7 Online Marketing Tips for Home Service Companies

7 Online Marketing Tips for Home Service Companies

With the oversaturation of home service companies, it’s important to make sure your business can stand out in an increasingly competitive digital space.

This guide will focus primarily on growing your brand as a whole and is ideal for businesses that are looking to expand in the long-run.

The list below is filtered based on priority. Depending on what your annual marketing budget is, you may need to start small. As your business grows and evolves, so should your marketing strategy.

Whether your industry is plumbing, landscaping, moving or storage services, the online marketing tips outlined below are crucial for all home service providers.

Responsive Website Design

In the home improvement industry, consumers tend to have high buyer power. With a plethora of service providers to choose from, it’s easy for consumers to pick the company offering the best bang for their buck. Having a website is the first step in making sure you can stand out from the rest of your competitors.

When working on a website, ask yourself if you’re providing anything of value to your customers. What are your unique selling points? How do you differ from your competition?

Are you offering lower costs? Superior customer service? Convenience? Extended warranties? Your unique selling point should be front-and-center on your website, as this is your differentiating factor.

When creating a website, it’s also critical that you have a website that focuses on user-experience first. Your website should be optimized for desktop, mobile, and tablet users. It’s also essential that you make it as easy as possible for users to reach out to you with strategically placed conversion points. It’s on you to convert leads into customers, and not the other way around.

A responsive website is also a prerequisite for the 11 remaining marketing tips on this list, which is why we consider a website to be the most critical factor in the success of your marketing strategy.

Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, goes hand-in-hand with website design. The number one mistake home service business owners make time and time again is neglecting to follow SEO best practices when creating or purchasing a new website.

SEO involves making improvements to your website that allow search engines such as Google and Bing to read and understand the layout and content of your site. SEO also involves improving your website’s reputation and authority, helping you appear on the first page of Google Searches.

In most cases, launching a new website that isn’t optimized for SEO will come with a significant dip in performance. Similarly, businesses that launch a website for the first time without optimizing for SEO will see subpar results, if any at all.

Pay-Per-Click (Paid Advertising)

Pay-per-click is often seen as a complement to SEO. Your ultimate goal is to take up as much space as possible for each search term. It’s the best way to make sure users funnel into your website.

Unlike SEO, paid ads are a quick way for businesses to capture leads. Through paid ads, performance is very formulaic, and it’s easy to determine whether or not you’re making a profit (assuming you’re correctly tracking performance).

There are several options when it comes to paid advertising. The two that can yield the highest return include:

Google Search Ads

Search Ads are a valuable tool for both small and large businesses.

Smaller home service businesses can make use of Search Ads to get their foot through the door. Appearing organically on the first page of a search engine takes time and effort, whereas Search Ads allow you to appear on the first page by bidding on specific keywords.

Larger companies with a greater ad spend budget can focus on increasing their impression share, which enables them to have their ads to appear for more extended periods. Ultimately increasing the number of leads they receive.

Local Service Ads

Google’s Local Service Ads offer businesses a unique opportunity to advertise themselves reliability. Unlike Search Ads, Service Ads are a convenient way to promote your services at a fixed cost-per-lead, removing the element of risk that comes with bid-based advertising.

Google My Business Listings

For local businesses, one of the best sources of traffic can be Google Maps. To appear on Google Maps, you’ll need a Google My Business Listing, similar to the example below:

When it comes to home improvement services, such as plumbing, landscaping and renovating, increasing your visibility on Google Maps can be a gamechanger. As discussed earlier, consumers will choose the service that offers them the best value. Whether that’s convenience or trustworthiness. Google listings allow users to filter companies that are within their vicinity, which will enable businesses to capture their local market. Google also allows users to rate businesses on a scale from 1-5, which can be an excellent source for testimonials, as most users have a Google account.

Solicit Reviews

Soliciting reviews is essential for any home service business. Testimonials are the best way to build brand trustworthiness. If you’ve created a business listing discussed in the earlier step, you may want to consider putting in the effort to increase the number of reviews you have.

There are a few ways you can solicit reviews; here are the most common ways to receive them:

The most common way to solicit reviews is to collect customer email addresses via your website. Via email blast, you can ask your happy customers for feedback. There’s no control over what customers rate you, but it’s on you to control the narrative and improve based on their feedback.

Google’s Local Service Ads has a built-in review of solicitation functionality, which lets you ask for reviews once a job is completed. These reviews are directly tied to your Google listing. Learn More.

A less conventional method for soliciting reviews is to hand out physical handout cards asking for Reviews. This strategy is ideal for home improvement businesses. You can hand out these cards to your customers once the job is complete.

Content Marketing

There’s one important rule to remember when it comes to digital marketing: content is king.

Content is often the lowest priority for home service business owners. Content marketing doesn’t provide immediate results, which is why it’s often looked over.

Regardless of your industry, there’s one thing you’ll always notice. Websites that appear on the first page of Google typically have evergreen content. Their websites are regularly updated and are generally seen as a trusted source of content within your industry.

Your employees are your best source of content -- it’s important to remember that you are a professional in your field. Your best practices, though common to you, can be extremely valuable to the general public. Content marketing can often be the greatest source of traffic on a website. For the home service industry, we recommend the following:

Measure Your Performance

Measuring performance is the obvious one. There’s no better way to determine how well you’re doing as a company. Tracking your lead source, whether it’s word of mouth, paid ads, or SEO can help you determine how successful your marketing efforts are.

In most cases, you will notice that specific efforts will yield higher returns. Tracking allows you to adjust your marketing strategy, either by refreshing your marketing content or by reallocating your budget.

Click here to learn more about lead tracking.

If you’d like to grow your company’s online presence, then we can streamline your outreach efforts and provide measurable results. We’re TechWyse, the full-service digital marketing solution for small businesses. We specialize in the home service industry; we've worked with plumbers, landscapers, movers, cleaners, storage facilities and more. To learn more, call us today at 866.208.3095 or contact us here.

It's a competitive market. Contact us to learn how you can stand out from the crowd.

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