Contractors have lots of competition when it comes to marketing themselves and their services. The good news is that the online world offers a lot of opportunities for contractors to differentiate themselves from the crowd, like with content marketing.
Content marketing draws in and retains audiences by sharing relevant content such as videos, photos, infographics, articles, and podcasts that are relevant to your field of expertise. You then publish them on your blog or other social media platforms to attract traffic, rank well in Google, and convert that traffic into leads and customers.
This technique helps establish awareness, trust, and authority for your company and the services you offer. You want to be the go-to guy and company in your niche for information.
This also allows you to establish a personal connection with your audience to help you break through the noise and create long-term relationships.
With that said, contrary to popular belief, content is still king.
If you want to win on Google and with your potential customers in your local market, you must implement it as a tactic for your company’s overall marketing strategy.
It’s not like every contractor is using content marketing.
Even among those that do, the quality of their content depends on the company. However, if you do it right and on a consistent basis, it’s a proven way to market construction services and beat your competition.
If you’re a contractor who’s struggling to grow your business and get leads, here are some great tips to help you develop a solid plan.
RESEARCH KEYWORDS FOR YOUR NICHE
Before you start creating content, you will need to perform keyword research to find good opportunities to create content for your website that people are searching for to get your company more leads and business.
The idea is to search for the keywords and phrases people are using in your local market to identify the best keywords to target.
Knowing what topics you need to cover on your website will allow you to create great content around these keywords, which is an essential part of a good search engine optimization (SEO) strategy. It will help your rankings in the search engines and drive potential customers to your business.
Here are my top 3 free keyword research tools that you can use to get the job done.
1. Wordtracker
2. Wordstream
CREATING GREAT CONTENT
Ask yourself the question, “What type of content works for your audience?”
For contractors and home service businesses, educational and informative content works best.
For example, if you have a home remodeling company, you might consider creating content like articles and videos that feature before and after photos of your remodeling work and share them on Instagram, Pinterest and Facebook. Show how to install cabinets, tile, or how to properly waterproof a shower pan.
You can create informational content based on what people are searching for online to help them get ideas before they remodel. To do this, you will need to perform keyword research and start creating content around these searches. You will find that people are searching for “how much does it cost to remodel a bathroom?”, “how much does it cost to remodel a kitchen?”, and “bathroom remodel ideas on a budget”.
If you own a painting company, you might create a video that shows how to properly paint the exterior of a home or patch cracks in stucco. “How much does it cost to paint the exterior of a home?”, or “How much does it cost to paint the interior of a home?”
The idea is to create educational and informative content that deals with the services you offer and helps educate your target audience. Aim to create long-form content that is at least 500 – 1500 words and create content that is much better than your competition.
Don’t write the same style as everybody else, and don’t try to be an author for everybody.
Try to write as you speak in your own unique style.
Here are some bonus tips for creating great content and other marketing ideas:
1. Start with the reader in mind and what they want
2. Think of how you can help solve your reader’s needs
3. Make it easy for the reader to consume your content
4. Establish a natural and original voice, style, and tone
5. Utilize various publishing, editing, and AI tools such as Grammarly or Writer
6. Make it easy for the reader to consume your content
7. Create articles that you can make into a book and give away establishing you as an expert
DO NOT SELL WITH YOUR CONTENT
Content marketing for contractors takes time, dedication, and strategy. Doing it the wrong way will leave you frustrated and little to show for your efforts.
What makes it an effective marketing strategy is its ability to generate leads for your business without seeming pushy.
In fact, it is important to not “sell” your services at all when using content marketing. Instead, your goal is to create valuable, entertaining, or educational content that addresses your target audience’s needs.
In a nutshell, your content should inform, educate, and inspire. If people can get value from your content, then they will be more likely to follow you on social media, visit your website, and become paying customers.
This approach is extremely useful for making your company top of mind when it comes to when people will need your services.
It’s the perfect combination of education, marketing, and sales.
BUILD A COMPANY BLOG
Company blogs are a great platform for content marketing. If you have a blog on your main website, you can write about topics that interest your target market and write about the services you offer.
It is a great way to use keywords and phrases surrounding your niche and services in your content that will help
You should always first place your content on your main blog and then share and distribute it to social media with a link back to your website so you can drive traffic and get more leads. This also helps tremendously with search engine optimization (SEO).
The look and feel of your website is extremely important. After all, this is how your content is presented in your visitor’s browser.
In other words, if your content is good but the design is subpar, then you are going to lose business.
HELPS WITH SEO
For Google to rank your website and give you more website traffic, it needs to detect that your website has high-quality content.
When you’re successful with content marketing, you won’t just help educate potential customers, you will also help your SEO and help your website become a trusted local resource for this information.
Use the right keywords and phrases in your content and on your website and blog. Using Google Analytics and search engine optimization, you can see what phrases people are using to find your services, and create content on those topics.
This is one of the most important elements of digital marketing because search engines use the content as a ranking factor for your website.
So, the more you engage and interact with your audience and provide high-quality content, the more likely it is that you’ll be found in the search engines and increase your website traffic.
CONTENT PLAN (CALENDAR)
The most common mistake is not having a consistent plan or a calendar to create new content. Without a plan, it’s hard to make decisions about what you should do to grow your online platform.
Too many people start a blog and then stop after a while because they lose interest. But the reason they didn’t stick with it was that they hadn’t created a consistent schedule and plan to follow.
You should plan your blog like you plan anything else in your life. By planning, you’ll know what to write about, how often to write, how to promote, and how to market your blog.
A simple plan is to create content at least once or twice a week and share your content with the world on your social media channels. The key is to do it consistently.
SHARE CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA
In addition, you can also make your content shareable. This will attract a lot of social media traffic. You will want to use social media to share your content and drive traffic to your website.
With social media, you will be able to reach a larger audience and your potential customers. Visitors from social media are also likely to convert, as they are already engaged.
When you combine content marketing with SEO and social media marketing, you create a powerful marketing approach that drives traffic to your website, and helps your website SEO.
GUEST POSTING
You can also write guest blog posts on other blogs in your niche by reaching out to bloggers and website owners in your niche.
Guest blogging is a popular marketing tactic for several reasons. First, the guest blog post acts as a reference to your business and services.
If a consumer reads a blog post and it sounds interesting, he or she will click on the author’s name to see what else that person has to offer.
It also helps with your website SEO by driving backlinks in order to improve your ranking in search engines, so it is a very effective method of link building, as well as a great way to drive traffic to your site.
Guest posting can be a great way to get your content in front of new eyeballs, but it’s also a great way to build relationships with other bloggers. That’s because guest posting can often open up the opportunity for cross-promotion. Cross-promotion is when someone from one blog or website promotes the other’s blog on their website.
To get started, you will need to find other bloggers in your niche that accept guest posts. Make a list of 10-20 websites with their criteria for submitting articles.
Most legitimate websites with SEO authority want only original articles that are 500-1500 words long or more, and they usually allow only one link in the author bio back to your website.
LEAD CAPTURE & MAGNETS
When you create educational content, the idea is to educate but also brand your company and the services you provide.
As I mentioned, you do not want to be selling. But you should always have a link back to your website and a small teaser or offer at the end of your content to drive traffic back to your main website.
Write blog posts with all of the main landing pages in mind, and make sure they’re written with a specific call to action. You should have an opt-in form at the top and bottom of every blog post, as well as consistent CTAs throughout your post.
You can also use a call to action buttons – make sure they’re clear and easy to see. Make sure it fits naturally with the content and doesn’t feel forced.
You can also create sales funnels with educational content if you provide a free and valuable lead magnet, like a free course. You then get people into your sales funnel and you can offer additional courses, or services.
So make sure every blog post and all your content inspires action of some kind or another.
DO YOU HAVE THE TIME AND EXPERTISE?
Like any marketing strategy, content marketing for contractors takes time to build and perfect.
First, you have to research keywords, make a plan, and create great content. Then, you need to distribute it, promote it, and create a proper sales funnel before you can analyze the results and implement changes for better results.
It takes a lot of time and expertise. This can be a real challenge for busy contractors who are looking for marketing tactics that maximizes ROI.
That is where a digital marketing agency for contractors like ours can help your company at a fraction of what it would cost to hire an in-house marketing expert.
If you would like a consultation or free estimate, please reach out to us and we would be glad to help!