I checked 50 commercial service businesses the way a facilities manager would. 1 passed.

The short version

I searched Google Maps for five commercial trades in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast: commercial cleaning, commercial electrical, shopfitting, facilities maintenance and commercial pest control. For each search I took the first five real local businesses, 50 in all, and went through each website the way a facilities manager would before deciding who to ring. I looked for eight things. Five come from what commercial buyers ask contractors for in writing, and the other three are signs a site was written for a business rather than a homeowner.

1 of the 50 had all eight. The typical site had 4.

Almost every one says who it works for. 49 of 50 name a sector, whether that's offices, strata, retail, schools or medical centres. Far fewer back it up. 26 of 50 show a named client or a specific commercial job, 15 of 50 name public liability as their own cover, and 6 of 50 have a capability statement you can download.

If you change three things on your site this week, make it these. Put up a capability statement page, write "public liability" where it says "fully insured", and name three real jobs with the site type and the suburb. Every check is below with the fix for it, and the whole list is at the end so you can run it on your own site in five minutes.

Where the eight come from

Five of the eight come from documents commercial buyers publish. The Queensland Government's contractor prequalification checklist↗ asks for a public liability certificate of currency, a licence number and class, and at least three completed projects with referees, and on its biggest projects, certified quality and safety systems as well. A Brisbane Catholic school's contractors' induction guide↗ has contractors send a current licence, a public liability certificate and a WorkCover certificate before they attend, plus a SWMS for high-risk construction work. Brisbane City Council's low-risk works contract template↗ carries public liability and WHS clauses. That covers proof, insurance, licence and safety.

The capability statement comes from Business Queensland's own guide to writing a capability statement↗, which says you'll usually need one to supply a larger organisation such as government, and that decision makers at business clients will look closely at it.

The other three are naming the sectors you work in, an enquiry path built for a business, and a stated response time. I couldn't find any of them written down as a buyer requirement. I've kept them because they're what separates a site written for a business from one written for a homeowner, and I report them as what the 50 sites show, nothing more.

Those documents also describe what's asked for at contract or induction time, not what a buyer reads on your website first. My bet is that a site showing these things up front gets past that first look more easily, and that's an argument rather than something the documents prove.

Most sites stop at 4

Scores ran from 1 to 8, and no site scored 0. 29 of the 50 had 4 or fewer, and 5 had 6 or more. The one pass is a Gold Coast electrician, and one Brisbane shopfitter got to 7.

I scored strictly. "Fully insured" didn't count as naming public liability, "licensed" without a number didn't count as a licence, and "safety is our priority" didn't count as safety. Count all of those as a yes and the picture barely moves: still 1 of 50 passes all eight, and 18 of 50 reach 6 or more. The headline number doesn't come from being picky.

The capability statement almost nobody has

What buyers check: Business Queensland's guide says you'll usually need a capability statement to supply a larger organisation such as government, and that decision makers at business clients will look closely at it. It's also the easiest thing for a buyer to forward to whoever else has to approve a contractor.

What I found: 6 of 50 offer one, the least-met check by a long way. The one site that passed all eight, the Gold Coast electrician, has a page called Capability statement in its main menu. That page carries five of the eight checks on its own: the sectors it works in, public liability and workers' compensation, its licence number, a line saying SWMS are supplied, and the PDF download. The only other site to get close, the Brisbane shopfitter on 7, was missing exactly this. It names a long-standing client, shows its licence number and asks for a business name on its contact form, and there's no capability statement anywhere in its main menu.

What to fix: add one page called Capability statement to your main menu, and put the same content in a PDF on that page. Who you work for, three jobs, your insurance, your licence, how you handle safety, and who to contact. It's an afternoon of writing, and it ticks more of this list than anything else you can add.

Name the job, not the sector

What buyers check: that you've done their kind of site before. Queensland's prequalification checklist asks for at least three completed projects with referees, which says a lot about how much weight a buyer puts on it.

What I found: 49 of 50 name a sector, and 26 of 50 show a named client, a client's logo or a specific commercial job. That leaves 23 of 50 that say who they work for and never show it. A list of sectors is a claim, and 49 of the 50 make it, so on its own it doesn't set anyone apart.

The odd part is that some of the proof already exists. Among the handful of Google reviews each business shows, 21 of the 50 had at least one that mentions commercial work: an office, a warehouse, a shopping centre, a named business. For 5 of those 21, the website itself shows no commercial job at all.

What to fix: name three jobs, each with the site type and the suburb, like "medical centre, Southport", and the client's name if they're happy for you to use it. If a commercial client has left you a Google review, ask whether you can put it on the site with their company name next to it. How to get more Google reviews→ covers getting them in the first place.

Say "public liability", not "fully insured"

What buyers check: a public liability certificate of currency. It's on the Queensland Government checklist, and it's on that school's list of things a contractor sends before walking in the gate.

What I found: 15 of 50 say they hold public liability insurance. 18 say only "insured" or "fully insured", and 17 don't mention insurance anywhere a buyer would look. Take the commercial cleaners. All 10 of them name the sectors they clean for, and 7 of those 10 say only "insured" or "fully insured".

"Fully insured" tells a homeowner you're not a cowboy. Somebody who has to file your certificate needs to know which policy you hold, and those two words don't say.

What to fix: one line on your home or about page. "Public liability and workers' compensation insured. Certificates of currency on request." You don't need the cover amount on the site.

A licence number, not "licensed"

What buyers check: the licence number, and for some work the class. Queensland's prequalification asks for both. A number is something a buyer can look up in a minute, and the word "licensed" isn't.

What I found: 23 of 50 show a licence number or name an accreditation or industry body. That's what the sites say; I didn't check any of it with QBCC or the bodies themselves. 10 say "licensed" or "fully licensed" with no number, and 17 show neither. Only 9 of the 50 show their ABN anywhere I looked.

What to fix: put the licence number in the footer so it's on every page, with your ABN beside it, and name any industry body you belong to or certification you hold.

Safety is paperwork, not a promise

What buyers check: how you'll work safely on their site, in writing. That means a WHS system, safe work method statements (SWMS), and whether your people complete site inductions. The school asks for a SWMS for high-risk work, and the council's contract template carries WHS clauses.

What I found: 22 of 50 mention WHS, SWMS, inductions or a safety system. 17 have only a general line, usually some version of "safety is our priority", and 11 say nothing at all. Put insurance, licence and safety together, the three compliance checks, and 5 of 50 cover all of them. 4 of 50 name a prequalification platform such as Cm3, which again is what the site says.

What to fix: one sentence each, and only what's true. You supply SWMS for the work, your team completes site inductions, and you work to a written WHS system. Keep "safety is our priority" if you like it, as long as the specifics sit next to it.

A way in built for a business

What I looked for: an enquiry path that fits a business job, which usually means more than one site, a regular service and a company name on the invoice. No buyer document I found asks for this, so read it as a sign of who the site was written for rather than a requirement.

What I found: 26 of 50 have a form that asks a business question, like the company name, the type of site or how often, or name a person who handles commercial enquiries. The other 24 don't ask a business question or name anyone for commercial work, at least not on the page as it loads.

The ads point the same way, though only as a glimpse. 21 of the 50 were running ads, 19 on Google and 7 on Meta. Of the 7 on Meta, 2 had an ad that speaks to a business. The other 5 were selling home EV chargers, bedroom air conditioning, lawn mowing and home pest control. Google's search ads can't be read as text from the outside, so that's Meta only.

What to fix: add a business name field and a site type choice to your quote form, or name the person who handles commercial work and give their direct email. It shows someone enquiring for a business that the form was built with their kind of job in mind.

Say how fast, in hours

What I looked for: a stated response time, or after-hours or emergency cover. Again, I found no buyer document that asks for it on the website. It's in the eight because commercial work breaks at inconvenient hours, and a time in writing is something a client can hold you to.

What I found: this is the one most of them get right, after the sector list. 31 of 50 give a response time, or after-hours or emergency cover. 19 don't, and "fast response" without a time didn't count.

What to fix: put it in hours, like "we reply to quote requests within 2 business hours" or "after-hours call-outs for existing clients". Only promise what you'll keep, because a written response time is one a client will test.

How the 50 were picked, and what got checked

The rules were written down before a single website was opened. 10 Google Maps searches, typed exactly: commercial cleaning, commercial electrician, shopfitting, facilities maintenance and commercial pest control, each for Brisbane and for the Gold Coast, in a browser set to that city and not signed in to Google. For each search I took the first 5 businesses in Maps order that passed a skip rule, and logged every skip with its reason.

67 results were walked to get to the 50. The 17 skipped were 7 national brands, 4 sites that didn't load, 3 businesses already taken from an earlier search, a franchise, a shop selling shopfitting supplies and a listing with no website. Every search gave 5 eligible businesses within its first 20 results, and none of the 50 is an Echo client.

On each site I looked at the home page and every page in the main menu, up to 25 pages, in a desktop browser. Each check was a yes or no against a rule written in advance and clarified once during coding. Every yes is backed by a quote saved from the page, and every no on insurance, licence, safety, the capability statement and response time was searched for again across all 50 sites before it stood. Nothing was filled in, submitted, called or messaged, and it was all done on 12 October 2026.

What this can't tell you

50 is enough to describe these businesses and not enough to compare trades or cities. Each trade in each city is 5 businesses, so nothing here is split that way.

Maps doesn't say how it orders results, and the order shifts with location and time. This is who a buyer in the city centre saw first on one morning, not a random sample of every commercial service business.

The checks stop at the main menu. 23 of the 50 sites had more menu pages than the 25 I opened, so a licence number on a deep service page or in a blog post isn't counted, although the pages a buyer opens first, like contact, about, projects and safety, were opened first. Licences, accreditations and insurance are counted from what the site says and never verified. Forms were read and never used, so a question on the second step of a form wasn't seen.

And the buyer documents describe what's asked for at contract or induction time. That buyers look for the same things on your website first is my argument, not something they prove, and three of the eight checks have no buyer document behind them at all. What doesn't depend on any of that is the plain stuff: whether the words public liability, a licence number or a capability statement are on the site.

The five-minute check

Open your own website on a computer, stay on the home page and the main menu, and tick these off. Get to the end with all eight and you're ahead of 49 of the 50 I looked at.

1. Name the sectors you work for

   Offices, strata, retail, schools, health, whichever are true. 49 of 50 already do this, so it's the entry ticket rather than the edge.

2. Show three named jobs

   The site type and suburb for each, and the client's name if they agree. 26 of 50 show at least one.

3. Write "public liability" in words

   With "certificates of currency on request" after it. 15 of 50 name their public liability cover.

4. Put your licence number in the footer

   With your ABN and any industry body or certification. 23 of 50 show a number or a named accreditation.

5. Name your safety paperwork

   Your WHS system, SWMS and site inductions, only what's true. 22 of 50 do.

6. Add a capability statement page and PDF

   In the main menu, one click from the home page. 6 of 50 have one.

7. Ask a business question on the quote form

   Business name and site type, or a named contact for commercial work. 26 of 50 do.

8. Say how fast you'll respond, in hours

   And whether there's after-hours cover. 31 of 50 do.

One more thing

Most of this list is writing, not design, and none of the eight needs a new website. The Gold Coast electrician that passed didn't do anything clever. It put its paperwork on one page and put that page in the menu.

The reason it matters is the one in the job you didn't get asked to quote→. A facilities manager who moves on to the next result never rings to tell you why, so you never see the job you lost. You see a quiet month.

If you want the rest of the system around this, from the brand to the CRM, it's written up stage by stage in what a seven-figure trade business actually runs on→, free and with nothing behind a form.