According to one recent study, a massive 93% of all online interactions between a brand and its prospective customers still begin “the old fashioned way” – with a search engine like Google.
It’s equally important to note that around 70% of the links that search users actually click on are organic – meaning that between 70% and 80% of all users are ignoring paid ads entirely. This is according to the same source as outlined above.
Based on that, it’s easy to see how your website is such an important part of your online marketing efforts. But as someone who has been helping professionals in the construction industry make the most out of their marketing efforts for many years at this point, I see far too many business owners make the same mistake time and again.
They see their construction website as a means to an end, if you will. They think to themselves “all I have to do is get my website up and I never have to think about marketing again.” Really, they need to see their site for what it really is:
The beginning of something far more important.
For whatever reason, I see a lot of business owners who assume that their website is a “one and done” affair. But the truth is, you DO need additional marketing AFTER you build your website. Marketing isn’t about seeking alternatives to your website. It’s about driving traffic to your website.
When you’re talking about an industry as locally-driven and as specialized as construction and home building, you need to do more than just “get your name out there” to succeed. You need to establish yourself as a local authority and someone worth listening to – your website alone isn’t going to be able to help you do that.
This, of course, will require a comprehensive, multi-faceted approach to make sure you’re covered from every conceivable angle.
A technique like content marketing is especially important these days for this exact reason. Consider the fact that marketers who prioritize blogging efforts are literally 13 times more likely to see a positive return on investment for their efforts compared to those who don’t. It’s equally important to note that year-over-year growth in unique site traffic is an impressive 7.8 times higher for content marketing leaders compared to content marketing followers.
But this isn’t just limited to writing for the blog on your website. Reach out to the types of industry publications that your potential customers are already interested in and see if you can write a guest post on some recent important topic that is on everyone’s mind. Every time you do this, you not only raise awareness for your business – you capitalize on an opportunity to take a chunk of someone else’s built-in audience and turn it into your own.
Equally important to your long-term efforts is video marketing – something that a massive 85% of all Internet users in the United States watch on a regular basis. In your industry, you’re uniquely suited to take advantage of the video revolution because there are so many different types of content you can create. You could give an overview of a recent construction project that you participated in, for example, going into detail about the “before” and “after” of the job. You could pull back the curtain behind your business and shoot culture videos that outline what separates you from so many other industry providers in the area.
Note that according to a study that was conducted in 2019, leaders in the video marketing space get 66% more qualified leads per year than those who aren’t. Once you have the attention of those leads, then your website can begin to do what it was designed to. But not before.
Finally, we arrive at social media marketing – something that the average person spends about two hours and 23 minutes engaging with every single day.
Note that according to another recent study, about 39% of customers say that they ONLY trust brands that they have either personally interacted with on social platforms, or that have some type of strong social media presence.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and even Instagram represent a terrific opportunity to reach out to the people who are most likely to become your customers – those who live in and around your service area – and make a real connection with them. You can proactively answer their questions and continue to establish yourself as an authority in the industry. You can interject in the types of conversations they’re already having and contribute as much value as possible, all without asking for anything in return. If nothing else, it’s a great way to create a positive first impression – making it far more likely that someone will take that next step and head to your website in the first place.
This is what is meant when the term “comprehensive” is used in reference to your marketing, as all of these techniques are enormously effective for a business like yours. Note that absolutely none of them rely on your website and your website alone. There is no one “silver bullet” technique that will guarantee success. Instead, there are many that work together.
They not only allow you to explore different channels to take the conversation directly to your prospects, but they also each allow you to uniquely show off why yours is a business worth paying attention to in the first place. They allow you to be incredibly proactive about how you’re attracting the attention of the right types of leads, which is an excellent position for any professional to be in moving forward.
When It Comes to Online Marketing, Consistency is King
In the end, remember that it’s absolutely true that your construction website is critical to reaching new clients on the Internet. But it’s not the “be all, end all” technique that will guarantee the results that you’re after. Once your website is online and optimized, you’ll still need to explore every opportunity you have available to you to drive as much traffic as possible right to your (virtual) doorstep.
Search engine optimization will be a big part of this, yes. But so will content marketing. So will video marketing. So will your social networking activity and more. Note, however, that none of these are an “either/or” proposition. It’s not that you should funnel efforts away from your website and into video production. You need to be actively engaged with all of these various channels at the exact same time and on a regular basis.
Consistency in all of these active efforts is what will ultimately generate the interest you’re looking for. Once you have a system in place that allows you to funnel as much traffic as possible to your website in a reliable, consistent way, only then will that domain act as the ongoing conversion engine that you need. To assume otherwise won’t just leave an enormous amount of money on the table for your business. It’ll also concede ground to your savvier local competitors at a moment when you likely can’t afford it.
