As customer expectations evolve, digital marketing for contractors has become more necessary than ever. Contractor companies need a digital footprint to increase their visibility and avoid losing clients to their competition.

Luckily, contractors can thrive online through a planned digital marketing strategy and an optimized website.

These two can increase your contractor business’ reach to a larger audience and directly target prospects likely to opt for your services.

Ready to learn more?

Read on to learn more about how to upscale your contractor business online:

What is Contractor Digital Marketing?

Contractor digital marketing increases your contractor company’s visibility and converts your customers into leads.

When optimized well, digital marketing for contractors will:

• Increase your website traffic.
• Multiply your leads.
• Increase phone calls.

Many contractors pursue their business without planning their digital marketing strategy. One-off website updates and social media posts will work for some time, but they’re not enough for a sustainable business.

You need to create an effective contractor digital marketing strategy for long-term profit.

Use Your Website As A Growth Tool

Contractors use online marketing strategies to drive traffic to their websites. More specifically, these marketing strategies establish an online presence through digital marketing channels.

These channels include email, websites, search engines, and social media. These are used to connect with prospective customers.

In a competitive market where everyone might offer similar services, contractors also use digital marketing strategies to set themselves apart from competitors in their respective fields.

Your contractor’s digital marketing strategy defines your business goals, target audience, and location. It’ll require consistently creating content that drives traffic and increases sales.

Without a planned digital marketing strategy, your contractor business won’t create value for your customers. At best, it’ll just use up your server’s memory.

You can do so by working on your website design, SEO and local SEO, social media marketing, video marketing.. the list goes on.

We’ll cover these techniques later in the guide.

Inter-connected Digital Marketing Channels

Your digital marketing strategy should be consistent in all your chosen marketing channels. Consistency can increase conversions by as much as 33% and allow you to leverage your potential customer traffic better.

As the endgame of your digital marketing strategy is increasing leads, building your contractor website is the first step to success online.

Inter-connected digital marketing channels reduce friction from the customer journey. They allow you to communicate a consistent message about your contractor’s business.

Your latest social media campaign communicates your business’s specialization in pavements. But on your website, you claim to work with drainage.

You’ll confuse your prospects. Inter-connection intertwines your digital marketing channels to be coherent.

An inter-connected general contractor digital marketing strategy informs them and converts them into leads.

What Makes a Contractor’s Website Successful?

Your website is your online business card. Most of your customers will visit your contractor website to verify your credibility before filling out any contact forms. Thus, your website is the primary connection between your digital marketing strategy and your customers.

Most of your contractor digital marketing strategies will involve optimizing your website’s content to rank better in search engines or leveraging traffic from your other marketing channels.

A well-designed contractor website will always provide clients with these details about your services:

• Your location
• Areas of expertise
• Portfolio of completed projects
• Contact Forms

Your website is the hub for all your other digital marketing endeavors. When prospective clients click through social media ads or look up contractors near them, they’ll end up on your website.

Below are some of the primary factors for contractor website success:

An Optimized Website Design.

If your website looks appealing, you’ll compel potential clients to look around, but building a successful site takes more than using a pretty WordPress theme.

As of August 2022, 59.4% of all web traffic comes from mobile phones. Making your website responsive and optimizing it for mobile should be your top priorities.

Fast Website Loading Speed.

Research firm Aberdeen Group reported that a one-second page load time delay yields 11% fewer page views, a 16% decrease in customer satisfaction, and a 7% loss in conversions.

Increasing your website’s loading speed should be another priority for your contractor’s digital marketing strategy.

You can check your contractor website’s loading speed through the free Pingdom Speed test.

Improve Mobile Optimization.

Up to 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices. On top of that, 57% internet users won’t recommend a website with poor mobile design. Your website design should leverage mobile searches through responsive design.

Easier to generate leads when your digital footprint appeals to most internet users.

An Updated Audiovisual Portfolio.

Prospects want to know if their contractor has proven experience. They’ll turn to testimonials or a portfolio of work for proof.

A gallery-style portfolio on your website showcases photos and videos of past projects.

Plus, they make your website look great.

More Content Equals More Traffic.

You can quantify the success of your website based on its monthly organic traffic. One tried-and-true contractor internet marketing strategy for website growth is content marketing.

Blog posts fulfill educational and promotional purposes. They build trust in your contractor business.

For example, DIY guide blog posts. A good contractor’s internet marketing strategy will include a “how to build a window” post.

But why share the information with the customer? The purpose is for them to hire you to do that for them.

The truth is that these guides increase trust in the contractor’s knowledge in the long run. The consumer will think of your website before others when looking for information.

That’s what we call brand awareness.

You should also submit your website to the sites we compiled in this list. It’s optional, but you’ll only get ahead of your competition if you are where they are.

Here’s an example of an intro:

“We’ve provided our clients with stellar pavement, drainage, and construction services in five years in the contractor business.”

Some key factors that also improve website optimization include:

• Improving your website copy. As a digital marketing tool, your website copy should reflect how your contractor business improves the quality of your customers’ lives.
• Easy layout. 38% of people will close a website tab if they find its design unattractive.
• Improve your website SEO and SEM. I’ll expand on this one below.

Optimize Your Website SEO Strategy

When customers want a contractor, they search for options through a search engine. The higher your visibility, the more likely the customers will find your business.

SEO and SEM techniques help your website rank higher in search engines. SEO stands for search engine optimization, while SEM stands for search engine marketing.

Most contractors use PPC and website design services to increase their digital visibility. We’ll cover those later in the guide.

They might also opt for email marketing, social media advertising, and video marketing. It all depends on their budget and goals.

Your pages should address their specific questions and concerns. Look up keywords and keyphrases with a quick Google Search. It’ll yield which questions trend in your customer’s search habits. That’s the black magic of SEO.

“Contractor near me” or “Contractor + location” are good starting points.

Tailor your content marketing strategy to answer your audience’s questions.

Use Geo-Targeting Keywords

Most businesses use keywords in their websites to improve SEO. It helps search engines to index their content and direct it to their audience.

Example:

• Location: Miami, Florida.
• Services: General contracting, roofing, pavement, drainage.
• Keyword: contractor coral gables fl

The location of the contractor’s website determines which clients they’ll most likely receive. It’s more important for contractors to use geo-targeting keywords.

Geo-targeting keywords attribute your services to a location. They help your target audience know where your contractor business operates.

For example:

“We specialize in pavement construction, subdivision construction, and drainage around the Coral Gables area.”

The introduction specifies the services provided and the location where the contractor business operates.

Benefits of Online Marketing for Contractors

When customers think of a contractor service near them, do they think about your brand first?

If not, you should improve your content marketing strategy.

All content marketing aims to increase brand awareness in your customer’s minds. It should drive organic leads to your website.

One way to increase these is by providing SEO-optimized quality information.

More Content = More Traffic.

Hubspot confirmed it, and I personally agree with them.

Content marketing grows your customer base and increases awareness about your services.

The higher quality of your content, the more traffic you’ll get. High-quality content marketing provides valuable information to build customer trust.

The Bottom Line

The contractor business is competitive, but contractor digital marketing strategies can help you outrank your competition.

Start with your contractor website. It’s the hub for all your contractor general digital marketing strategies.

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