Several traditional marketing strategies are still useful until today, and one of them is the word of mouth referrals. But, as a contractor, if you want to take your business to the next level and make sure you succeed, you are going to need a website that will bring you the leads you need. For almost every business today, having a website is a must. Your website is not only there to help you boost lead generation, but it also serves as a good venue for your customers to learn more about your brand and leave reviews and testimonials about your services. Also, it is not enough that you have a website set up; you need to make sure that you optimize it to serve its best purpose for your company.
Each and every website may be different but there are certain practices that are proven to be effective in achieving success. As a contractor, here are some of the best practices you can emulate and integrate with your own strategies to optimize your website.
1. Increase your website’s speed.
One of the best things you can do to optimize your website and improve its ranking is by making sure that you increase its speed. What do you when you get to a site that’s taking forever to load? Do you patiently wait or do you shut down the page and move on to the next contractor on the search results? This is how your customers will feel if you don’t do something about your site’s speed. Most people don’t have the patience to wait so if your site loads slow, it will affect your bounce rate and you will be losing one potential customer. Most audiences expect websites to load in two seconds or less, so if yours take longer than that, might as well do something about it as soon as possible.
2. Focus on one topic per page.
If you want to optimize your website, you need to make sure that you focus on a singular topic on each webpage. It’s because if you cover too many topics in a single webpage, search engines will find it hard to determine what the page is all about. Therefore, it will lose its importance and it will less likely rank in the search results. So what you need to do is that instead of containing a lot of information in a single page, have your services or each of your projects featured in their own dedicated pages. For instance, your remodeling services should not all be contained under one page. Instead, have a separate page for kitchen remodeling, another one for living room, and so on. It is also the same when you create content or blog post. Instead of covering several topics in one post, it is better if you just cover one topic at a time.
3. Keep your URLs short.
Your URLs are one of the things that appear in the search results when people look for your company or services. Make sure that your URLs are clean and short, and that they should convey to your audience what they can expect when they click on it. Avoid using unnecessary characters, numbers and punctuation marks so that they are easier to read. Also, match your URLs to page titles and integrate keywords in the first 3 to 5 words of your URL.
4. Include images.
In your contractor website, images are extremely helpful. Images show people who you are and what you do. People also better retain information when content is paired with images. This is a good chance for you to showcase your best projects and your expertise in your field. Many of the contractors post the before and after images of their projects so that their audiences can see that what they are capable of when it comes to making renovations and transformations in their clients’ homes. You can also do the same on your website. You have to make sure that you post high-quality photos and you optimize the images so that it does not impact your website’s speed.
5. Keep your titles and headers clear and concise.
Your audience and search engines determine what your website is about with the help of your titles and headers. You need to make sure that they are clear and concise, and that they are very specific. You also need to integrate the keywords you used for that specific page. Both the search engines and internet users rely on your headers to find out the purpose and the topic of each page. Therefore, you have to ensure that they grab your readers’ attention and that they support the overall topic contained in a certain page.
6. Post blogs.
Does your contractor website have a blog? If it doesn’t, well it’s about time to start blogging now. Blogging offers a number of benefits for your website. Blogs can bring more leads because they help educate more potential customers about your brand and your services. It is through blogs that you can also showcase your knowledge and expertise. Blogs are also helpful in your ranking because they help search engines better understand what your website is all about.
Optimizing your contractor website all comes down to making sure that you provide a better experience for the people who visit your site. This way, it will be easier for them to find your business online, learn about your brand and avail of your services. In the end, doing all these will translate to an improved leads generation and higher conversion.
