Three options. Only one actually works for your business.
Hardwood and composite are different jobs, different customers, different ads
Deck building is two trades pretending to be one on every website. There's the timber-deck specialist (merbau, spotted gum, blackbutt, tallowwood, Cumaru) with the ATFA member badge, the Cutek and Sikkens oil-and-stain finish, and a customer who cares about timber durability ratings. Then there's the composite-deck specialist (Modwood, Trex, ResortDeck, DeckMax) with a different supplier relationship, a different price point, and a customer who picked composite specifically because they hate sanding. The deck-and-pergola combined build is the third category: $40k-plus jobs with a coordinated subframe, a Stratco Cooldek or polycarbonate pergola roof, and a BASIX assessment for the lot. One generic 'we build decks' page loses to three sharper pages every time. The 20-30m² small-deck enquiries pay $8k-$15k and don't move the needle; the deck-and-pergola jobs over 50m² pay $25k-$60k and fund the apprentices, but you can't separate them without separate landing pages.
Good deck-builder marketing is three things kept separate: a finish-page library that splits merbau, spotted gum, blackbutt, tallowwood and Cumaru hardwood from Modwood, Trex, ResortDeck and DeckMax composite from deck-and-pergola combined builds, each with photo galleries from your last six jobs in that finish and a price-from band ($8k-$15k small deck, $25k-$60k mid-size, $60k+ combined deck-and-pergola); a Google Ads set that bids hard on the $40k-margin combined-build searches and lets the $8k DIY searches go (because Bunnings outranks you on those anyway); and a Google Business Profile loaded with finished-deck photos categorised by timber species or composite brand, with the ATFA member badge, NSW Fair Trading licence and Cutek + Sikkens + Intergrain finish-partnership called out plainly. Get this right and the customer with a $40k deck-and-pergola budget sees you before they see hipages.
Six agents, working in your accounts.
Account Lead, Web, SEO, Advertising, Social Media, and Content. One platform, one bill, you approve the work.
Builds your annual plan around the finish and build-size you actually want more of (combined deck-and-pergola at $40k-plus, mid-size hardwood at $25k-$60k, composite premium at $35k+) instead of chasing every deck keyword. If combined builds fund the apprentices, the suburb pages, the ads and the social grid all tilt toward that. Briefs the other agents so the merbau enquiries come through a merbau page, not a generic 'we build all decks' homepage.
Imports your existing site so you stop paying for hosting plus a CMS subscription, and makes spinning up a new finish-and-suburb page a five-minute job. Ships separate hub pages for the finishes you actually do (merbau, spotted gum, blackbutt, tallowwood, Cumaru, Modwood, Trex, ResortDeck, DeckMax, deck-and-pergola combined), each with a real photo gallery from your phone, a price-from band, a BASIX and AS 1170 compliance callout, and a quote form that asks for the right four questions.
Goes through your live site for the things that actually move deck-builder rankings: suburb keywords on the finish hub, separate keyword targeting per finish so the merbau page doesn't cannibalise the Modwood page, ATFA membership and NSW Fair Trading licence on every trust strip, Class 1 + Class 2 + Class 3 timber-durability rating called out as a trust signal, and a Google Business Profile that lists every finish and timber-oil partnership properly. Auto-applies the low-risk fixes.
Launches separate Google Ads campaigns per finish and per build-size: combined deck-and-pergola ads at the highest CPC (because the margin is there), mid-size hardwood ads at a calibrated CPC, composite ads with a 'no sanding, 25-year warranty' angle. Drops the broad 'deck builder [city]' bid entirely (Bunnings eats it). Lets the small-deck DIY queries go. Switches Meta on for the visual jobs where the before-and-after sells itself.
Turns every finished deck into a post in your real accounts: a 58m² spotted-gum deck-and-Vergola in Petersham, a Modwood composite extension in Bondi, a tallowwood deck-and-spa-area in Mosman with steel-frame subframe and Cutek-finished boards. Builds the proof grid that lets the $40k-combined customer pick you without ringing three other quotes. You upload one photo per Friday handover, the agent drafts in your voice, you approve.
Drafts the long-form pieces customers Google before they ring: 'merbau vs spotted gum for Sydney decking, which lasts longer', 'composite vs hardwood deck cost over 25 years', 'do I need an AS 1170 balustrade for a 1.2m-high deck', 'BASIX requirements for a new deck in NSW'. Two drafts a month, in your voice, that pull the careful homeowner who is still in research mode.
Your first 30 days.
- Annual plan tilted to the finish and build-size that pays (combined deck-and-pergola $40k+, mid-size hardwood $25k-$60k, composite premium $35k+), with sub-20m² small-deck DIY work deprioritised by Sam
- Google Business Profile flipped from 'General Contractor' to 'Deck Builder' with Carpenter and Composite Decking Supplier as secondary categories
- NSW Fair Trading licence number, ATFA membership and Cutek + Sikkens + Intergrain finish partnerships wired into every page footer and ad copy
- Suburb finish pages indexed in your three core postcodes, ranking for the merbau, spotted gum, blackbutt, Modwood and Trex searches
- Combined deck-and-pergola Google Ads live at the highest CPC, mid-size hardwood ads at a calibrated mid CPC, composite ads with a 'no sanding, 25-year warranty' hook, broad 'deck builder' DIY queries excluded
- Deck Builder schema deployed with timber-species, composite-brand, Class 1 durability and BASIX-compliance markup
- Friday-afternoon handover captions running with timber species, suburb and subframe detail embedded in every post
- 'Merbau vs spotted gum for Sydney decking' guide and 'Do I need an AS 1170 balustrade for a 1.2m-high deck?' explainer drafted for approval
- Outreach drafted to two local landscape architects and a pool builder who need a reliable deck-and-pergola combined-build trade on their preferred-trades shortlist
Deck builders lose the $40k combined deck-and-pergola jobs not because the work is worse, but because every page on the site says 'we build decks' instead of separating merbau from Modwood from combined builds. The customer with the big budget can't tell from the homepage whether you've ever built a 60m² combined deck-and-Vergola, so they ring three other quotes. The fix is one finish page per finish, one ad set per build size, and a Google Business Profile that proves the work is real, ATFA-certified, and finished weekly.
Agencies are too dear to ship the finish-page library and the per-build-size ad set for $3.5k a month. DIY tools are cheap but the merbau-vs-composite comparison page sits in drafts for a year. In-House is the third option: for $299 a month the agents ship the finish pages, launch the combined-build upsell ads, post every Friday handover, and rebuild your Google Business Profile around the work that actually pays. You stay in the driver's seat, two taps to approve, minutes a day. Stop losing $40k builds to the cheaper unlicensed quote on the same suburb search.