Part 2 of 3 - 3 Strategies to Generate and Measure Growth in Your Business

2) Be Everywhere Your Best Prospects Are to Attract and Faciliate Remodeling Leads

Think about how you start your research process online to find companies you potentially want to work with or products you want to buy? If you are like most people, you start off with a general idea of what you are looking for. Let’s take an example of looking for a siding contractor: Most would start a search online at Google (80% of your market on average) with “siding contractor + area they live” or “siding installer” “siding company”.

You are going to get a variety of results and different listings that appear in the search results. Some searches will generate organic search results only, and others Google + Pages results (near the top), paid listings (top and sides), local directory listings, reviews, social media results, articles, blog posts, videos, and of course - actual company sites that install siding.

The search engines #1 goal is to provide a great experience for its users. The best way to do that is to provide relevant information related to your search + a variety of content for you to gather information from. That’s why you rarely see one site dominate the entire 1st page of Google for a term like the one above, but it can happen.

Your customers are everywhere online and they don’t rely on one site to find a company or one source to make a final decision. Google is the #1 search engine on the planet and where 80% of your market will start their research, but not necessarily where they make a buying decision. Once they narrow down their list of potential companies to work with, they begin the process of making sure the business is reputable and has some information online about the who, what, where, when, why, and how of a business.

You need to have a web presence beyond just your main website.

At any stage of this research and vetting process you can lose a prospect for a multitude of reasons. Don’t give them any reasons! Be everywhere they are, provide great information and a variety of content, and make it easy for them to say YES to take the next steps with you (Free Estimate, Consultation, Project Review, etc.). Consciously or not we are all disqualifying potential businesses at a speed never before seen in the history of man-kind. You only get a few seconds to make a great first impression and even after that you better have updated content in your blog, new posts on your Facebook Fan Page, 10+ additional web properties that mention your company, and at least a couple of reviews and testimonials somewhere online.

If you don't, you can kiss about 70% of your interested visitors goodbye. Gone forever.

How much is that costing your business?

Every business  needs at least 10 sites that they are actively marketing on to build their “Rivers of Information” (source: Scott Kilosky). 

The foundational core of your marketing should come in the form of:

• A Quality Website That Loads Fast
• Uses CSS
• Mobile Friendly and Responsive
• Tracks and Measures, and Converts!
• Has a Blog (companies who blog and auto publish get 55% more business than companies who don’t - Source: Hubspot)
• Local Directories
• Review Sites
• Press Releases
• Social Media
• Web 2.0 Properties for Article Promotion
• Videos
• Quality Links from Reputable Sources

Within each of these core ideas is potentially a full-time job for someone, so pick your battles and don’t get lost in the gigantic sea of sites and resources you can market on. The #1 best return on your online marketing investment is to get ranked in Google Places/Local/Maps (whatever you want to call it!). This is where every business needs to be great and be everywhere their customers are. Providing a good mix of these marketing strategies should bring you a combination of instant traffic and long term traffic and new leads.

But what about pay per click? Instant traffic? Display? Facebook ads?

Paid search, display ads, and Facebook ads are also very important for most businesses as a piece of your overall marketing strategy, but again, without your core "rivers of information" in place, you are going to lose a large portion of your prospects who are just in the initial research phase. Once they land on your site from a paid ad, most are not quite ready to request more information or buy from you just yet. They will go back to the search engine and search for “your company name + reviews” or “your company name + complaints” and a hundred variations of this. Try this out right now and do a search for your company name.

• What would a prospect see?
• Is there enough good information about your business to have the prospect want to take the next steps?
• Do you have social sites that haven’t been updated in months, years?
• Does your company look like it could be out of business?
• Are competitors listed on page 1 for your company name?
• You should be dominating page 1 from lots of different sources with updated information, good content, and offers to help drive new business and absolutely NO competitors should be listed until at least page 3-4.

If you want to waste your marketing dollars, implement a paid search strategy before you have your rivers of information in place. I have seen this mistake made time and time again and this is a mistake I have made with my own clients in the past. Those who had great information online from a variety of sources, and then implemented a paid search campaign, had campaigns that out performed those who had no web presence. Part 3 of my 3 part series coming soon.... Read Part 1 of 3 - Track and Measure Growth

Need more help growing your remodeling business? Take advantage of all the FREE resources I have on www.RyanPaulAdams.com and my download my "3 Killer Ways to Grow Your Remodeling Business" today.