10 Best Practices for Construction Websites
Joseph Hughes
Visionary of Contractor Dynamics: The Roofing Industry's #1 Marketing Training Company, Helping Growth-Minded Roofing Companies Create Predictable Sales & Scale With Confidence
When was the last time you really sat down and went through your website? Or, taking a step back – do you have a website to go through? Whether you created a website years ago and haven’t checked it since, or are needing to create a new website for your business to begin your online marketing strategy, there are some crucial steps to take to ensure your site is generating the positive attention and leads that you’re hoping for.
Why Should You Care About Your Contractor Website?
Your website is a vital component of any solid marketing plan in the modern-day market. Whether or not you consider it important, over half your clients will likely find you by online advertisement and searches, not traditional ads or word of mouth. People will use your website to learn more about you and your company and assess your skills as they consider who to hire for their particular project.
If your growth plan includes attracting new inquiries through your website, then there are obvious reasons your site and entire web presence need to be top notch.
And even if you say most of your business does come from word-of-mouth, it’s still important to have an up-to-date, modern site. After all, while a referral helps you get your foot in the door, people will still likely turn to your website to research you. It’s the “trust, but verify” mindset. They trust the person who referred you to them, but they want to verify for themselves that you’re a company they want to work with.
So, if you’re trying to create or update your website and are looking for ways to improve your business, here are 15 practices to follow.
Checklist for a More Profitable Website
Visually Appealing Design & Layout
If your website is old, hard to read, hard to navigate, and looks like it was built in 2006, your potential client is not going to stick around. You don’t need mountains of text, spinning gifs, or visually assaulting starbursts listing your specials. Your site should be clean, attractive, and quick-loading. It should display your logo and branding prominently and have user-friendly navigation, so that a potential client can find what they’re looking for in just a few clicks.
In essence, you want your website to be indicative of the quality of your services. Just like you wouldn’t build a house that’s got crooked walls and a sinking foundation, you don’t want to have a website that looks outdated or incomplete.
Who, What, For Whom
Many people who land on a website give it only a few seconds to capture their attention and interest and convince them to stay. That’s why you want your site to answer these three questions for your client in just a few seconds:
- Who you are
- What you do
- For whom you do it
If you’re not answering these questions clearly and concisely on your home page, you’re leaving opportunity on the table – your client will leave and go to a competitor who can tell them what they’re looking for.
User-Friendly Navigation
The objective of your home page is to make it easy for people to take the next step and click on what they’re looking for. Make your navigation menu simple to see and use. Make sure your visitors can find what they’re looking for in just one or two clicks. Don’t make them think.
Display Your Contact Info Clearly
You need to have at least your phone number, possibly an email or contact form, and an address (if you have a central office) displayed prominently on your website. We recommend the header and footer, so that it appears on every page, because you want people to know exactly how to contact you no matter where they land. Some people will fill out a form, some people will call you; it depends on their personal preference. Don’t make them jump through hoops just to get in touch with you.
Mobile Friendliness
This is vitally important if you want to have a successful online marketing strategy. Almost 60% of all internet traffic comes from mobile devices, and google updated its algorithms to expand its use of “mobile-friendliness” as a ranking factor. If you don’t have a website that’s easy to navigate on a phone or tablet, you’re losing out on a huge portion of potential contracting clients.
All of our custom construction websites are built with Responsive Web Design, meaning that the site will respond to the type of screen or device on which it’s being viewed. As our world gets more and more mobile, it becomes ever more important to pay attention to how people are viewing your particular website.
Valuable & Current Content
Today, consumers are doing more and more research on their own before they make contact with a product or service provider. We’re spending more time in research mode.
Therefore, your website should provide informational and educational content for your market and prospective clients. Help them make smart decisions and they’ll view you more favorably. Provide them with educational content and you’ll seem like an industry leader, building trust and authority.
It’s also good to update your website at least once a month – search engines react favorably to a site that’s regularly updated with new content.
Reviews & Testimonials
It’s really easy for you to say you do high-quality work. It’s pretty easy to provide pictures, as well. These things have merit, but they don’t carry the same kind of weight that client reviews and testimonials can have. Your potential clients want to see reviews from other customers, so that they know your past clients have had positive experiences with your company and are satisfied with the work that you’ve done.
We recommend including a few reviews or testimonials on your website, as well as linking to your other online locations like Yelp, Houzz, or Google, so that people can see all the reviews that have been left for you.
Social Proof
Whether you have a BBB profile, Angie’s List badge, or are active on Facebook or Twitter, including these elements on your website can further legitimize your company and continue to build trust with your prospective clients. Not only that, but having an active social media presence – especially with Google Plus – can improve your local and mobile search rankings. Many people turn to Facebook for reviews and more information about a company, so having a business page that’s connected to your website can increase the likelihood of a client turning to you when they need contracting work done.
Personal Information
In this age of tech-savvy, information-hungry consumers, the faceless company is no longer a seller. Once people have seen what you have to offer, they want to know who’s doing the offering. Including some About Us information with pictures of your staff, some history of your company, or photos of your office or vehicles will help set you apart from your competition and make you feel more trustworthy – and more memorable – to your leads.
Technical Best Practices
Google’s goal is to serve the most relevant and highest quality results for a given search. There are hundreds of factors in their ranking algorithm, many of which remain a secret. But there are a few big ones that you should have in place on your site. Not only does having these technical aspects in order help you with search engines, but they help communicate to your website visitors who you are and what your site is all about.
We’ve published a couple posts on these technical aspects before – here and here – but here’s a quick rundown of what you should look for:
- Descriptive title tags and meta descriptions on every page
- Fast website load speed
- Local schema markup