12 min read
For a long time, people used the internet as a phone book. A reputable home service contractor only needed a business listing on Yelp or even a Facebook page to get new customers. As long as your business was online when someone searched your name, referrals and word of mouth kept you busy and growing.
Today, growing a plumbing, HVAC, roofing, home improvement, or restoration business takes more than being a trusted contractor with an excellent reputation and a solid referral network.
You need a small business digital marketing partner like High Level Marketing that can focus on marketing your business online and driving more customers to your business while you focus on building relationships with customers and hiring qualified technicians to support your growth.
The complexity of digital marketing has evolved quickly over the past twelve months. With Google dramatically increasing the rate they publish algorithm updates, search results have never been more volatile. Search engines are now integrating artificial intelligence (AI) directly into results, with Google's Bard and Bing's Chat GPT gaining momentum with users and marketers alike. These rapid changes make it difficult to assess and invest in the right areas of a digital marketing campaign.
As your trusted marketing partner, High Level Marketing will:
- Build a solid digital foundation that establishes you as a leader in your market
- Design a marketing strategy using all digital channels, including website design, SEO, PPC, social media, blogging, reviews, and content to get you the most visibility, traffic, and leads
- Help you understand the role of digital marketing in growing your business
- Provide insights and data about your customers and competitors so you can make smart business and marketing decisions
- Help you gain and manage online reviews
- Provide real-time lead information
- Provide an open channel to see results and provide feedback to your performance team
- (and more)
Why it Pays to Work with a Digital Agency That Specializes in Marketing for Home Services
97% of people start their search for a local business online. Because home repair services are usually an urgent matter, more than 85% of people searching for service will call within 24 hours of their search.
Your home business needs to show up at the top of search results for local searches like 'best roofer near me' or 'furnace repair company in (city)'. And that's no easy task.
Getting to the top of search results takes a holistic marketing strategy like the one you'll get from High Level Marketing. We start by understanding your business goals, then use multiple channels to establish your brand and push your contracting business into the hands of a wide variety of likely customers at various sales funnel stages. And we will support you in the things you can do to grow your business online, like requesting and managing your reviews, monitoring, and rating leads, monitoring your competition, understanding the market you operate in, and identifying when it makes sense to update our strategy.
When you consider all the things you must do to run your business and everything you plan to do to grow it, do you really have time for digital marketing?
What You Need to Know About Our Digital Marketing for Home Services
We start with a professionally branded, fully optimized website
Why do home service businesses need a professional website? A professionally branded, fully optimized home services website is one of the most critical parts of your digital marketing strategy. It is your online storefront, the anchor to all of your marketing efforts, and the primary way to reach and convert new customers online.
Your new website will serve three purposes:
Purpose 1: Get Found Online
When we talk about a fully optimized website, we're talking about two types of optimization: optimizing for search engines and optimizing for users. Google now looks at many factors and signals, including the words of your query, the relevance and usability of pages, page load times, the user's location and settings, and more. Our fully optimized website takes input and collaboration from our entire production team (front-end developer, back-end developer, SEO specialist, design, and content) to create a website that ranks in search results.
- Website optimization for search engines
Website optimization for search engines includes backend and front-end optimization like page load speed, mobile optimization, caching, hosting, security and ADA compliance, and other HTML tactics. These technical components affect website performance and user experience and are essential for search engines, crawlers, and bots to better understand, crawl, and index your website.
- Website optimization for users
Website optimization for users includes original, relevant copy, clean content design and UX (elements that create visual hierarchies, engagement, and navigation), and on-page SEO (keywords, meta descriptions, title tags, and anchor links.) The longer we can keep people engaged with your website, the better your website will rank with search engines, and, of course, the more customers you'll attract and convert.
Purpose 2: Support Your Inbound Marketing
A well-planned website includes pages and content supporting all your inbound marketing strategies. Directing traffic from PPC, social media, blogs, Google Business Profile (formerly GMB), directory listings, and traditional marketing to landing pages on your website will strengthen your authority with search engines. Our targeted landing pages allow you to target and convert particular groups of people.
Purpose 3: Lead Generation
Whether visitors land on your website from organic SEO, paid advertising, social media, or referrals, original, relevant content will keep users engaged and moving down your sales funnel. A good home services website includes several lead-generating tactics like a click-to-call phone number, lead form, downloads/ebooks, newsletter sign-up, time-sensitive or seasonal specials, and specific calls-to-actions. Our conversion experts optimize your website pages to get the most conversion from your website traffic.
How do we make a great website experience?
We build your website on a secure, powerful, and flexible CMS.
You can't build a strong digital foundation on shaky ground. We use the latest platforms and technology to give you a lightning-fast website that integrates with Google Analytics, Hubspot, Hotjar, SalesForce, and other 3rd party platforms. Our exclusive CMS is error-proof and easy to update, so if you're inclined to update content, do some blogging, or add pictures to your gallery, you can! Of course, we are happy to work with you on all of your needed updates.
We engage your website visitors with original, relevant content.
You've heard it before; content is king. As Google evolves into becoming the world's most efficient librarian, organizing the world's information and making it universally accessible and helpful, it is more important than ever to rethink, reorganize, and update your website content.
People look for and receive information in a variety of formats. Google's goal is to figure out what kind of information your customers are looking for and in what form by the search terms entered into the search box. Your goal is to have various website content that keeps people engaged on your website. Performance stats like time on page and pages per session send trust and authority signals to Google, so it will (hopefully) deliver your website page up at the top of search results.
How our content strategists engage your visitors
- We write original content that matches top search queries, speaks to your target audience, addresses their concerns, answers their questions, and highlights your differentiators.
- We include photos, videos, infographics, checklists, featured projects, and FAQs that give search engines a variety of content to serve up in search results.
- If your website includes templated sections, like "Why work with us" on every page, we make sure more than 50% of the remaining content is unique to the page topic.
We use professional tools to create your keyword strategy, analyze competitor sites, and develop content that helps you reach the top of search results.
Google has never published a word count requirement as part of its algorithm. However, several studies show longer content (1500+ words) performs well for conversion and indexing on Google. That doesn't mean every page needs to be 1500 words to get results. You only need to outperform your competitors, not every contractor in the world.
Want to see how you rank against your competitors? Contact us for aFREE COMPETITOR ANALYSIS. We will analyze your competitors and provide insights about their websites, rankings, and ad spends.
Our exclusive local market analyzer is just one of the tools we use to guide our strategies. To learn more about how we can help you compete online and dominate search results, speak to one of our marketing experts now.
We use buyer psychology and conversion optimization techniques to write messaging that hooks users and keeps them moving down your sales funnel.
Your website has a fraction of a second to capture the attention of your visitors. Your page banners need to be visual, emotional, and crystal clear about why they should work with you, and what the next steps are.
We use strong calls-to-action (CTAs) to guide customers to take the next step.
Most website users only skim content. They are typically on a mission to find an answer or solve a problem. Use this to your advantage. Break up content with headlines, bullet points, and specific calls to action. A call-to-action can be a button, a link, or a combination of a CTA button (like Request a Quote) with a headline above it (like Work with a Plumber You Can Trust). Strong CTAs leave little room for customers "guess" what to do next.
We highlight your emergency services and specials above the fold.
More often than not, people are searching for a home service contractor because they have a problem, and often times the best offer wins. Whether searching for sewer snaking, furnace repair, roof repair, or tree trimming, these customers quickly decide on a contractor. They likely clicked on your website from a Google Business Profile after looking at a few reviews and comparing you with other local businesses. They are on your website for a gut check. Our websites give them the visual cues they need to trust your business and make the call.
Another tactic we use for getting more visibility and leads for your most important or unique services is to create dedicated landing pages for them. These pages feature the service, relevant specials, testimonials, before and after pictures, and a lead form. A dedicated landing page will not only help you reach a more targeted audience, but it will send additional trust and authority signals to search engines, positioning you as a qualified, full-service business that meets the needs of its customers.
We'll help you personalize your About page with company and staff highlights.
The About page can be the difference between gaining and losing a customer for home service providers. The About page is one of the most clicked pages for online customers, usually right before deciding to contact.
With your help, we'll make this page as personal as possible. It is likely your final chance to earn trust and persuade the user to contact you. We, of course, recommend using original photos throughout your website, but especially on your About page. People are on this page to see who they are inviting into their homes, so give it to them. Low picture quality is acceptable here, especially pictures taken at job sites.
Be transparent. Help us tell your story and communicate what working with your company is like.
If possible, we'll include client reviews, blog articles, and anything else that gives insight into your company values, guarantees, and personal service.
We Support Your Business and Marketing Goals with a Robust SEO Strategy
Our SEO experts use proven SEO tactics that help search engines understand and index your website.
We can't tell all of our SEO secrets, so; here are a few of the basic SEO tactics you can expect from High Level Marketing and what they mean:
Website page titles
A page title is a short, descriptive line of text that describes a website page. You'll see it in a Google search results list below the website URL. Page titles serve two purposes. One purpose is to tell search what your page is about so they can properly index it. The second purpose is to entice people to click on your page. The ideal page title is around 50 to 60 characters in length. Longer page titles will get shortened automatically, risking the loss of relevant information that customers may need to click on your website. Note: Page titles should work together with meta descriptions to strengthen your value proposition and earn more clicks.
Meta descriptions
A meta description is a snippet of text (about 155 characters) that summarizes the web page content. It appears directly below the page title in a Google search result. It should be informative, include a value proposition, and persuade users to click for more information. However, Google can bypass your meta description and use another snippet of content from your website or another source.
Header tags
Header tags, or htags, are a snippet of code that tells Google how to prioritize the content on your web page. They work together to form a page outline for users and search engines. When done correctly, the h1 is the headline at the top of the page, below the page title or banner. It introduces the page content and sometimes includes a geo-target. There is usually only one h1, but some modern websites have more than one without issues.
The remaining sections of content start with h2s, h3s, and so on. Each header should introduce the content topic. Every content section on the page should relate to the broader page topic. For example, a furnace repair page can include sub-topics on signs your furnace needs a tune-up, 3 things to do before you call for furnace repair, how seasonal tune-ups save you money, and how to choose the best furnace repair company, and so on.
When ranking your page, user experience and engagement are necessary signals Google considers. Headers allow users to skim content and search engines to index your page correctly. If your headlines are engaging enough to keep people on your page and reading your content, your time on the page will increase and get higher rankings.
Page load speed
Website speed is a key ranking factor for Google, especially mobile page load speeds. Load speed is the number of seconds it takes for your website page to fully load. The speed of your website is only as fast as your slowest page. It is not an average of all pages.
Page load speed is one factor that makes up your website's core web vitals and falls under user experience. Why? Because most users will not stick around for slow web pages. It's a bad experience that could cost you the customer. Google will not recommend your website if it is slow or there are a lot of bounces.
If your page loads slowly, it's likely pictures or videos. You need to compress images and host videos on a third-party website like YouTube. Compressing the images on your website is one way to improve your website's loading speed.
Other Basic SEO Tactics Include
Local services pages
Your home services business offers a full suite of services that customers expect. It makes sense for most of your services to group like services together on a general page like Plumbing Repairs. But, sometimes, it makes sense to promote a specialty service such as leak detection with a page like "Leak Detection Services in City."
Hyper-focused local service pages focus on one service in one area. They allow us to target a specific customer looking for a particular service. When properly optimized, these pages usually perform well with search engines and deliver a more qualified customer ready to make a call.
Blogging
Blogs alone are not necessarily your biggest lead generator, but they can drive a lot of traffic to your website and play an important role in a customer's decision-making process. A content marketing strategy that includes blogging can reach a variety of customers at every stage in your sales funnel. Posting original, relevant, and helpful content every month will help keep your website content fresh and put another piece of content out there for search engines to deliver in search results. Including strategic CTAs and anchor links within your blog will help keep readers engaged with your website and moving through your sales funnel.
High-quality backlinks
Getting quality backlinks from trusted websites is a smart piece of your SEO strategy. When done correctly and consistently, they send a powerful trust signal to search engines, strengthen your searchability, and give your business many more places for customers to find and leave reviews about your service. Note the most crucial directory site to optimize your business listing on is Google.
Reporting and analytics
A key component in SEO optimization is analytics. We monitor your website traffic using Google Analytics, Search Console, and other data analytics tools. Google Analytics records and stores all of your website traffic and specific actions they take on your website. We'll help you understand this data with easy reporting and show you how Google understands your website, what kind of customers are coming to it, and what information they find most important. Knowing how people find and interact with your website will help you understand the website and strategy updates we recommend.
Google Business Profile optimization
A fully optimized Google Business Profile is essential to a powerful SEO strategy. Contractors who dominate search results get the lion's share of new customers, and there are only so many places on page one for businesses to show up. Your website and business listing work together to earn more trust and authority with search engines.
Google reviews
When it comes to Google search results, having a fully optimized Google Business profile (formerly GMB), including several positive reviews and a link to your website, is the only way to make it into the Google Maps pack. Not to mention, a Google Business profile is another line in the water for catching new customers.
Google Maps pack optimization
People searching for home services in your area will first see the map listings. With correct optimization (and a little luck), your business will appear in the top 3 positions of the maps pack and the business listing on the right. If you're luckier still, you'll also show up in the top 3 organic listings below the maps. Add in PPC, and you have now dominated search results. But you can't do it without the help of a Google Business Profile.
We Help You Reach a Broader Market and Drive More Traffic with Your Social Media Business Page
Being active on social media can directly impact your SEO efforts. A complete business page on Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube, allows you to reach a wider group of customers and put more content online that can be picked up and served up by search engines. Recommended contractor content for social media includes tips for solving household problems, like how to safely unclog a bathtub drain or photos of a restoration project or roof repair. And most importantly, be sure anything you post links back to your website for additional opportunities to capture those leads. With High-Level Marketing as your marketing partner, we can make recommendations for how to set up your social media pages and post content as part of your content marketing strategy.
We Protect Your Brand and Get You Through the Shoulder Season with PPC
Paid search and paid social, or PPC is an important part of our holistic marketing strategy. Depending on your business goals, we use paid campaigns to prevent competitor conquesting, promote seasonal specials, reach new markets, test messages, or remarket to people who have visited your website. Depending on your budget, our paid ad strategy can include both Google Ads and Facebook Ads.
Stop Struggling to Compete Online - Let Our Home Services Marketing Team Handle It All
Why do more home service businesses make the switch to High Level Marketing? Because we know the true meaning of partnership. From day one, you'll feel the difference between working with a digital agency that is an extension of your team vs. an agency that just puts you into their system.
Before we even think about your strategy, we get to know you, your business, and what you're looking for in a marketing partner. If we're a good match, the fun begins. We will dive into your market and competitors and benchmark your business's current position. We'll lay it all out for you. Why? Because we genuinely believe knowledge is power.
The strategy we recommend will put you on the right path for growth and long-term success. We won't make lofty promises. We'll be transparent in what we do to get you results. And we'll value your ideas, input, and feedback every step of the way.
This article was originally posted in January of 2020, and has been revised and updated in October of 2023.
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