The seven things a moving company website has to do
Speed, tap to call, instant quote, license numbers, local and long-distance pages, real photos and pricing. What a mover's site must do and what to cut.
- 1. Load in under three seconds on a phone
- 2. Put the phone number in the thumb's reach
- 3. Give an instant quote path that is not a phone call
- 4. Prove you are licensed in the first screen of every page
- 5. Separate local from long-distance, with real pages
- 6. Show your own trucks, crews and work
- 7. Answer the objection questions before the call
- What to cut
- Frequently asked
22.3% of moving companies on Google have no website at all. Among those that do, most have the same five-page brochure a template shop sold them in 2019: a stock photo hero, "Welcome to our site," a services list with no prices, and a contact form that emails an address nobody checks.
The gap between having a site and having a site that books moves is where the work is. Here are the seven jobs the site must do. Anything that does not serve one of them can go.
1. Load in under three seconds on a phone
Around three quarters of the traffic to a moving company site is mobile, often from someone standing in a half-packed apartment. Google's own guidance treats a Largest Contentful Paint under 2.5 seconds as good, and every second past that costs you a share of visitors who go back to the results page and call the next company.
The usual culprits on a mover's site are a 4 MB hero photo of a truck, a video background, three chat widgets, and a page builder loading eight fonts. Compress images to under 200 KB, drop the video, keep one chat tool at most, and test on a real phone on cell data rather than your office wifi.
2. Put the phone number in the thumb's reach
The number goes in the top right of the header as a tappable link, and it stays visible when the page scrolls. Add a sticky bar at the bottom of the screen on mobile with two buttons: Call and Get a quote. Not a hamburger menu with the number buried in it.
A tap-to-call link is one line: an anchor tag whose href is tel: followed by the number. If your site makes someone copy a number and paste it into the dialer, you will lose a meaningful share of the people who wanted to hire you.
3. Give an instant quote path that is not a phone call
This is where movers lose the most. A large share of people shopping for a move do not want to talk yet. They want a number tonight.
Give them two ways in. A short form: move date, from zip, to zip, home size, phone. Five fields, not fifteen, and never ask for an inventory list on the first screen. And a video survey offer, stated plainly: "Send us a two minute video walkthrough on your phone and we will email you a written not-to-exceed price within one business day." The video survey is the strongest conversion tool available to a moving company right now. It removes the in-home visit for you, removes the sales-visit dread for them, and lets you quote binding prices safely.
Show the form on every page, not just a contact page.
4. Prove you are licensed in the first screen of every page
Your USDOT number, your MC number, your state authority number and your insurance status go in the footer of every page and on a dedicated credentials page. Interstate household goods movers register with the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, and their public database lets any customer check your authority, insurance and complaint history in about a minute. Link to your own record.
This is not compliance decoration. Movers compete against a public reputation problem that no other trade carries, and the customer reading your site is looking for a reason to trust you or a reason to eliminate you. 18.6% of moving companies sit under 4.0 stars, so their caution is earned. Make verification a two-click job and you convert people your competitors lose.
5. Separate local from long-distance, with real pages
They are different customers with different questions, and one blended "Moving Services" page serves neither.
Local page. Hourly rate stated. What the hourly includes (two movers, truck, blankets, dollies, shrink wrap). Minimum hours. Travel time policy. Typical hours by home size, which is the number people actually want: "A two bedroom apartment usually runs 4 to 6 hours."
Long-distance page. How you quote (video survey), binding versus non-binding explained in your own words, delivery window policy, whether the load is dedicated or consolidated, your USDOT number, your claims process, and your deposit and cancellation terms in plain language.
Then a page each for the add-ons: packing and unpacking, labor only, storage, commercial, piano and specialty items. Labor only and packing deserve their own pages because they are searched separately and they are your best margin. The pricing guide covers how to present the numbers.
6. Show your own trucks, crews and work
Every mover's website uses the same three stock photos. Customers have seen them. Replace them with your own: lettered trucks, matching shirts, a blanket-wrapped dresser, a tightly loaded truck, a wrapped piano, your warehouse.
Add a short video of a crew wrapping furniture. It is the highest-performing asset a moving company can have and it takes a foreman four minutes to shoot. It answers the actual question in the customer's head, which is not "are you nice" but "what happens to my things."
Put reviews on the page with the route named, not a generic carousel. A review that says "Elgin to Naperville, three bedroom, nothing broken" sells. "Great service, would recommend" does not.
7. Answer the objection questions before the call
Add an FAQ section with the questions people are typing anyway: Do you charge for travel time? What is your cancellation policy and is the deposit refundable? Are you insured, and what does the basic coverage actually pay? Do you move pianos or safes? Do you disassemble beds? How far in advance should I book? Do I tip, and how much?
Two of those carry weight beyond the answer. Being specific about your deposit and cancellation policy is unusual in this trade and reads as honesty. Explaining that basic released-value protection pays about 60 cents per pound per article, and offering full-value protection as an alternative, does more for trust than any headline, because it is the exact thing the horror stories are about.
These questions also feed the AI assistants that now recommend movers. See the AI search guide.
What to cut
Cut the "Welcome to our website" paragraph. Cut the stock photo carousel. Cut the blog nobody has updated since 2022 unless you will actually write. Cut the chat widget if nobody answers within 10 minutes. Cut the 15-field quote form. Cut the "Get 50% off" banner, because in this trade a huge discount reads as a bait price and scares off the customers with real furniture.
Movers with a website carry a median of 58 reviews against 1 for those without. The site is not the cause of that, but it is the clearest marker of a company that runs itself seriously, and it is a week of work.
Frequently asked
Do I need a page for every city I serve? Only if you will write real content for it. Ten thin pages with the city name swapped in are worth less than three good ones. Write pages for the three or four suburbs you genuinely want more work in, each with local detail, real jobs and a photo.
Should I show prices? Show the local hourly rate and a range or a typical-hours table by home size. It costs you the callers who were never going to book and it raises the quality of everyone else. Long-distance pricing is legitimately variable, so show the method instead of a number.
Wix, WordPress or a custom site? The platform matters far less than speed, tap to call and the quote form. A fast simple site on any platform beats a slow one anywhere.
Check where you stand in the benchmark report before rebuilding. If you want the site built for you, website design is one of the services in the free 14-day trial. Text or call (385) 832-6175.