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contractor marketing and google maps

5 Quick Tips to Promote Your Website

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In the spirit of not every post has to be 500 words long, I am going to make this one short and sweat. Here are 5 quick tips to promote your website.

1. Make sure to incorporate your website in your overall marketing and advertising plan.

2. Promote your site with the use of news releases, newspapers and magazines. A good time to do this is when you introduce a new product or service

3. Write – That’s right, getting informative articles out there will help with your site’s overall ranking as well as position you as an expert in your field.

4. Put your web address on all of your correspondence. Business cards, flyers, newsletters, brochures, trucks, invoices, stationary. Everywhere your company goes so should your web address.

5. When selecting a domain name, using your industry and area can help position you in the marketplace.

And here is a bonus. When purchasing your domain name, spring for AT LEAST 2 years. Google (who you want as much love from in the way of free traffic) likes it when the site they are sending people to isn’t in danger of going away any time soon.

Make Sure Your Website Doesn’t Stink

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Does Your Website Stink?

Years ago, the internet was a lot like the introduction of the television from the early 50’s.  The people who had a television were seen as slightly more affluent, popular, and attracted attention.  Now people can get access to TV programming on their cell phones, so the novelty has worn off long ago.  The same can be said about the internet.  The novelty has worn off and people are accustomed to it now.

If you want to use the internet for part of your advertising plan, you have to be unique

In today’s climate, having a website is pretty standard fare.  But websites for contractors need to do more than simply list your company name and hours.  It needs to engage visitors with video and audio as well as contextually.  People use the internet for basically two reasons:  (1) information and (2) purchases and ideally, you want your website to do both.

In order to get people to buy something a website needs to have relevant and useful information.  Think in terms of “Top 10 items that need to be maintained in the home” or “How to keep your Air Conditioner operating efficiently for years.”  Topics like this attract readers looking for information.  It allows your site to project an air of expertise and helps build your street cred online.  This will boost your marketing efforts because people will begin to spread the word of their new-found source for information.  And keeping a fresh supply of this type of information on your site will keep the referrals coming in as well.

So, if your site isn’t as user-friendly as it should be, then get to work. Below are a few sites that I think are killing it online, both through their websites and their use of social media. I am sure their hard work is translating into new business for all of them!

Construction: Riggins Construction

Painting: Warline Painting, LTD.

Flooring: Floor Elf

Remodeling: Lone Star Remodeling, AK Complete Home Renovations

Builders: Devol Builders

Landscaping: The Grounds Guys

HVAC: Coleman Heating

Creepy Marketing or Am I Just Being a Creep?

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So, I was watching the above video on how to use Google StreetView to bid on jobs for contractors. I thought the idea in principle was a good one; take a look at what the neighborhood looks like before you ever leave the shop.

Then the video started talking about using StreetView to take a look around at the condition of some of the houses and how you could capture a photo of the home and either send a mock “before/after” postcard or direct them to a page on a website.

At that point I stopped thinking about it from a marketing perspective and more as a home owner. I gotta tell ya, I would probably be pretty pissed if someone marketed to me using pictures of my home they got from Google.

But who would you be pissed at?

Honestly, that doesn’t matter. You could bet that I wouldn’t do business with that contractor and worse, I would talk about it to everyone I knew for days. So my question to you is, am I being too uptight? I realize anonymity online is a distant memory, hell, this blog is my name! But should someone expect a certain level of privacy, especially when being marketed to? What do you think? Drop a comment below.

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