When Nate's site went live on 14 April, the question wasn't whether it looked good. It already did. The question was: how long until it actually starts bringing in work?
Here's the answer, week by week.
If you haven't read the original build breakdown, that's here. 52 pages, 20 suburb landing pages, 10 service pages, 8 blog posts, plus two interactive tools (a switchboard safety quiz and a price estimator). Built in 2 weeks, fixed price, Enterprise tier.
Week 1: indexing and the first impressions
Day 1: site live. Google Business Profile claimed and populated. Sitemap submitted to Search Console. Pages started getting indexed within hours, which is normal for a properly-structured static HTML site.
By the end of week 1, around 40 of the 52 pages were indexed. Search Console showed early impressions for "electrician Wallsend" and "electrician Newcastle." Most positions were 30+ (page 3 or beyond), which is also expected. Brand new domain. Google had to work out whether to trust it.
No calls yet. No surprises there either.
Week 2: the first phone call
Late in week 2, Nate got the first call from the site. Customer in Wallsend, switchboard issue. Found the site by Googling "switchboard upgrade Wallsend" and clicking through from the dedicated switchboard service page.
Specifically what worked there: the page existed (most electricians don't have a dedicated switchboard upgrade page), it answered the cost question in plain English (most pages dodge the cost question), and the call button was visible on mobile (most sites bury the phone number).
Three structural decisions paying off on day 12. That's roughly the trajectory for a properly-built tradie site. Not 6 months. Not "give it time." Two weeks.
Week 3: suburb pages start climbing
By week 3, the suburb pages were doing their job. "Electrician Wallsend" moved from position 28 to position 9. "Electrician Mayfield" hit page 1 at position 8. "Electrician Charlestown" was at position 11, on the bubble.
The pattern: pages with the most specific intent (suburb + service) moved fastest. "EV charger installation Newcastle" was already at position 6. Highly specific, lower competition, exact match to a page on the site.
The home page itself was still well off page 1 for the generic "electrician Newcastle." Generic terms take longer. Specific intent terms move within weeks.
Nate got 4 calls in week 3. Two converted to jobs.
Week 4: the compound effect
By the end of week 4, the site had:
All 52 pages indexed. Around 1,200 total impressions in Search Console. Around 40 clicks. 6 phone calls from the site directly (tracked via the call-link clicks plus Nate manually noting when callers said "I saw your site"). 4 jobs booked. Roughly $3,200 in work won that month, traceable to the site.
The build cost paid back in month one. Everything from here is upside.
Where the leads actually came from
Breakdown of the 6 calls from the first 30 days:
3 from suburb landing pages. "Electrician Wallsend," "electrician Mayfield," "electrician Newcastle." Customers Googled "electrician [their suburb]," clicked through, called.
2 from service pages. Switchboard upgrade (the first call), EV charger installation. Customers Googled the specific service plus a suburb, landed on the service page.
1 from Google Business Profile. Customer found Nate via Maps, not the website directly. But the website backed up the GBP listing (consistent name, address, phone, photos), which is part of how the local pack ranks.
Zero from the home page directly. Zero from blog posts (too early; blogs take 60 to 90 days to start ranking). Zero from the interactive tools yet (those tend to come into play more as the site gets more traffic).
What I tweaked in the first month
Two small adjustments based on what Search Console was showing.
First: the "switchboard upgrade" page was getting impressions but a low click-through rate. The meta description was generic. Rewrote it to lead with the cost range ("Switchboard upgrades in Newcastle typically run $1,800 to $3,500. Here's how to know which yours needs."). Click-through rate roughly doubled in the following week.
Second: Google was showing the home page for "Nate's Rates Electrical" but the title tag was too long and getting truncated. Tightened it. No measurable conversion impact, but cleaner branded result.
That's it for the first month. The site is built to need very little ongoing tweaking. The work was done upfront.
What's next for Nate
Month 2 onward, the focus shifts to compounding what's working. A blog post every fortnight on questions customers are actually asking ("Is my switchboard a fire risk?" "How much does an EV charger cost to install?"). More Google reviews (the conversion lever that hasn't been pulled yet). Maybe two or three more suburb pages as Nate identifies areas he wants more work in.
By month 6, conservatively, this site should be doing 15 to 25 phone calls a month if Google's rankings continue on the current trajectory. Not promising the world. Just what the structure supports.
If you want results like Nate's
The site cost a fraction of what Nate had been quoted by 10 other agencies. The build took 2 weeks instead of the 4 months one agency wanted. And it's already paying for itself.
If you're a tradie in the Hunter and you want the same kind of build, have a yarn. Fixed price, no meetings required, no monthly retainer trap.