer does the work a referral would have done.
It also protects you later. A buyer who understood before signing that rock can move a number is a very different conversation at week three than one who was never told.
Heavy galleries are why the Germantown homeowner never reached your form
Your best photographs are the reason the site is slow, and the slow site is the reason the inquiry did not happen.
Pool work sells visually, so galleries are not optional. What is optional is shipping full resolution files to a phone on a mediocre connection.
Compress properly, serve modern image formats, size images for the device, and lazy load anything below the first screen. Give the first meaningful image priority so the page does not open on a blank rectangle.
Sort galleries by something a buyer thinks in: job type, scope, water feature, deck material, lot condition. Sorting by year is a filing system for you, not a shopping experience for them.
Video and drone footage impress in a pitch and punish on a phone. If it stays, keep it off the critical path, never autoplay it with sound, and check the page on a real device rather than on your desktop.
The short term rental manager approves by text and never visits the yard
A meaningful share of residential property around downtown is operated as a business, and that buyer needs different pages than a homeowner does.
Managers and investors buy on turnaround time, remote approval and clean invoicing rather than on a design conversation. They rarely stand in the yard and they often own more than one property.
Give them a page that speaks to it. How you handle keyed or coded access, how you document progress with photographs, how scheduling works around occupancy, how you invoice and to whom. Provide a way to submit several properties at once.
Keep rules out of it. Short term rental requirements in the area are contested and change, so avoid stating them. Say they vary and are worth confirming with Metro.
Never publish a property address, an access code or an identifiable guest. Ask permission before using photographs of any client property, whether it is a rental or a home.
Winter browsing has to sell a spring slot, not just a phone call
Much of the research here happens in months when nothing can be dug, so the site needs a next step that fits.
A visitor reading in January is not going to respond to a call to action built around starting immediately. They are planning, comparing and gathering questions.
Offer the smaller commitment: a design consultation, a site evaluation booking, a checklist of what to gather before a first meeting. Put it beside the phone number rather than instead of it.
Show the calendar honestly. Saying which season you are currently booking creates real urgency without promising a date you cannot hold. Never state a completion timeline on a page.
Then make the follow up path exist. A confirmation page that tells them what happens next, and an email that arrives with the explainer content attached, keeps you present through a decision that takes months rather than days.
Questions we actually get
- How many fields should our inquiry form have?
- As few as possible while still capturing county, address or neighborhood, machine access, scope and timing. Access is the one most sites omit and the one that decides whether a site visit is worth making. Anything you would not act on should come off the form and onto the confirmation page.
- Should we publish prices on the site?
- Publishing a fixed price is risky in a market where ground conditions vary this much. Publishing an explanation of how price is built, what an allowance is and what generally triggers a change order is very effective. Pair it with a recommendation to book a site evaluation and a statement that conditions differ property to property.
- Our gallery is our best asset but the site is slow. What do we cut?
- Nothing, usually. Compress the images properly, serve modern formats, size them for the device and lazy load everything below the first screen. Keep video off the critical path and do not autoplay it. Test on an actual phone on a normal connection rather than on office wifi.
- Do we need separate pages for each suburb we serve?
- Pages organized by county tend to serve people better than a long list of near identical suburb pages. Write one only where you have something specific to say about lots, access, the work you do there or how far you will drive. Thin duplicates hurt more than they help.
- Can we show client projects on the site?
- With permission, and without identifying details. Do not publish addresses, access codes or anything that identifies a specific property, and be especially careful with rentals. If a project touched code, permits or insurance, describe it generally and point readers to the local building department, their insurer or their own counsel.
