Be seen online!

In last month’s article on online marketing, we focused on putting good-quality content on your website – the next step is to boost the chances that people will actually see it

There’s a saying that 80% of success in life is about showing up, so it’s hard to catch opportunities when you’re not there. It’s the same with websites – the ones that show up in searches for builders are the only ones that potential customers are likely to see. Simple!

Online marketing can show up at any time – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It can show up to someone searching for a great builder and it can show up from friends posting about their new home renovation on social media.

The following four steps will help ensure your website is seen:

• Scrutinise
• Optimise
• Socialise
• Capitalise

1.Scrutinise

Do your research first by asking yourself the following questions:

• What are my current online marketing strategies? List all the things you’re currently doing online, such as Facebook, Linkedin, Pinterest.
• How is it going? Examine results on each channel carefully and objectively, noting the differences in how your business is portrayed on each (what words and photos you use to describe your business, what comments people make).
• Where is the marketing winning or losing? Are you getting many visits with few conversions, or are you just not getting visits online?
• What are your company goals for online marketing? To get phone calls and email enquiries, or get sign-ups to your interesting blog articles?
• How do you differentiate yourself from other building companies? Asking these questions will help you figure out the types of online marketing channels you should be using to direct people to your website.

It will also guide you in generating keywords and phrases to help your website show up in searches.

2. Optimise

Once you’ve figured out who you want to market to and through which channels, it’s time to optimise your website to rank highly in search results. This is called Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

Search engines are complex mathematical logarithms that ‘patrol’ the internet, reading websites and organising indexes of thousands of words and phrases, the websites they are hosted on and the popularity (value) of that website. These indexes enable almost instant search results.

The closer your content gets to matching the words, phrases, sentences or questions that are typed into a search engine, the higher your website will rank in the Google index the search returns (assuming everything else is equal).

As an example, let’s say you’ve done your research and you have a list of keywords and phrases that your target customers are likely to use.

You want your home building business to rank highly for the search: “custom home builder in Hamilton”. So, you could follow these three steps:

1. Include the phrase in the titles of pages on your website.
2. Put the phrase in the content on your home page.
3. Write blogs and content about custom home builds you’ve worked on in Hamilton.

It’s highly likely that Google will list your website in an index built from combinations of the words ‘custom’, ‘home’, ‘builder’ and ‘Hamilton’. When someone types in these words, your website will show up.

Mobile friendly
There’s nothing worse than scrolling across a page when searching for something on your phone. Research has shown that over 50% of people leave a site if it’s not mobile optimised.

This is called the ‘bounce rate’ – the percentage of visitors who go to your website and leave without exploring another page – and it’s bad because Google rates it negatively.

The higher the bounce rate, the lower your ranking – even if it’s only because your site isn’t mobile friendly!

3. Socialise

Social media is a great way to communicate with potential leads.

Platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ allow you to easily reach new audiences and be seen. It’s easy and quick to share photos of new homes or interesting renovation projects.

You can promote selected website posts and even target your ads at a specific audience, such as people in particular locations or with a certain set of interests.

Some builders also find Facebook a great place to interact with customers and answer questions. In valuing your website, Google also looks at your business’ overall social presence. Social interactions help you rank higher in Google searches.

Each time you add a new blog post to your website, add the link to each of your social profiles to drive more traffic to your website. If readers like what they see, they’re likely to visit and spend time navigating around your site.

Remember to keep your social media pages up to date – having unanswered questions on a social media page can be as bad as/or worse than not having one at all.

Add updates as often as daily. These could be photos of sites you’re working on. Do this even if you don’t yet have many followers, because Google will take it into account.

4. Capitalise

To drive more traffic to your site and turn more visitors into leads, you can also use pay-per-click advertising (eg, Google Adwords). This is more costly than SEO but, if used correctly, can be a powerful tool.

Google Adwords is great for targeting people who are actively searching for a builder to build or renovate their home, because you’re able to create and run ads for your business that are displayed in Google’s search results.

You stipulate the key searchable words or phrases that will cause your ad to be displayed and you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

So, don’t make the mistake of being invisible on the internet.

Employing the strategies outlined above will help you show up when potential customers are looking, ensuring your website is in the right place at the right time.

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Graeme Owen, based in Auckland, is a builders’ business coach. Since 2006, he has helped builders throughout New Zealand get off the tools, make decent money, and free up time for family, fishing, and enjoying sports. www.thesuccessfulbuilder.com