Every competitor claims quality, honesty and great service. Which means none of those words are doing anything for you.
TL;DR Replace claims with checkable facts. Licence numbers, insurance amounts, response times, guarantee terms, real faces. If a competitor could copy the sentence onto their site without it becoming false, delete it.
The copy test
Take any sentence on your current about or why-choose-us page. Ask: could my closest competitor put this on their site without lying?
| Sentence | Copyable | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| “We pride ourselves on quality workmanship” | Yes | Delete |
| “Family owned and operated” | Often yes | Weak |
| “Licensed and insured” | Yes | Weak alone |
| “MA Master Plumber licence #12345, $2M liability” | No | Keep |
| “We answer the phone within 3 rings, or the call-out is free” | No | Keep |
| “Same two technicians on every visit” | No | Keep |
Specific and checkable survives. Everything else goes.
Lead with verifiable credentials
Put the numbers on the page as text, not as badge images.
- Licence type and number. Independently checkable, which is the point.
- Insurance carrier and coverage amount. “$2 million general liability.”
- Bonding status, if applicable.
- Years in business with the founding year, not “over 20 years.”
- Certifications, named, with the issuing body.
- Manufacturer certifications, which also often earn you a dealer locator link.
Why text, not badges. A badge image is decoration. A licence number is a fact somebody can verify in thirty seconds, and offering it signals you expect them to check.
Show the people
The single most underused trust element in the trades.
- Photos of the actual team, taken in daylight, not stock.
- First names and how long they have been with you.
- One human detail each. Lives in Somerset, coaches youth hockey, twelve years in the trade.
- Whether they are background checked, if they are.
- A note on who will actually turn up. “You get the same two techs every visit” is a genuine differentiator and almost nobody says it.
People are hiring a stranger to come into their home. Faces address the real anxiety, which is not competence.
The comparison table
Direct comparison works when it is honest. Do not name competitors. Compare against the category.
| Us | Typical low-cost option | |
|---|---|---|
| Licensed and insured | Yes, #12345, $2M | Often unverified |
| Written quote before work | Always | Sometimes verbal |
| Price changes mid-job | Only with a signed change order | Common |
| Warranty | 2 years parts and labour, in writing | Varies or none |
| Same crew each visit | Yes | Usually not |
| Background-checked staff | Yes | Rarely |
| Cleanup included | Yes | Sometimes |
Be scrupulously fair. If some cheap operators are licensed, say “often unverified” rather than “no.” Overclaiming here is easy to catch and it undermines the whole page.
Then acknowledge the trade-off honestly. “We are not the cheapest. If price is the only factor, we are probably not your best option.” That sentence converts better than any amount of positioning, because it is the first honest thing they have read all day.
The guarantee, stated in plain terms
A vague guarantee is worth nothing. A specific one is worth a lot.
Bad: “We guarantee your satisfaction.”
Good: “Two-year warranty on parts and labour. If it fails within two years for a reason connected to our work, we fix it free, no argument. Call the number on your invoice.”
Include what is covered, for how long, what voids it, and exactly how to claim. The claiming process being simple is itself a selling point.
Core values, only if you can prove them
Most values sections are decoration. Make each one a claim with evidence attached.
Instead of “Integrity: we always do the right thing”
Write “We talk people out of work they do not need. Last month we told three customers their systems were fine and charged them the diagnostic fee only. Here is one of them.” Then link the case study.
One proven value beats six aspirational ones.
Page structure
H1: Why People in [Town] Choose [Business]
One line: the honest positioning
H3: The credentials, in text ← licence, insurance, years
H3: Who actually turns up ← team photos and names
H3: What we guarantee ← specific terms
H3: How we compare ← honest table
H3: Where we are not a good fit ← the honesty section
H3: What our customers say ← named, with towns
CTA + NAP
The “not a good fit” section
Counterintuitive and effective.
We are probably not right for you if: you want the lowest price in the market, you need work done without permits, or you want us to work around another contractor’s unfinished job without inspecting it first.
Why this works. Nobody expects it. It reads as confidence rather than sales, it filters out bad-fit enquiries before they cost you time, and it makes every other claim on the page more believable because you have demonstrated you will say an inconvenient thing.
Go through your current page and delete every sentence a competitor could copy without lying. Whatever survives is your actual differentiation, and it is usually shorter and better than what was there.
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