Checkatrade, MyBuilder or your own website: where an electrician's leads come from

Directories get you enquiries quickly and keep the customer relationship for themselves. Your own Google presence takes months to build and then keeps working for as long as you maintain it, without a fee per lead and without your competitors listed beside you. Most established electricians end up with both, and shift the weight toward their own site as it grows.

What the directories are good at

Speed. A Checkatrade or MyBuilder profile can produce enquiries in the first week, because the directory already ranks for "electrician" plus your town and has done for a decade. They handle the marketing and you handle the job. For a new business with no reviews and no site, that is genuinely useful, and the reviews you gather there are real social proof you can point to elsewhere.

What they cost you

• A monthly fee or a per-lead fee, whether or not the lead converts, and on some platforms the same lead is sold to several trades at once.
• Price pressure. The customer is comparing five quotes on one screen, and the directory's own interface nudges them toward the cheapest.
• The relationship. The review sits on their site, the customer remembers their brand, and the search result they clicked was theirs. When you stop paying, all of it disappears from view.
• Competitors on your page. Every directory listing you appear on shows the next electrician a thumb-scroll away.

What your own presence is good at

Ownership. A Google Business Profile that ranks in the map pack produces phone calls with no fee per call. A page that ranks for "consumer unit replacement" in your area produces enquiries from people who have already read what you do and decided you seem competent. Those enquiries convert at a higher rate and a higher price, because the customer chose you, not a list.

What it costs you

Time, or money for someone else's time, and patience. The profile is a few hours to set up properly and an hour a month after that. The site is a real build if the current one is not fit for it, then steady work: pages, reviews, mentions. The first three months usually produce little; months four to twelve are where it pays. This is the part that puts people off, and it is the reason the electricians who stick with it have so little competition.

The mix that works

A fair test: for one month, note where every enquiry came from and what it was worth. Most electricians who do this find the directory sends the small, price-sensitive jobs and their own presence sends the ones they actually want.