Sears, Sears Everywhere

If you’re in home improvement, you’ve no doubt noticed that Sears is everywhere online.  And they’re especially strong in some key categories: replacement windows, siding and cabinet refacing.  You’ll see their ads in the paid search listings, some organic listings, e-mails and a host of other online advertising channels.

The folks at Sears are undoubtedly smart, so you can assume that if they’re advertising, they must be doing so because it’s profitable for them.  Here’s the question you should be asking yourself:  “Why them and not me?” Said another way, how can Sears find it cost-effective to advertise across so many channels, while local home improvement companies seem to have so few profitable online advertising options?

Location, Location, Location: It Matters–Even on the Internet

Does your location have anything to do with how many online leads you get? Absolutely.

I had lunch last year with a couple who ran a good-sized home improvement company in Northern Michigan. I’m talking the deep north. Lots of ice fishing, but not a lot of people.

They asked me a good question:  Does our location have anything to do with how many leads we’re supposed to get from the Internet?

My answer was “Absolutely.”  And then they asked: “Why?”

From our perspective, the areas of the country that produce the most leads online share three traits:

Don’t Smash Your Re-Hash

Browsing through Qualified Remodeler this week, I came across an article entitled Three Ways to Spruce Up Your Marketing—Instantly.

The article’s “Instant Improvement Idea #1” was “Get a Better Follow-Up System”.  In other words, learn to make re-hashing really work for you.  Being an Internet guy, I naturally began wondering what that meant for online-leads-gone-cold.

In short, it’s a big opportunity.  Re-hashing Internet leads is as valuable as re-hashing your leads from other media. You’d think that would be an obvious point, but for too many home improvement companies, Internet leads still fall to the bottom of the follow-up pile.

Search Engines – Clawing Your Way Up – Part 4

My past three posts explained why home improvement companies have such a hard time clawing their way to the top of the search engine rankings. If you haven’t (yet) read them, don’t despair. I’m finally getting to the point.

Here it is: Real responsibility for high rankings on the search engines does not rest with your home improvement company.

It rests instead with the owners of the brands you sell.

Why? Let me offer a bit of history.

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.

I Was Told There’d Be No Math: Choosing the Right Metrics For Your Web Site

If you’re a home improvement dealer, the Internet has hit your business like a sledgehammer. Like it or not, your customers are going online to make home improvement decisions in ever larger numbers – and they’re not going to stop.

And while most home improvement providers have responded by building a Web site, a number of myths have cropped up about they should judge their success. Are the total number of visitors to the Web site the most important? What about the number of phone calls? How about form submissions?

The Upside Down Pyramid for Home Improvement Keywords

One of the most common misunderstandings I hear from home improvement dealers is that “Homeowners type in a keyword, click and then call you.” It’s that simple.

Except that it isn’t. Never was that simple. Never will be that simple. Home improvement types like to think that the consumer/homeowner makes quick, straight line decisions. But that’s not the case. While homeowners who go online are obviously looking for a solution to a home improvement problem, their line to an answer takes them all over the keyword spectrum.

Do Strong Offline Home Improvement Brands Have an Advantage Online?

As a home improvement company, your marketing efforts have likely been primarily offline. All of the home improvement veterans I know built their businesses with traditional advertising media, such as TV, radio, newspaper and direct mail.

While these veterans were obviously looking for leads, offline media served an additional purpose – to help build their brand, which over time would compound in value and generate even more leads. Thousands of successful home improvement companies were built this way – and many are still successful with that approach.

But do all those years of offline brand building mean anything as homeowners increasingly go online? The answer is: sort of.

Home Improvement Leads: Starting With the End in Mind

Ever hear of the blind squirrel finding a nut?  The comparison is apt when I look back at how my partner and I got into the home improvement lead game. Unwittingly, we did a couple of smart things.

The first is that we listened carefully to what our first client, Moonworks, wanted from an online lead generation program.

·         They wanted branded sales leads from homeowners in southern New England

·         They wanted the leads to be exclusive to their company, to reduce competition