5 Online Marketing Techniques For Contractors

Contractors require a steady stream of customers in order to stay profitable. In addition to delivering the service, business owners also have to undertake the responsibility of marketing and sales. An effective way to attract leads and secure that next contact is to invest in online marketing for contractors. Although maintaining professional relationships, face-to-face networking, and referrals are crucial for a company’s success, digital marketing is becoming increasingly important for contractors who need to find new clients and increase their visibility. In this post, we will explore several online marketing techniques for contractors.

Design and Develop a Fast & Responsive Website

Having a professional website that loads fast and is mobile-friendly is the first step to connecting with customers online, anytime, and anywhere. Research has shown that over 90 percent of consumers look at a company’s website before deciding which local contractor to use. Because these individuals tend to judge a company’s credibility based on its website design, you can’t afford to use an out-of-date web design.

Below are a few pointers to keep in mind when building your own contractor website:

• Security: Google has confirmed that they favor HTTPS sites. These websites typically appear on the first page of Google. It is important to set up SSL on your website before making it live.
• Mobile-friendly: Over half of the online traffic in the U.S. originates from smartphones and tablets. Ensure that your website can be viewed without issues on these mobile devices.
• SEO-optimized: From meta tags to titles to optimized images to schema, your website should be properly coded for SEO. Consider using metadata to add structure to the site.
• Reduced page load time: Your website needs to be fast because most visitors expect your web pages to load in three seconds or less.

A well-designed interface can help improve website’s conversion rate. It is important to consider your customers’ potential experience as they navigate the website. Will it be easy for them to locate the instant chat feature? Is your contact information visible on all pages? Where can they see past projects? As you can see, optimizing one’s website for user-friendliness can make a huge impact on the overall digital marketing strategy.

Employ Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Strategies to Drive Valuable Traffic to Site

Did you know that Google receives over a trillion searches annually? Consumers conduct a wide variety of searches on a daily basis, looking for products, businesses, and general information. Chances are they are searching for a contractor business like yours! It is recommended that you start optimizing your listings to appear in front of these potential customers.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving the website ranking of a certain business. By appearing higher in Search Engine Results Pages (SERP), one has a better chance at reaching more relevant leads. If you want to appear in results that are relevant to your services, products, and industry, choose the right keywords. Keyword selection affects which search results feature your contractor website.

After finding the right keywords to use, you may need to expand them into long-tail keywords. Instead of just saying flooring contractors or roof contractors, you will need to be more specific. For example, you can add in terms about the type of customers you serve and the location. Business owners can optimize their keywords into the following variations, including residential flooring contractors in Avondale, New Jersey commercial roof contractors, and much more!

There are other types of optimizations that can improve your contractor website rankings. Navigation, user design, page speed, etc., are some of the areas that contribute to a positive user experience and keeping potential leads on your page longer. The more time they spend on your page, the more relevant your pages will be (in the eyes of Google). When that happens, Google will push your website further to the front.

SEO is and always will be a crucial part of online marketing for contractors. The right strategy can help business owners improve their website traffic and obtain more valuable leads.

Invest in PPC Marketing for Contractors

A convenient way to bring in more customers and leads naturally is to launch a PPC advertising campaign. This means that you only pay the platform you advertise on when someone clicks on the ad. This option offers flexibility because business owners can stick to a certain budget that they can afford. Compared to organic users, individuals who click on ads are 50 percent more likely to convert. In most cases, they are serious about hiring a contractor and are ready to make a decision. These are high-value leads contractors should not ignore.

Just like SEO, business owners should focus on using long-tail keywords in their PPC marketing campaigns. It is proven that these keywords can drive better traffic and keep your cost-per-click (CPC) low. Bidding for common terms such as “contractors” or “contractor” are often expensive due to the massive competition.

Quality score and maximum bid amounts are factors that affect an ad’s placement. It is recommended that you strive for a high-quality score than a high maximum bid. At the end of the day, Google’s job is to provide the most relevant search results for its users. Contractors can’t just buy their way into a good ad position.

Identify Pain Points: Resolving Customers’ Problems

Before embarking on any online marketing or digital marketing campaign for contractors, you should first understand and address your customers’ pain points. Develop a marketing message that targets the various issues customers may be facing right now. For example, they may be experiencing roof leaks, their flooring tiles may have popped up, and so on. By showing that you understand your customer base well, online marketing campaigns will typically yield better results.

Now that you know what type of content to produce, the next step is to determine its length. A majority of customers do not have a great attention span. Not a lot of people have the time or are willing to make the effort to read through long walls of text. It is important that contractors create shorter messages that offer the valuable insight into the problem, offer a solution, and great call to action (ensure that the link to your website is working!).

Engage Target Audience via Video Marketing

Video marketing is recognized as a powerful method to engage one’s audience and help them to digest information. It is also an entertaining way for consumers to obtain important information. From building brand awareness to explaining complex topics to showcasing past work, videos can be extremely informative and helpful for your target audience. A bulk of today’s population are visual beings; we tend to retain information better by watching videos. If they like what they see, your phone might be ringing in no time.

While digital marketing for contractors may be slightly daunting at first, it will pay off if business owners put the above-mentioned tips into action. If you do not have the right amount of knowledge and experience, it is recommended that you hire a professional online marketing agency that specializes in contractor web design, contractor SEO, and contractor PPC. This is a great approach to save both money and time and maximize your return on investment.

Whether you are a renovation specialist or flooring contractor, we have got you covered with innovative contractor marketing solutions. Feel free to contact SmartSites today to find out which digital marketing strategy best suit your contractor business.