Comparisons
The decisions worth getting right before you spend anything
Seven questions that come up on nearly every first call. Each one is answered properly, which means each one has a section on when the answer is the opposite of what an agency would normally tell you — including when hiring us would be the wrong call.
In short
These pages argue both sides of the decisions UK trade and service businesses actually face: Google Ads against SEO, buying leads against generating your own, hiring an agency against hiring in-house, a freelancer against a team, and rebuilding a website against fixing the one you have. Each one states the case for both options, gives the arithmetic that decides it, and names the circumstances in which the right answer is to hire nobody at all. Nothing here is written to funnel the reader toward one outcome.
Buying leads or generating your own
Shared lead platforms against owning the channel: how the arithmetic differs, what each really costs per job won, and when buying leads is the right call.
Read itGoogle Ads or SEO: which should a trade business start with?
Paid search and SEO answer different problems. A cash flow led guide to which a trade firm starts with, when to add the other, and when neither is the answer.
Read itGoogle Ads or Facebook Ads: capture or create
Search captures demand that exists. Feeds create it. Which trades suit each, how the creative burden differs, and when Meta is a waste of your budget.
Read itCheckatrade and the trade directories, examined fairly
What trade directories cost, what they deliver, and the real alternatives. Based on published pricing, with the usual cost-per-lead claims examined properly.
Read itAgency, employee, or do it yourself
The fully loaded cost of a junior marketer against an agency retainer, what each option delivers, and when hiring an agency is the wrong decision.
Read itWhat a £500 website really costs you
What a five hundred pound website costs a trade business, measured in lost enquiries rather than pounds, and when a cheap site is the right decision.
Read itHow to choose a marketing agency, and what to ask before you sign
The questions to ask before you sign, and the answers that should worry you. Account ownership, spend markup, contract length, reporting, and who does the work.
Read itWhy these pages argue against themselves
A comparison page written by an agency almost always reaches the conclusion that you should hire an agency. That is not analysis, it is a sales page with a table in it, and most people can tell within a paragraph.
The honest version is duller and more useful. Buying leads genuinely does suit some businesses. Doing your own Google Ads is genuinely the right answer when the budget is small enough that a management fee would eat the result. A cheap website is genuinely fine if the site is not the thing holding you back. Every page in this section names those cases, because if we get it wrong on the call you will work it out in month three anyway, and by then it has cost you.
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