Search Engines – Clawing Your Way Up - Part 3

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve introduced you to your new competition: non-branded home improvement lead generation companies.

These are search engine marketers who drive visitors to their non-branded Web sites to generate sales leads that they in turn sell to home improvement companies. These professionals consistently secure the top spots in the Google’s search results for home improvement keywords—squeezing out home improvement companies such as yours.

But in an interesting twist, Google recently threw a wrinkle into the way Google calculates its search results. It’s called The Vince Update, and it’s important to local home improvement companies. Let me explain what this means to you.

Search Engines: Clawing Your Way Up - Part 2

Last week we considered search engine rankings—and why it’s so hard to get (and stay) on top.  It seems that Web sites run by online lead brokers and national brands dominate the search engine results.  You’d simply like to get your own Web site to rank highly for common terms like “replacement windows” and “vinyl siding”, the ones you know homeowners in your territory are searching for.

Those Web sites that do get the high ranks certainly look authoritative.  But the frustrating part is that you know that their owners have probably never swung a hammer for a customer in their lives.

Search Engines: Clawing Your Way Up

I typed the term “replacement windows” into Google this morning.  I then confirmed what many of you already know.

Online lead brokers dominate the search engine results for replacement windows terms—particularly in the organic results of the pages.  Here’s just a quick list of some of the Web sites I found:

http://www.1st-replacement-windows.com

http://www.windowreplacementsite.com

http://www.easyreplacementwindows.com

http://www.windowreplacementic.com

http://www.vinylreplacementwindows.org

…and there are plenty more where they came from

Most of these Web sites embrace the best practices for search engine optimization, i.e. getting high search engine rankings.  They’ve invested in doing all the right things—selecting relevant domain names, ensuring deep, successful histories with Google, etc.

Great Sales Leads? You Already Own Them!

Let’s face it. The cost to generate a fresh, qualified lead these days is high, and getting higher. That leaves more and more home improvement dealers looking to stretch their lead generation investments. And that means they’re looking to work leads they already own: that is, previous customers and past prospects.

The math works. As a home improvement dealer, your cost for these leads is zero: you’ve already got these leads. In fact, you’ve already had contact with them, and (hopefully) turned a bunch of them into sales. If you can cross-sell or up-sell your past customers, and re-hash your old prospects—bingo, you’ll hedge yourself against the ever-rising costs of new, qualified sales leads.