Your Web site is finally complete. Your text reads great, your images are first class and your pages are easy to navigate. Give yourself a pat on the back.
Now that’s it’s done, it’s time to think about changing it. What?
For instance, here in the Northeast, many home improvement businesses are seasonal. For the most part, homeowners around here just aren’t thinking about the exteriors of their homes in the middle of winter. Which is exactly why the mix of products and services you sell changes with the season. And as that mix changes, so should your Web site.
No surprise: lower-priced products are generally easier to sell than more-expensive products. Ensure that you’ve got enough of the former, and you’ll be building a base on which you can cross-sell your customers to your more profitable offerings.
As a home remodeler, you get all sorts of pitches from financing companies willing to offer loans to your customers. And it’s about time. For the past few years, it’s been difficult for remodelers to offer good financing choices to their prospects.
And while offering financing to homeowners can certainly help you close more sales, I recommend resisting the temptation to offer credit to your prospects before your sales rep is in the home and have met the homeowner. Specifically, some remodelers are trying to capture qualifying information from their prospects on their Web sites via online forms, even before speaking with homeowners.
Remodelers constantly tell me “Hey, I bought a new domain!” And with that goes the typical story that they are going to build a second Web site to seize on important new keywords and dominate their market!
Well let me offer a little reality on this strategy. Finding a great domain name is terrific, and I’m happy for anyone who scores that coveted domain. Securing, for example, “SeattleWindows.com” is a great coup for a windows dealer in the Seattle area.
Many remodelers over the last few years have told me about sales pitches from companies like ReachLocal and Yodle. And while I understand their sales pitches to be slick and well-choreographed, these firms make a number of claims that are dubious at best.
But the one aspect of their sales pitches that is most egregious is what I call the “Bag of Clicks.” The pitch goes like this:
After four great years in the famous Waltham Watch Factory building, we have moved. We’ve found some great space in another former factory building…now with more twice the room.
Find us now at:
Keyword Connects 77 Rumford Avenue, Suite #4 Waltham, MA 02453
We’re actually just a short walk from our old location.
We have a new phone system as well. Call us now at our main number, 781-899-3675 and use our directory to connect to the party you want to reach.
In Part 1and Part 2 of this series, I considered how home improvement companies actually sabotage their leads with Google Earth. By using Google Earth to check out the exterior of a home before setting an appointment, they can unnecessarily downgrade a perfectly good potential sales opportunity.
Smart remodelers won’t stand for that. Instead, I’d expect them to first book the appointment . . .and THEN use Google Earth to come up with ideas on how to sell to that homeowner. Home improvement salespeople have long researched their prospects using Google searches, Facebook, and other background information they find on line, and the smart ones have now added Google Earth to their arsenals.
I just finished reading ServiceMagic’s Home Remodeling Survey, covering the first 6 months of 2011. It confirmed what we – and many of you – have seen so far this year: softness in the market with a few bright spots.
I take away both good news and bad news from this survey. Leading with the positive, homeowners still want energy-efficient and savings-related home improvements. Specifically, solar installations are gaining popularity, and were tagged as the most popular remodeling category so far in 2011.
Can having too much knowledge about a prospect actually be bad for your business? In the land of the Internet, that may well be true.
My last post considered how remodeling companies use Google to qualify prospects who are considering exterior home improvement projects. For instance, roofers, siding companies, paving firms and solar dealers regularly use Google Earth to assess properties right from the comfort of their offices. They take the time to drive out and meet with homeowners only if their initial review of the property indicates that it could be worthwhile.
How much time do homeowners spend on your Web site? Well, it’s generally a lot . . . or a little.
Which is better? When it comes to lead generation for home improvement companies, that depends on many factors. All of which I summarize in today’s video blog post as “The Dumbbell Effect.”
Every week, Todd Bairstow—our online expert—shares his wisdom on an aspect of Internet marketing for home improvement companies. You can read his thoughts here on his blog or you can subscribe, and we'll send you his latest posts each week.
