1st Move Removals is a family run removals and storage firm in Dunbar. Until this autumn it had a Facebook page and nothing else. We have now built it a proper website at 1stmoveremovals.co.uk, and this is what we did and why.
The starting point
Plenty of local trades run on Facebook and word of mouth, and it works until someone searches "removals Dunbar" or "storage East Lothian" and finds a page they cannot easily read on their phone, with no prices, no list of services and no clear way to ask for a quote.
1st Move already had the hard part: a van on the road, its own storage, and customers who recommend it. What it lacked was a place on the web that says plainly what the firm does, where it works and how to get hold of it.
What we built
A small, fast site with a page for each thing people actually ask about:
- Home page with the main services, a short "how a move works" section and the towns covered
- House and flat moves, packing service and single items and small moves, each on its own page
- Commercial removals for offices, shops and small business premises
- Storage, including what the firm cannot take (no food, plants, or anything flammable or hazardous)
- About and contact pages
- Moving tips: three practical guides on a moving house checklist, packing fragile things and who to tell when you move house in Scotland
The photograph on the home page is the firm's own van, not a stock picture of a stranger carrying a box.
The decisions that mattered
One page for each service. A single "services" page makes it hard for Google to tell what you want to rank for. Separate pages for house moves, packing, single items, commercial work and storage let each one answer one question properly.
Local names, spelled out. The site lists Dunbar, East Linton, North Berwick, Haddington, Gullane, Tranent, Prestonpans, Musselburgh and Edinburgh. People search by town, so the towns are in the text, not hidden in a map.
Phone first. Most people who need a removal firm want to talk to someone. The phone number sits at the top of every page, and the contact page explains what happens if the firm is on a job and cannot answer: leave a message and they ring back.
Honest wording. There are no invented reviews, no made-up statistics and no promises the firm has not confirmed. The site says "fully insured" because that is what the firm says about itself, but it does not quote a cover figure that nobody has checked. The about page says it would rather tell you a job is not worth a removals firm than take the money.
Advice people can use. The moving tips guides are the pages most likely to be found by someone who is not yet ready to book. They answer questions the firm hears on nearly every job, and they give a local firm a reason to be found before the quote stage.
How it is built
The site is built with Astro and hosted on Cloudflare. In plain terms, the pages are prepared in advance, so each one loads quickly and there is no database or plugin that can slow it down or go out of date. That also means very little to maintain, which suits a firm that would rather be out on a job than logging into a control panel.
Each page has its own title and description, and the home and contact pages carry structured data so search engines can read the business name, area and phone number without guessing.
What comes next
A new website is the start, not the finish. The next steps for a firm like this are straightforward:
- Collect real reviews from happy customers, with their permission, and add them to the site
- Keep the Google Business Profile, Facebook page and website saying the same thing
- Add one or two more local guides each season, based on what customers actually ask
What other local firms can take from this
If your business lives on Facebook, you do not need a big website. You need a clear one: what you do, where you work, how to reach you, and proof that you are who you say you are. That is the brief we worked to for 1st Move Removals.
If you would like something similar for your own business, get in touch.