If you own a contracting business or roofing business or really any home service related business, you have without a doubt received messages that state all you need is SEO, Social Media Marketing or other services.
You will shoot to the top of Google and start rolling in the dough.
For some business models, getting your website to the first page of Google might pan out. You will get more traffic and possibly more leads. Unfortunately, it’s not always the case and definitely isn’t the case for service based businesses.
So here are three reasons you are not getting more leads even after improving your organic search ranking.
- Your Website Sucks
- Your Branding/Reputation Sucks
- You Forgot About the Customer Journey
Your Website Sucks
(no offense to the owner of this site)
I see so many businesses on the web, whether it’s roofing companies, landscapers or general contractors, that have extremely UGLY, outdated websites, low quality images(or worse stock imagery), no licensing information and numerous other no-nos.
But why is this terrible?
Well, when a potential customer visits your website, it is the first impression they have of your business. You want them to see high quality pictures of your work, a clean website(note I didn’t say expensive) and a clear message.
The quality of the service your business provides needs to align and be backed up by the professionalism of your site. If a customer needs a new roof or wants a +$30,000 swimming pool and they come to a site that looks like it hasn’t been touched in years and the business spent $1, chances are they probably are going to move on because there is an immediate lack of confidence.
Your Branding/Reputation is Less Than Impressive
I cannot stress this enough.
Even if you don’t work in the home service industry or construction industry but provide a service, your REPUTATION is the most important part of your business.
If you don’t take care of your brand and your reputation, it doesn’t matter how many visitors you get or how great your marketing strategy is.
With industries that have a high average value per customer, which is most contractors, why would a customer hire you if they see that you don’t care about your work or reputation?
You Are Ignoring the Customer Journey
If you don’t know what I mean by customer journey it really just means how potential customers interact and behave during the process of looking to hire a company.
Here is an example.
I’m looking for a landscaper in my local area. I go to Google, enter best landscapers in “my area”. I visit a few of the results and probably narrow down my choice to maybe 3 businesses.
THEN
I look at the reviews of each one of those businesses.
P.S if you are still displaying the generic “testimonials” you are failing.
You need to consider where potential customers go for reviews ie. Yelp, HomeAdvisor, the BBB, Porch and Google My Business.
(If you are only focusing on optimizing your website and not your other web profiles like social media, Yelp, Houzz or HomeAdvisor, you’re not behind the curve…you probably can’t even see it. ) – Topic of future post ; )
You should be displaying marked up reviews or widgets from these types of sites on your website. This does two things:
- Adds more credibility (any business can write a testimonial about themselves and post it)
- Keeps the visitor on your site
Although people can and still do leave your site to continue on their journey, it may be the difference between someone filling out a quote form or calling your business right away and leaving forever.
If you currently have a problem generating leads for your business make sure that you look at the three things mentioned above and once you have these covered, the leads will start flowing in!