For carpenters

Stop being a name on hipages. Be the carpenter the suburb knows.

In-House is your AI marketing team. It actually lifts you off generic 'carpenter' searches onto $40k merbau-deck and hardwood-pergola enquiries, separates framing from finish carpentry from shopfit on the site, and stops the 'can you hang a shelf?' calls dead.

No charge for 7 days Cancel in two taps Live in 9 minutes

Three options. Only one actually works for your business.

Agency

$2,500 to $4,000 / mo

Slow. Expensive. Removed from your business.

You get a tidy website, a quarterly Google Ads report, and an account manager who has never sighted a stringline. They write generic 'we do all carpentry' copy that puts you in the same bucket as the backyard hacks, and the deck and pergola jobs that actually pay the bills go to whoever has a sharper page.

DIY tools

$80 to $180 / mo + your evenings

Cheap, but it just hands you a dashboard.

Squarespace, Google Ads, hipages, Airtasker, a Facebook page, an Instagram you mean to post on. Cheap, but you write the suburb pages between jobs that never get written, and you pay hipages 40 percent of every lead because the alternative is no leads at all.

ACTUALLY DOES IT

In-House

$299 / mo flat

Cheap, and it actually does the work.

The AI marketing team ships a page for every service you actually want more of (decks, pergolas, skirtings, doors, weatherboard repair), runs local Google Ads on the high-value searches, posts the finished work from the photo on your phone, and keeps your Google Business Profile beating the lead-gen sites. You approve the week between cuts.

Pick a niche or stay generic. Generic carpenters get the IKEA flat-pack call.

The reality

There is no such thing as 'a carpenter' as a business. There is a framing carpenter on a residential build site at first fix; there is a finish carpenter doing skirtings, architraves and built-in wardrobes at second fix; there is a deck-and-pergola specialist living outside in summer; there is a shopfitter installing commercial joinery at 2am for a retail handover; and there is a heritage carpenter who can repair a 1925 California Bungalow weatherboard so it matches the original. Five completely different businesses. Different customers, different budgets, different price points, different competitors. The carpenter who picks one of those lanes and markets it loudly is the one who books the $40k jobs at full margin. The carpenter who lists 'all carpentry services' on a generic Wix template is the one whose phone rings at 7pm with 'mate, can you put together a flat-pack tomorrow morning, my wife is having a barbecue Saturday'. Same Cert III, same insurance, same skill, completely different business outcome, decided entirely by what you chose to put on the front page.

What good looks like

Good carpentry marketing starts with one upfront decision: pick the lane that pays. Onboarding asks which of the five carpentry businesses you actually want to be (framing subbie, finish second-fix specialist, deck-and-pergola builder, shopfitter, heritage weatherboard restorer), and the agents organise the entire site, the ad spend and the social grid around that answer. The homepage hero leads with the niche, not 'all carpentry services'. The first three service pages in the navigation are the niche, the niche-adjacent work, and one repeat-buyer service to bring the customer back (deck oiling and reseal every two years, weatherboard touch-ups after a storm season).

Generic 'carpenter' loses to every niche page

A 'we do all carpentry' page competes with hipages directories that have been there for a decade. A 'spotted gum deck builder Inner West' page competes with three other deck specialists. The niche page ranks. The generic page never does.

Generic positioning attracts the flat-pack call

List 'general carpentry' and the phone rings with shelf-hanging, flat-pack assembly and 'can you fix a sticking door'. Each one a half-day round trip for $300. The carpenter who picks a niche never gets those calls.

Heritage and weatherboard niches are wide open

Federation and California Bungalow weatherboard repair is the highest-margin lane in carpentry and almost nobody owns the page for it. The renovator who needs original-pattern weatherboards 'matched to the existing' will not trust a generalist; they pay double for the specialist they can find.

Decks and pergolas are the seasonal cash machine

Two-thirds of deck and pergola enquiries happen between September and February. The carpenter ranked for 'merbau deck builder [suburb]' in August takes the summer; the one without that page works on framing rates for someone else.

Real work. Not a slide deck.

In-House publishes to your real accounts and your live site. Here is what a carpentry business sees in the first weeks, in the actual format it lands in.

Web Agent

Live · yourbusiness.com.au/deck-builder/inner-west

yourbusiness.com.au/deck-builder/inner-west

New service page: 'Inner West deck builder, merbau and spotted gum' H1, your last six decks in Marrickville, Leichhardt and Petersham as gallery, a price-from band ($8k to $40k typical, fully built and oiled), Cert III plus MBA membership on the trust strip, the timber suppliers you actually use, and a quote-request form that asks for the right four questions. Indexed in 48 hours, ranking page 1 for 'deck builder inner west' inside three weeks.

One page per service you actually want more of

Advertising Agent

Live · Google Ads · 'pergola builder' campaign

Ad · yourbusiness.com.au

Eastern Suburbs Pergola Builder · Licensed

Hardwood pergolas, built to spec, council-ready plans included. Fully licensed and insured, 14 years on the tools. From $9,500 fully built. Real carpenter, not a hipages middleman. Free quote within 48 hours.

One ad group per high-value service, not 'carpenter'

SEO Agent

Auto-applied · approval rules

Google Business Profile re-categorised and stacked

 Primary category corrected from 'General Contractor' → 'Carpenter', secondary categories added (Deck Builder, Pergola Builder, Door Supplier, Finish Carpentry Service). Services expanded from 4 → 21 (deck construction, pergola construction, weatherboard repair, skirting and architrave, door hanging, bifold and french doors, +15 more). Twenty-two finished-job photos auto-tagged by service. NSW Fair Trading licence number added to the profile. 

Live in your profile within the hour

Your direct line

Email Sam from the ute. The right jobs start ringing.

Sam is your AI Account Lead. Email Sam a profile photo of the heritage weatherboard you just matched, a new niche you want to lean into next season, an early signal that deck enquiries are starting to fire, a landscape architect's name you want on the preferred-trades list. Sam briefs the agents, drafts land in your inbox by morning, two taps to approve.

A photo from a finished deck, pergola or fit-out A new service you want more work in A price or quote-form update to push live An ad idea for a niche (bifolds, weatherboard, shopfit) A bad review you need a hand replying to

Mail

From you@yourbusiness.com.au · To sam.walker@use-ih.com

Just matched a 1925 California Bungalow weatherboard in Haberfield, want to make this the niche

Hey Sam, photo attached from a job in Haberfield today, original 1925 California Bungalow weatherboards rotted at the bottom course on the south wall. Profile-matched off a salvaged length from a demo site in Annandale, dressed and primed, owner reckons you can't tell. Third one this quarter, every one a referral from the last. The margin is double what I get on a deck and there's nobody else in Sydney who properly knows the California Bungalow profiles. Want to turn this into the niche, the homepage hero, the whole thing.

Sam Walker · Account Lead

sam.walker@use-ih.com

Replied

On it. Big call, good call. Web Agent will re-tilt the homepage hero to 'Federation and California Bungalow weatherboard restoration, Inner West' with the Haberfield photo as the new lead image, drop deck work to the second navigation slot, and ship a dedicated 'California Bungalow weatherboard matching' service page with the profile close-ups from your last three. Advertising Agent will pull the generic 'carpenter' campaign down completely (it was bringing the wrong calls anyway) and stand up two new ad groups: 'Federation weatherboard repair [Inner West suburbs]' and 'California Bungalow weatherboard matching [Inner West suburbs]' at a calibrated CPC. Content Agent will draft 'Federation versus California Bungalow weatherboards: how to tell them apart' this fortnight, and start outreach to three heritage architects in your patch. Drafts and new homepage in your inbox by 9am.

Preview the homepage + ad re-tilt

$299 / mo

Flat. No tiers, no markup.

9 min

From sign-up to live marketing.

60+

Pieces of content a month.

Contracts. Cancel any time.

Six agents, working in your accounts.

Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.

Account Lead

Builds your annual plan around the jobs you actually want more of, not every carpentry keyword going. If decks and pergolas pay the bills, the suburb pages, the ads and the social cadence all chase decks and pergolas. If finish carpentry (skirtings, doors, second fix) is the niche, the agents push that. Briefs the other agents so the work the team chases matches the work that pays.

Answers: generic positioning attracts the flat-pack call

Web Agent

Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and makes spinning up a new service page a five-minute job. Ships a sharp page for every carpentry service you actually do (decks, pergolas, weatherboard, skirtings, doors, shopfit) with the suburbs you cover under each, so Google ranks you for the work you want, not the generic 'carpenter'.

Answers: generic 'carpenter' loses to every niche page

SEO Agent

Goes through your live site for the things that actually move local rankings for carpentry: service-specific schema (Deck Builder, Pergola Builder rather than generic Carpenter), internal links from suburbs to services, Cert III and Fair Trading licence on every trust strip, and a Google Business Profile beating the hipages competitors on completeness. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.

Answers: generic 'carpenter' loses to every niche page

Advertising Agent

Launches Google Ads on the queries that actually book the jobs you want ('[suburb] deck builder', '[suburb] pergola builder', 'finish carpenter [suburb]') and avoids the broad 'carpenter [suburb]' that costs three times the CPC and brings shelf-hanging enquiries. Switches Meta on for the visual jobs (decks, pergolas, weatherboard restorations) where the before-and-after sells itself.

Answers: decks and pergolas are the seasonal cash machine

Social Media Agent

Turns every finished job into a post in your real accounts: a spotted gum deck in Marrickville, a hardwood pergola in Bondi, a set of bifold doors in Leichhardt, a Federation weatherboard repair in the Inner West. Builds the trust signal that lets the $40k-deck customer pick you without ringing three other quotes. You upload one photo per job, the agent drafts in your voice, you approve.

Answers: heritage and weatherboard niches are wide open

Content Agent

Drafts the long-form pieces customers Google before they book a quote: 'how much does a hardwood deck cost in Sydney', 'merbau vs spotted gum for decking', 'do I need council approval for a pergola in NSW'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull the careful homeowner who is still in research mode.

Live in your accounts, fast.

The heavy lifting comes off your plate the day you sign up. Here is what you see by the end of week one.

Google Business Profile primary category corrected from 'General Contractor' to 'Carpenter' with Deck Builder, Pergola Builder and Finish Carpentry as secondary categories by day 3.
Service list rebuilt around the work that pays (spotted gum decks, hardwood pergolas, weatherboard restoration, door hanging, bifold install, skirting and architrave) by day 4.
NSW Fair Trading licence plus Cert III and MBA membership pulled into every trust strip and quote-form footer by day 5.
Dedicated deck-builder, pergola-builder and finish-carpenter suburb pages indexed across your three core postcodes by day 7.
Google Ads live on '[suburb] deck builder' and '[suburb] hardwood pergola' (with broad 'carpenter [suburb]' shelf-hanging bait excluded entirely) by day 10.
Deck Builder and Pergola Builder schema deployed with timber-spec and Cutek-finish markup by day 11.
First fortnight of finished-deck and finished-pergola captions queued from your camera roll, with timber and bond detail embedded.
'Merbau vs spotted gum decking for Sydney' pricing guide drafted in your inbox by day 14.

See pricing No charge for 7 days Cancel in two taps Live in 9 minutes

Your first 30 days.

Annual plan tilted to the lane that pays (decks, pergolas, finish carpentry, weatherboard restoration, shopfit), with framing volume work deprioritised by Sam
Google Business Profile flipped from 'General Contractor' to 'Carpenter' with Deck Builder, Pergola Builder, Door Supplier and Finish Carpentry Service as secondary categories
Cert III, NSW Fair Trading licence number and MBA or HIA membership wired into every page footer and ad copy
Suburb deck-builder, pergola-builder and weatherboard-restoration pages indexed in your three core areas, ranking for the spotted-gum and merbau searches
Google Ads live on '[suburb] deck builder', '[suburb] hardwood pergola' and 'finish carpenter [suburb]', with broad 'carpenter [suburb]' shelf-hanging queries excluded
Deck Builder, Pergola Builder and Carpenter schema deployed with timber-spec and Cutek-finish markup
Finished-deck and finished-pergola captions running on Friday afternoons with timber, bond and suburb embedded in every post
'Merbau vs spotted gum for decking' pricing guide and 'Do I need council approval for a pergola in NSW?' explainer drafted for approval
Outreach drafted to two local landscape architects who specify decks and pergolas, to land you on their preferred-trades shortlist

The bottom line

The carpenters running real businesses pick one of the five lanes and market it loudly, in the suburbs they actually want to work. Decks and pergolas in the Inner West with merbau and spotted gum photos and a Cutek-finish gallery. Finish carpentry in the Eastern Suburbs with built-in wardrobe and skirting and architrave detail. Heritage weatherboard restoration in the Federation cottage belt with profile-matching close-ups. Shopfitting for boutique retail with a 2am-handover reference list. The generalists fight the hipages directories for the IKEA flat-pack call, and they fight it for $40 a lead shared with three other people.

Agencies will not build the niche page library for $3.5k a month: they hand you a Wix template with 'all carpentry services' on the homepage and run a single Google Ads campaign on the generic keyword. Tools hand you a hipages account and you keep paying a 40 percent toll on leads you should be winning direct. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents pick your niche during the 9-minute onboarding, build the service pages for the lane, queue the seasonal ad campaigns at the right time of year, post the timber-spec close-ups in your real Instagram and shut down the generic 'carpenter' search bait that brings the wrong calls. Two taps to approve. Stop being a name on hipages.

See everything In-House does

No charge for 7 days Cancel in two taps Live in 9 minutes

Frequently asked.

I do framing and finish and decks. Which lane should I pick in onboarding?

Whichever pays best and you most enjoy. Account Lead walks you through the question in onboarding, looks at your last twelve months of invoices to see which lane is actually paying the bills, and confirms the niche. The other carpentry work does not disappear from the site (you keep a 'we also do' page), but the homepage hero, the first three navigation items, the ad budget and the social grid all chase the niche. If decks pay the bills, you become 'the deck guy in the Inner West' instead of 'a carpenter who also does decks'. The first ranks; the second never does.

How does the seasonal calendar actually work for deck and pergola work?

Two-thirds of deck and pergola enquiries happen September to February, so the Advertising Agent pre-loads the seasonal campaigns: 'merbau deck builder [suburb]' goes live August 1st before the spring search peak, 'hardwood pergola [suburb]' kicks in early September, both wind down in February when the searches drop. In the off-season the budget shifts to the niche-adjacent work (deck oiling, reseal, weatherboard touch-ups after the summer storms). You never advertise decks in June; you never run weatherboard ads in November. Calendar runs itself.

Federation weatherboard repair is my favourite work but the customers do not know to search for it. How do I get found?

Long-tail content is the lever. The Content Agent drafts pieces titled the way the customer actually searches: 'how to match Federation weatherboards in [your area]', 'do I have a California Bungalow or a Federation? a five-photo guide', 'cost of weatherboard repair after a storm in Sydney'. The Web Agent ships a 'heritage weatherboard restoration' service page with profile-matching close-ups from your last three jobs. The Advertising Agent runs a small-volume ad group on 'weatherboard repair [Federation suburb]' at a calibrated CPC. Inside six months you own the search results for the niche in your patch, and the architects who design heritage renovations start ringing direct.

Can I get the homeowner to pick spotted gum over merbau without standing in their driveway explaining it?

The Content Agent writes a 'merbau vs spotted gum for Sydney decking' pricing-and-spec piece pulling from your real photos, and the Web Agent embeds it on the deck-builder service page above the quote form. The careful homeowner reads it on their phone the night before they ring you, turns up to the site visit having already chosen spotted gum, and the conversation goes straight to spacing, fixings and Cutek finish rather than the timber debate. Shorter sales cycle, higher converted average job value, same site time.

I do shopfit work as a second business after-hours. Will the platform handle two niches?

Yes. The Account Lead sets up two narrative tracks: the main niche on the homepage and the bulk of the ad budget, and a 'commercial shopfit' track on a sub-page (yourbusiness.com.au/shopfit) with separate ad groups, separate content (commercial joinery, 2am handover references, food-grade fit-out) and separate Google Business Profile services. The residential work and the commercial work do not bleed into each other in search results or in the social grid. Sam reviews the split with you quarterly to make sure the ad allocation matches where the work is paying.

Can I cancel if it isn't working?

Two taps, any time, no exit fees and no notice period. You keep your imported site, your service pages, the Google Business Profile work and the social grid. There is no $3.5k-a-month agency lock-in and there is no six-month minimum.