You finish a job you are proud of. You take a photo, put it on your business page, and by teatime it has a handful of likes and a "looks great mate" from your brother-in-law. The phone does not ring. Next week you do it again, with the same result, and after a month or two you start to wonder whether Facebook is worth bothering with at all.

It is a common story, and it is rarely because your work is not good enough. Most of the time the post is being shown to the wrong people, it is not asking anyone to do anything, or both. The good news is that most of it is fixable in the ten minutes you already spend posting.

The people seeing your posts are mostly not customers

When you post on your business page, Facebook does not show it to everyone in your town. It shows it to some of the people who already follow your page, and it tends to favour the posts those people react to. Look at who follows a typical trade's page and you usually find friends, family, old school mates, other trades and a few past customers.

Those people are lovely, and their likes are not worthless, but very few of them need a roof cleaned, a boiler serviced or a car valeted this week. The person who does need it has probably never heard of you and does not follow your page, so your post never reaches them.

That is the single biggest reason posts get likes but no enquiries. The likes come from people who know you. The work has to come from people who do not.

A like is not an enquiry

Liking a post costs nothing and takes half a second. Sending a message asking for a quote is a much bigger step. Someone only takes it when three things line up: they have the problem now, they believe you can fix it, and it is obvious how to get in touch.

A post can look brilliant and still miss all three. A nice photo of a clean driveway tells people you do good work. It does not tell them you cover their village, that you have space next week, or that they can message you for a price without any fuss.

Most posts do not ask for anything

"Another one done today" is the most common trade post on Facebook, and it gives a potential customer nothing to act on. Compare it with something like "Mossy roof in Hanley, cleared and treated in a day. We have a couple of slots free next week. Message us a photo of your roof for a price."

The second version is not salesy. It just answers the questions a customer has in their head. A post that brings in enquiries usually includes:

• Where the job was. Naming the town or area tells local people you work near them.
• The problem it solved. Moss, a blocked gutter, a stained carpet, a dog-hair-filled estate car. People recognise their own problem before they recognise your skill.
• A before and after. Taken from the same angle, in decent light, so the difference is obvious at a glance.
• One clear next step. Message us, ring this number or fill in this form. Pick one, not three.
• A reason to act now. Honest availability, such as "two slots left this month", works better than a made-up deadline.

Posting in bursts looks like you have stopped trading

Plenty of pages post five times in a week when things are quiet, then nothing for three months when the diary fills up. The trouble is that people often check your page after hearing your name from a neighbour or finding you on Google. If the last post is from the spring, some of them will assume you are too busy, have packed in, or are not that bothered.

You do not need to post every day. A steady rhythm you can keep up, even once or twice a week, looks far more trustworthy than a flurry followed by silence.

The photo is doing the wrong job

Photos of the van, the kit or a half-finished job mean a lot to you and very little to a customer. Dark photos, blurry photos and wide shots where the work is a speck in the corner all get scrolled past.

The picture should show the result the customer is paying for, close enough to see, and ideally next to what it looked like before. If you only change one habit this month, make it taking a proper "before" photo before you start.

What regular posting is actually good for

It is worth being honest here. Even a well-written post on your own page will mostly be seen by people who already know you. That makes regular posting a shop window rather than a lead machine. Its job is to reassure the people who come looking: that you are real, still trading, local and good at what you do.

That job matters. A customer who finds you through a recommendation, a van sign or a Google search will often check your Facebook page before they get in touch, and a page full of recent, clear before-and-afters helps them make their mind up. If you would rather not spend your evenings writing posts, done-for-you social media posting keeps the page active without it eating into your time.

When you need to reach people who do not follow you

If you want Facebook to bring in work from strangers, that is what paid adverts are for. With an advert you choose the area, so the post is shown to homeowners within reach of your van rather than to your mates. You can also add a simple enquiry form, so someone can ask for a quote without leaving Facebook. The same rules apply as above: clear photo, named area, the problem solved and one next step.

There is more to setting them up well than boosting a post and hoping, which is why we wrote a separate page on Facebook and Instagram adverts for trades.

Adverts are not for everyone, though. They are probably not worth it yet if:

• You are already fully booked from word of mouth and repeat customers.
• You cannot reply to messages quickly. An enquiry that waits a day for an answer has often gone to someone else.
• You have no photos of your own work to show yet. Get a few good jobs photographed first.

A quick fix list for this week

• Take a before photo on every job, from the spot you will take the after photo.
• Name the area in every post.
• Say what the problem was, in the words a customer would use.
• End every post with one way to get in touch.
• Pick a posting rhythm you can keep, and keep it through busy months as well as quiet ones.
• Reply to every comment and message, including the "how much?" ones.

None of this needs a marketing budget. It just means writing each post for the next customer rather than for the people who already know you. If you want your page to bring in work from beyond your followers, that is the point where paid adverts earn their keep.