If you own a home improvement or serviced-based contracting company, you know just how important it is to market your services online. Without it, you wouldn’t have the lead pipeline it takes to keep your business afloat! Most paid marketing tactics can get pretty pricey though. If only there were a way to market your business without a (relatively) high price point…. organic marketing
Luckily for all home improvement pros, there is! It’s called organic marketing. Organic marketing allows you to drive traffic to your business online without using paid methods.
In this article, we’ll discuss the 5 key steps every home improvement pro needs to take to build their organic marketing strategy.
1. Figure out how your target audience uses the web
Depending on what your business sells, your target audience may use the internet differently. How do your consumers find businesses like yours? For instance, if you’re a general contractor or a painter, people might Google “home painter near me,” or “general contractor near me,” but families might also utilize Facebook groups to solicit recommendations for these kinds of professionals as well. There are many different ways your clients can find you. They might use review sites, read industry websites, or search frequently asked questions on Google. Whatever they’re doing will give you a good sense of which platforms you should use to build an organic influence. After you’ve solved this, you can begin to make tailored content that will give them value when they need it most.
2. Add helpful resources to your company website
Another excellent way to build an influence over time naturally is by adding valuable content to your website itself. If you’re spending money on improving your website and driving people to your website with paid ads, it’s important that your website is full of content that can keep them engaged! Having a website with little to no content can hurt your credibility and possibly prevent you from making more sales.
3. Use search engine optimization best practices across your website
If you want your website and its content to rank highly on Google, you’ll need to start dabbling in search engine optimization (SEO). If you’re a home improvement pro…. That might not be your forte. That’s okay! There are a few basics that any individual can learn that can greatly improve your website’s organic reach. Here are a few basic SEO tips:
- Use metadata on each page of your website: Each page of your website should have title tags, image tags, alt text on the images, and a page meta description. This way, Google can read what your website pages are really about. If you use popular keywords that your audience searches for, using the proper metadata makes it more likely that Google will list one of your pages as a result.
- Make sure your website is mobile-friendly: Most people browse the web on their phones! Your website will rank higher on SEO if it is mobile-optimized.
4. Post regularly on social media
Like we mentioned earlier, building a healthy archive of valuable, useful content your target audience can use is necessary for building credibility, but also for supporting your social media strategy! If you have a great blog, video, or infographic that you think will resonate with a potential client, be sure to share it on social media. The best part about this? It’s free!
Here are some tips for posting social media content:
- Pick what platforms you post on strategically: As we mentioned before, you’ll want to consider where your target audience goes to learn about your home improvement services. Is it on Facebook groups? Do they follow Instagram influencers? Wherever they are is where you should post. LinkedIn is typically a good choice for larger, B2B organizations. If you serve the commercial sector, this may be a good option for your business. But if your target audience is small, residential families, then Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram may have more of an impact on your business.
- Think about what types of posts do best: What posts are you best at making, and which posts bring in the most leads? Whatever that post type is, be sure to hone in on this in your social media strategy.
- Use links when you can: when posting on social media, it’s good for SEO to drive traffic to your website. Always be sure to use links, so that people can go back to your website and see all the great content you’ve posted in the past. An easy way to do this is by linking blog posts, or to specific service pages.
- Figure out when your target audience is most active on social media: Don’t just post randomly! Follow a schedule that capitalizes on when your target audience is most active online, and always be sure to manage your reputation on those platforms.
5. Stay consistent
The key to organic marketing (and sales) is consistency. Unlike paid marketing, it can take a much longer time to generate leads and results using organic strategies, but, this doesn’t make it any less important or effective in the long run. One blog today might not have a huge impact on your business, but over time, a huge archive of resource content on your website can drive hundreds if not thousands of users and potential clients to your website every day, if done strategically.
To encourage sales, always remember to use calls to action in your organic posts that directly ask people to visit your website, download a PDF, or schedule a meeting with you. Those who don’t ask, don’t get!
All in all, there’s an excellent chance your home improvement business is already using organic strategies without knowing it. But with a couple of these tips, you may be able to propel your organic reach further! If your home improvement business offers good services and you have a killer organic strategy to match it, there are no limits to how far your sales can go.
For more helpful sales tips, check out our podcast! Click here for episode one.