5 Of The Biggest Mistakes That Home Service Contractors Are Making Online

Whether you are a national brand or a local-based business, your online presence is crucial to your company’s success. While many have already realized this and invested in the expansion of their digital footprint, most are still sabotaging their efforts by missing a few key pieces of the puzzle. A Google search for “contractors in northern Virginia” yields 3.3 million results!  How is it possible to stand out?  That’s easy, you need to be sure that your digital marketing is on solid ground.

The following is a quick checklist to help you discover any gaps in your 2017 digital marketing plan.

Your Online Reviews

9 out of 10 customers research a company on the web before making a buying decision. Many times a good review (or lack thereof) is a deciding factor. Fresh prospects and referrals are less likely to shop around if they can easily find a good review. With the type of competition you face in the contracting world, the less estimates you are up against, the better. Google understands this also, meaning that a lack of reviews could be affecting your ability to get found online.

You’ll need to examine all the places where you may have reviews and build out your company profile.  Then, don’t be afraid to engage your customers and give them a good reason to leave a positive review.

Local Marketing for Home Services

The last few years have seen a big change in how search engines like Google and Bing serve up results for local searches. Often times, your website and social media will display what you do, but not where you do it. For example, if you service all of Northern Virginia, it’s a good idea to make it known that you service specific areas such as Alexandria, Reston and Gainesville. When Google index’s your business you want to make sure that it knows exactly where to make you relevant. When done right, this gives you a competitive edge in the areas that you want to focus on, while helping you avoid traffic from places outside your ideal service radius.

There are some things you can do immediately to help Google understand where you’re doing business.  Schema tags are little pieces of code that help search engines better understand what’s included in those tags.  Your website should include schema tags to indicate the type of business you have and the location of the business.  Here is some information about Schema from one of our favorite marketing blogs that sheds more light on this.

Produce Content for Homeowners

Try imagining that Google is a person who’s only job is to refer people to the services that they need. It seems logical that the better Google knows you, the more likely they’ll be to send you referrals. You would want to talk with Google more than your competitors do, so that they’ll send you more business. Especially if staying silent meant that you would fall further into the background and out of their mind. This is the difference between a good, consistent content strategy vs. a bad or non-existent content strategy. If you are able to post relevant and compelling industry specific content then you will consistently remind Google why it should keep referring you.

As a skilled contractor, you have a wealth of information that your customers want.  Think of something that answers a question or solves a problem, and then write 500 words about it.  Post that article to your website, with and informative title and headlines.  Then promote your informative piece on your Facebook page.  Your customers will appreciate this, and so will Google.

Monitor and Track Your Marketing

Analytics, traffic, conversions, rankings… if these are not words that you recognize then you are already losing opportunities. This topic is far more complex to explain then it is to uncover. A good starting point would be to ask yourself the following questions: Do I know the local areas that my website gets its traffic from? Is my Google AdWords cost-per-lead one of my best marketing ROI’s? When a lead calls our sales staff to request a quote, do I know where that lead came from? Do I view my online presence on par with my competition?  There are so many tools available that track all these things and many are free to use.  The trick is investing the time to learn how to use them.

Create a Great Call to Action to Get New Customers

Do you ever get the feeling that you are losing opportunities before you even get in front of them? For many, this is a reality. Without the proper conversion mechanism or call to action, the prospects that you worked so hard to get could be giving their business to someone else. If all you have is a phone number on your website but no contact form, an interested prospect will not be able to contact you if they find you online after business hours. Your prospects should always be able to contact you while their interest is peaked, no matter what time of day it is. Conversion issues take MANY forms, and there are all types of conversion opportunities that you need to be prepared for.

You are sabotaging your marketing efforts by not making your conversion points easy to see and convenient to use by including an intriguing offer and a call to action.  Or worse, if a customer is referred to you but your website doesn’t reflect quality work, you may never even know you got the referral in the first place!

Visit your website through the eyes of your customer.  Can you easily find various ways to contact?  Is there a clear call to action?  Does the site reflect quality, competent work?  All these things need to be dialed in to make the most of your marketing.

If you feel you did not do well on this check list or you would like tips on how to enhance your digital marketing results, please click here to contact one of our experts.

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