Tell them what you turn down.
"We don't do flat roofs, and we don't take anything that needs scaffolding." Two sentences, no cost, and they will do more for you than every superlative on the profile combined.
Your profile is not selling a job. It is removing a fear.
A homeowner reading a Checkatrade, MyBuilder or Rated People profile has exactly one live question, and it is not whether you do quality workmanship. It is: will this person turn up, do the job properly, charge what they said, and not disappear halfway through.
That inverts the usual copy advice completely. On a listing, specificity about the item converts. On a trade profile, specificity about the process converts — how you quote, what a quote includes, when you ask for money, what happens if something is wrong, how long you have been at it. "No job too big or too small" is the sentence that reads worst of all, because it matches no search and it sounds like somebody who will take a job they cannot do.
Declining work is the cheapest credibility you will ever buy. A trade who names two things they do not touch has just told the reader they have standards, they know their limits, and they are not desperate. Nobody who is lying about their competence writes that sentence.
The line that carries real risk.
"Gas Safe, NICEIC and TrustMark approved" is on a great many profiles and it is the single highest-risk sentence on most of them.
Displaying a trust mark you are not authorised to display is banned outright. Carrying out gas work while unregistered is a criminal offence rather than a paperwork slip. And the schemes are not interchangeable badges — NICEIC Approved Contractor and NICEIC Domestic Installer are different registrations covering different work, and a homeowner who checks the register will find out which one you actually hold.
So each of those becomes a separate demand for a number. The registration number goes on the profile, or the claim comes off it. There is no third option in which the logo stays and the number is implied.
Two more that behave the same way. "Fully insured" is unverifiable and therefore worth nothing as reassurance while still being a claim you have made — cover type, limit, insurer and expiry date is what a homeowner can do something with. And "all work guaranteed" is materially different from an insurance-backed guarantee, which customers know; if yours is backed by the business rather than an insurer, saying so reads better than the vague version.
A real profile, before and after.
From the trade profile rubric behind the job.
ABC Property Services — All aspects of building work undertaken
We are a family run business with over 20 years experience providing quality workmanship at competitive prices. No job too big or too small! Fully qualified, fully insured, all work guaranteed. Gas Safe, NICEIC and TrustMark approved. Free quotes. Prices from £49. 100% customer satisfaction guaranteed — check out our 5 star reviews!
Call today — book this month for 10% off!
ABC Property Services — kitchen and bathroom fitting across [MUST SUPPLY: your real coverage area]
I'm [ADD FACT: your name] and I've been fitting kitchens and bathrooms for [MUST SUPPLY: number] years. We're a team of [MUST SUPPLY: number].
What we don't do. [ADD FACT: name two or three things you turn down — flat roofs, structural work, anything needing scaffolding. Saying no to something is the single most trusted sentence on a trade profile.]
How we work. I come out and look at the job — free, no obligation, usually within [MUST SUPPLY: how long]. You get a written fixed quote that lists materials and labour separately and states whether VAT applies. We ask for [MUST SUPPLY: deposit policy] before we start and the balance on completion.
Qualifications. [MUST SUPPLY: Gas Safe registration number — do not list Gas Safe at all without it] [MUST SUPPLY: NICEIC enrolment number and which scheme] [MUST SUPPLY: TrustMark registration number, or remove TrustMark]
Insurance. [MUST SUPPLY: cover type, limit, insurer and expiry — "fully insured" on its own tells a homeowner nothing]
Work we agree in your home carries a 14-day right to cancel and we give you that in writing when we agree the job.
"Prices from £49" became a pricing method rather than a number, because a starting price has to include everything the customer cannot avoid — call-out, minimum charge, parking, VAT. Adding mandatory fees after the headline is the pattern that has already cost a business a fine.
"Book this month for 10% off" is gone: time-limited pressure to force a decision is banned in all circumstances. And "over 20 years experience" became a request rather than a deletion. It is probably true. It is also something customers check against Companies House, and the report will not assert on your behalf a number you did not give it.
The cancellation line at the end is the one almost no profile carries. Work agreed in someone's home carries a 14-day right to cancel, and failing to give that in writing extends the window by a year — so the sentence protects you at least as much as it protects them.
Three platforms, one profile, different jobs.
Checkatrade is a directory: homeowners browse, so the profile is the whole shop window. MyBuilder is job-first: you introduce yourself to a posted job, and the profile is the credibility check after that message. Rated People is lead-purchase: you have already paid to be there, and the profile plus your response speed decide whether it converts. The report takes the platform into account where you name it, and where you do not, it writes the profile that works hardest in all three.
Checkatrade publishes its vetting standard in detail. MyBuilder and Rated People say very little about how they rank or what they charge, so anything you are told about those two arrives marked as third-party rather than as their own policy.
The mechanics.
- Paste the profile. The whole thing — the strapline, the about section, the services, the accreditation line, and anything about pricing. Say which platform it is on if you want the report tuned to it.
- Top up once. This job costs no more than 40p and spends only what the report costs. A change is another go at the job and costs pence too, which here usually means one pass to strip the risky claims and a second once you have dug the registration numbers out.
- Back comes an evidence audit. The score is capped by any credential asserted without evidence. Then the ranked fixes, a rewritten profile with a stated specialism, a process section, a real insurance line, and a list of the numbers and documents you need to go and find.
A generation that fails costs nothing.
Fit.
Worth it if
- Your profile says "all aspects of" anything.
- You list accreditations as logos or names without numbers.
- You get enquiries for work you do not want and few for the work you do.
- You quote well in person and your profile does not mention how quoting works.
- You have never put the cancellation right in writing and have just realised what that means.
Not for you if
- You want the accreditation claims kept without the numbers. That is the one thing it will not do.
- You want a review strategy. It will not write anything that offers a customer something in exchange for a review.
- You want a years-in-business figure written in. It will ask you for it.
- Your problem is lead volume rather than conversion. This changes what the profile says, not what you pay for leads.
What tradespeople ask about the claims on a profile.
Why does fully insured get flagged?
Because it is not a fact, it is a feeling, and every trader on the platform has written it. Public liability at a stated limit with a named insurer and an expiry date is checkable and reassuring. Fully insured is neither, and a customer who has been let down before reads it as the thing anybody would type. It will not write it as a bare adjective. What it asks for instead is the cover type, the limit, the insurer and the date it runs to — four short facts doing the work the phrase was pretending to do.
Can I show the Gas Safe or NICEIC logo?
Only if you are currently registered with the scheme the logo belongs to. Displaying a trust mark without authorisation is a banned practice in all circumstances under Schedule 20 of the DMCC Act 2024, and for gas the exposure is criminal rather than commercial: it is an offence under the Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998 to carry out gas work unless registered, and in July 2026 an unregistered fitter who advertised using a faked Gas Safe logo received an eight-month suspended sentence. It will not assert any credential without its registration number.
NICEIC Approved Contractor or Domestic Installer. Does the wording matter?
They are different registrations with different scopes and they are not interchangeable, which is exactly the sort of upgrade that happens by accident when a profile is written from memory. The same trap sits under approved, certified, accredited and qualified used as bare adjectives: each implies a body that approved you, and the honest version names it and gives the number. It will not resolve one into the other, and where you have given a scheme without a number it comes back as something you must supply.
Do I have to tell customers about the fourteen-day cancellation right?
For work agreed in the customer's home a fourteen-day cancellation period generally applies, and you have to give written notice of it when the contract is concluded. Failing to give that notice extends the cancellation period by a further twelve months and can be a criminal offence, which makes it the rare piece of paperwork that is cheaper to do than to skip. It is the one thing raised on every applicable profile without being asked, framed as something to check applies to you and get right rather than as legal advice.
Is from £49 a problem?
It is, if the £49 job does not really exist or the mandatory extras arrive afterwards. Bait advertising and drip pricing are both live under the DMCC Act 2024: mandatory charges belong in the headline price from the first price shown, under the CMA's price transparency guidance, and the CMA has already issued a penalty for drip pricing. A call-out fee appearing at the end is the version tradespeople fall into perfectly innocently. State what the number includes and what it does not.
Can I ask a happy customer for a review?
Asking is fine. Offering anything of value for one is not, and neither is asking only the customers you expect to be pleased — review gating is on the failure list, and fake or incentivised undisclosed reviews are a banned practice under Schedule 20. Checkatrade verifies reviews by SMS or telephone and says falsifying feedback leads to termination of membership. It will not write a review, improve one, or draft a request offering a discount in exchange. Ask everybody, at the same point in the job, every time.
No job too small, all aspects undertaken. What is wrong with that?
It tells a customer nothing and it competes with everyone. The person reading your profile has one specific problem and is working out whether you have solved it before; a generalist claim answers a question they did not ask. Naming the work you actually do, and the work you do not, converts better than breadth. It will not widen a specialist into a generalist or invent services you have not described, and it will not state your years in business, jobs completed or team size unless you supply them.
Should the profile name an actual person?
Yes, and the absence of one is on the failure list. A trade profile is bought on trust before it is bought on price, and an anonymous corporate plural — our team, we pride ourselves — leaves a customer with nobody to picture arriving at the door. One named human, what they trained in, how long they have done it. Stock photography is the same failure in picture form, and the report will say so when the profile carries no evidence of your own work in it.
Get the profile read.
Paste it as it stands. The report opens with anything you have claimed that you would struggle to evidence.
Top up once. No subscription. About 28p — never more than 40p.