While quality workmanship is one of the challenges, going to the next step is to ensure that local customers can easily find your business online, and they can also trust you to deliver quality workmanship. When making a selection, homeowners, property owners and businesses frequently rely on Google to look at reviews, project photos and websites, and compare contractors. By having a professional website for contractors in BC, you are able to highlight your services, experience, and past projects, and make it much easier for potential customers to get in touch with you. It is not about the quantity of traffic you can drive in; it is about driving in the right traffic, establishing your expertise, gaining trust and converting online visitors into enquiries.

The strategies below will focus on how contractors can be more visible online and how they can make useful experiences for potential customers.

Create a website that eases your customers in making a choice.

A contractor's website is more than just a phone number and list of services.

A person visiting your website should be able to immediately know your business and what you do, as well as where you're located and why they should hire you.

Including the following information is important:

• Services offered
• Areas served
• Project experience
• Qualifications and certifications
• Customer reviews
• Before-and-after photographs
• Frequently asked questions
• Contact information

A statement of the options for quoting or consulting.

Your service pages also should outline what the consumer can realistically expect.

A roofing contractor can describe various roofing issues, examination procedures, repair factors and the elements that impact the price of roofing projects. An electrical contractor might describe typical electrical issues and when it is required to be evaluated by a professional.

This type of information shows what they know, rather than just repeating marketing claims.

Streamline Your Online Data and Links

Most customers in the area look for a contractor in their local area and by their service.

He or she may look for a roofer in their city, a local electrician, a renovation firm in the area or an HVAC specialist in their area.

Your website will then be able to communicate your service areas.

Tweak relevant pages to best fit services and locations you actually offer. This can include:

• Service-specific pages
• Location pages
• Page titles
• Headings
• Internal links
• Business information
• Relevant local terminology

Don't create dozens of pages with only different city names though.

A helpful location page should have information that is useful for someone in that location. Talk about the services offered, applicable project types, local factors and the way customers can reach out to the business.

It is not the goal to write pages for search engines. The goal is to make pages that would be valuable even if Google wasn't around.

Use AI to decide where to post your content.

Google Business Profile for local contractors can be a crucial part of the customer discovery process.

Before you visit your website, potential customers could be in touch with your business via Google Search or Google Maps.

Maintain an accurate and up-to-date profiles, including:

• Business name
• Phone number
• Website
• Business category
• Service information
• Opening hours
• Service areas
• Photos

Include real photographs of team, equipment and finished projects, as applicable.

Choose Text Structure

The most effective way to show your skills is to respond to the customers' questions.

Reflect on the team conversations you have each week.

What questions do homeowners have before they approve a project? What are the problems that customers do not understand? Which maintenance problems are continually arising? What are some of the factors that a person should keep in mind when he or she is considering a specific service?

These questions can be very helpful as content.

For example:

Roofing

• So, how do homeowners know about any early roof damage?
• When is roof repair vs replacement necessary?
• How often should a roof be inspected for?

Electrical

• What are some signs of electrical issues?
• When is an electrical panel supposed to be checked?
• What electrical problems should be brought to the attention of a professional?

Renovation

• How long would it take for a typical renovation?
• What do homeowners need to get ready for before construction starts?
• What questions should they ask themselves before hiring a contractor?

The best content should be informative but not too wordy.

Leveraging Genuine Reviews and Testimonials to Create Trust is the key to building trust.

It takes a lot of trust to hire a contractor.

Customers might be letting employees into their houses, spending a lot of cash or relying on the contractor to finish an important business job.

A good review can help alleviate some of that uncertainty.

Invite and accept genuine customers to give honest feedback at the end of a project. Avoid buying reviews, or making phony reviews.

If applicable, have appropriate creditors on your site.

A review becomes all the more valuable if the visitors get an idea about the kind of work done. For instance, when writing a review for a bathroom remodel, include pictures of the finished bathroom, and a description of what they did.

This sets a context and offers prospective customers a perception of your real-life experience.

Be professional with the responses to reviews as well. In the event of unwelcome feedback, a thoughtful response can show that the company values the feedback of its customers.

Update or design new pages for the site(s)

For contractors that serve multiple communities, having a page for important areas of service could be beneficial.

These pages should offer valuable content, though, and not be doorway pages.

Assume a contractor has multiple communities within a geographical area. For each useful Location Page, it might describe:

What services are available?

The following projects are handled:

• Relevant local considerations
• Show examples of completed work.
• Common questions
• Provided explanation on how the customer can make a request for an estimate.

Where relevant, speak about work that you have done in the area.

For instance, you can share how you took a renovation approach, what obstacles you faced in the process and how you overcame them.

Such direct experience can be better conveyed than just repeating the name of the location on a page.

Ensure the Website is easy to use when viewed from a mobile device.

Not all local customers will search from a desktop computer.

You could have a plumbing emergency, a lunch hour comparison visits to a renovation business or a need for an electrician while on a trip and find your business in the midst of the search.

If the site is hard to navigate on a mobile device, the visitor will move on and search for another company to go to.

Ensure that critical information is readily available on smaller displays.

Pay attention to:

• Page loading speed
• Readable text
• Simple navigation
• Clickable phone numbers
• Easy-to-complete forms
• Clear buttons
• Accessible service information

Do not require your visitors to zoom in to view your website or to navigate through a hard to use menu or to complete a lengthy form to ask a simple question.

Opt for Paid Advertising on High Intent Searches

Organic search can offer great long-term visibility; paid advertising can also help contractors target people actively seeking services.

The focus should be on high intent keywords instead of getting as much traffic as you can.

A person looking for a specific service in a specific area may well be far more valuable than the person looking just for general information regarding construction.

Design ads that target the services and direct traffic to pages where they're relevant.

The landing page should clearly state the roofing service, and not offer a general website home page if the ad promotes a roofing service.

Measure relevant outcomes including:

• Phone calls
• Quote requests
• Consultation requests
• Qualified leads
• Cost per lead

Even a campaign that gets thousands of clicks isn't necessarily expected to be successful if the number of visitors who result from the click are not actual prospects.

Post videos on social media

Contracting is a business that is hands on, and people sometimes want to see proof of what a business can do.

There is another option to show your work on social media.

Don't post just promotional messages, demonstrate it and show the results.

Useful content may comprise:

• Before-and-after photographs
• Project progress
• Completed renovations
• Construction details
• Maintenance advice
• Team introductions
• Customer stories

Some of the typical pitfalls to avoid.

For instance, if it is a project that was finished, write "Another project completed," and then describe the project and the problem the team solved.

This provides the potential customers with a useful context and a sense of how much experience the company has.

Photos are especially useful, as this illustrates that your business has actually done what it is talking about.

Create an easy-to-understand process for converting visitors into leads.

Even with a high search rank, a contractor will fail to have a successful website if visitors don't know what to do after reading the content.

There should be a next step on every key page.

That will be:

• Request a quote
• Book an inspection
• Call the office
• Schedule a consultation
• Fill in a project enquiry form.

Do not needlessly over-complicate forms and only ask for what is needed at the outset.

Qualifications, licenses (if relevant), insurance details, years of experience, project photos, testimonials, and appropriate professional memberships are other trustworthy components that can be incorporated onto significant pages.

Be careful because if you say something like “the number one contractor” make sure you support it.

Specific evidence is generally more convincing than unsupported marketing language.

To measure, not just traffic.

There is a common online marketing blunder that goes like this: more traffic = more customers.

It does not.

Web traffic can be high for a contractor but the enquiries could be low if the visitors are not within the service area or simply visiting the site for information rather than hire a contractor.

Monitor indicators that link marketing efforts to business outcomes such as:

• Qualified leads
• Phone calls
• Quote requests
• Form submissions
• Conversion rate
• Cost per lead
• Local search visibility
• Google page rank

Analyze services and pages that provide the most valuable enquiries.

If one service page has lots of traffic and only a few enquiries, find out what is causing this. The page might not contain relevant information, have experience proof, clear pricing instructions (if applicable), trust signals, or have a clear call to action.

Some of the common online marketing mistakes to avoid include:

Relatively simple problems can cost contractors the sale of potential customers.

Common mistakes include:

• Using an outdated website
• To offer partial or partial service information
• Not having correct business information
• Ignoring mobile users
• Publishing generic content
• Making duplicate location pages
• Lack of photos of actual projects in the course
• Ignoring customer reviews
• Not providing the necessary information on a timely basis
• Ranking for the wrong audience segment, not paying attention to the audiences you are targeting

It's not always about creating more content.

Sometimes, it is advantageous to make the improvement of existing web pages, add own experience, update outdated information, clarify services or to make the customer journey easier.

Conclusion

In addition to showing up in search results, attracting local customers online is ultimately about much more.

A successful contractor’s website should be able to help a potential customer answer 4 important questions:

1. Will this business help me with my problem?
2. Is there a need for it in my area?
3. Is it experienced and has a good reputation?
4. What methods are there for reaching them?

Those questions can be answered by a robust website, local content that is useful, accurate Google Business Profile, genuine reviews, real project proof and a simple enquiry process.

Most importantly, think about the people and not just about producing content for search engines. Provide information that potential customers can use, show experience, be honest about the services and make it very easy to take the next step.