Marketing Reviews - Construction Websites

Review: Inc. Magazine’s How To on Optimizing Your Site for Search

Darren/Marketing & Advertising/Inc. Magazine, Marketing Reviews/

I have been an avid reader of Inc. magazine my entire adult life. Even through the newspaper and magazine downturn over the last 5 years Inc. continues to pump out great content. They don’t really have much competition when it comes to small business magazines; Fast Company is probably their closest competitor. But the differentiator is the Inc. 500, a list of the top 500 fastest growing private companies, which I devour and refer back to all year until the next Inc. 500 arrives at my doorstep.

One more reason Inc. rocks is their How-To section, and this month is no exception. This month’s How-To piece is titled “Optimize Your Site for Search”, and it is a must read for every contractor who isn’t happy with their current results from their website.

The article concentrates on 3 specific aspects to improve your organic search results:

1. Choosing Keywords
2. Placing Keywords
3. Building a Better Site

Let’s break down the article into bite-size pieces to make it easier to carry out.

Choosing Keywords-The trick here is not using keywords You would use to find you, but step into your customer’s shoes and determine how THEY find you. And if your primary keywords are in ultra-competitive markets or industries, try using keywords that are used less often but also don’t have as much competition.

For example, trying to rank for “plumber” would be nearly impossible in today, but ranking highly for “remove tennis ball from toilet” would be pretty easy.

You should also start to add location-based keywords to your arsenal. Like I mentioned, keywords such as plumber are crazy competitive, but “plumbers in insert your town here” will be much less competitive, more focused on your local market, and people performing this kind of searches are more likely ready to buy.

Placing KeywordsHere the article gets a bit technical, just know that your results will improve if you use the specific keyword that you are trying to rank for in the title, sub-titles, in the top paragraph, sprinkled throughout the rest of the page, and in the last sentence of the page.

Something they don’t mention is the use of keywords for any images that appear on the page.
You want to use your keyword in the image title and alt-text as well. This will make sure you are not only found for contextual-based searches, but also for any image-based searches your prospects may do.

A word of caution, keep your keyword usage between 3-5% on the page to avoid being penalized for over-optimizing.

Building a Better Site-Here they get really technical with terms such as silo and code validation . Both important functions to proper web design, but too advanced for many small to medium-sized contractors not willing to spend the time learning what these terms mean, and more importantly, how they impact your search results.

The article also goes on to mention linking out to other sites as well as building brand awareness with social media (something I talk about a lot here) and also compares white hat SEO to black hat SEO; more terms that shouldn’t get in your way when it comes to site design for contractors. All in all, the article really is a great first-step approach to building a better page, site and presence online. If you don’t get Inc. magazine, you should make it a point to grab this month’s copy just for this article alone.

Review: Is Thumbtack an Answer To Google Instant For Contractors?

Darren/Marketing & Advertising/Advertising Online, Brand Management, Contractor Frustrations, contractor marketing and google maps, Contractor Marketing Online, contractor website design, Low Cost Marketing, Marketing & Advertising, Marketing and Advertising, Marketing Reviews, Twitter for Contractors/

Since the sour economy has taken its toll on most advertising budgets, many looking for leads for contractors have become reliant on Google Maps and Google Places marketing platforms to promote their businesses for free. According to many of the contractors I talk to these two methods of free advertising has been a huge hit.

But all that came under fire last week when Google launched their “Instant” search results. If you are not familiar with the new way Google displays results as you type, check out my short video here and Google’s video here.

Is there a savior for local search? Introducing Thumbtack!

What is Thumbtack?

From the site:

Why can you go online right now and buy any product you want but you can’t do the same for tutors, handymen, dog walkers, or other local services? Thumbtack is changing that.
Thumbtack isn’t like typical local search directories that simply return business listings with ratings and reviews, leaving you no better off than the paper Yellow Pages.
Instead, Thumbtack gives you the ability to vet, contact and book service professionals the moment you find them.
Safety First
At Thumbtack, we understand that hiring service professionals requires a high degree of trust. This is why we go out of our way to make sure that our community is held to the highest standards and that you have all the tools you need to feel comfortable hiring someone online.
Thumbtack helps you get the job done at the time and place you want, with someone you know you can trust.

What I like about Thumbtack

Between the background checks and user reviews, this site should become (if they market it correctly) the go to site for both consumers and tradesmen to come together. I am however a bit cautious because Thumbtack is a free service for both contractors and home owners, which can lead to user manipulation, so I hope they have some type of mechanism in place to prevent fraud from both sides of the fence.

Where I see other problems

Site usage and integration – Thumbtack is coming late to an already crowded party. With services springing up all over the place, I hope these guys have the marketing chops to get the word out, and once they do, to have the tight controls in place to maintain user integrity. In the end, I don’t think contractors trying to market their businesses have anything to lose. With Google screwing around with your search results almost daily, you might as well give another resource a try if for no other reason than its free!

What to do next?

Well, you could always add your site to Thumbtack, but before you do, you should ask yourself, is your site ready to convert the traffic it gets? Or do you think you need to take a good hard look at what you currently have? If you aren’t sure where to start, maybe a website review is a good idea. This will help you start with a baseline and improve your site’s ability to move people through the sales funnel. In fact, if you need a website review, we can get one done for you in less than a day or two. That way, you can start making the changes needed to help move the needle on your sales. So if you are interested in a website review, click here for more details.

Tired of depending on services like Thumbtack or Manta for traffic?

How about generating your own leads with a new website or a website redesign? Hit me up in the contact form below and let’s talk about how to generate new business for you!

[gravityform id=”10″ name=”General Contact” title=”false” description=”false”]