What's the best way for me to go about finding a solid electrician in my area? Because I contacted these guys through checkatrade and they were one of the top rated companies on there
Any good quality competent electrician is very unlikely to use the services of checkatrade (and/or other similar listings websites)..
As they can secure sufficient work via word of mouth, or other less-expensive means of advertising...
All the contractors have to pay for their membership.. so these 'find-a-contractor' type sites are generally reluctant to bite the hand that feeds, by not making all of their tradespersons appear to be highly rated!! As they do need to keep the revenues coming in to pay for all of those TV adverts..
It is normally tradespersons who are not so good and struggle to find work who end up using these sorts of sites.
Word of mouth, personal recommendation is always the best first choice..
Some of the free social media groups can be useful places to ask real local people in your area about who they use.
(e.g. Facebook / Nextdoor etc. have small local groups).
Most internet trade searching sites are just a money earner for the people who created the site. Sponging revenue off the contractors who sign up and thus customers, because the contractor has to charge their customers more to cover their annual membership fees.