Get More Leads with Your Website

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for House Painting Companies in 2023: Help Your Brand Stand Out In The Search Results (SERPs) Part 2

Last time, we talked about how to get your local SEO and business listings right.

In this post, we will discuss blogging for SEO, link building and citations and the importance of reviews.

Strategy 3 – Blogging for SEO: Engaging Audiences through Intelligent Content Marketing Approaches

For local painting businesses looking to increase their online presence and attract new customers, blogging can be a very effective tool.

By creating informative content that aligns with your industry expertise, you’ll position yourself as a thought leader in the eyes of potential clients. With proper execution, this strategy will improve both your search engine rankings and overall digital marketing efforts.

SEO Blogging Tips and Tricks

As a painting business owner, you understand the importance of staying up to date with current events in your area and industry trends. You will want to create specific content that targets local areas and is still engaging for readers.

How can you do this?

Use relevant keywords targeted at your location
Solve a problem that your potential client may have

Here are a few examples of good blog ideas for painting companies:

From Start to Finish – A Complete Walkthrough of Painting Your House Exterior in [Your Town Name]
What Color Should I Choose for the Best Resale Value? A Guide to the Most Popular Colors in [Your Town Name] for [Year]
Paint Finishes – Which Finish to Choose for Your Room and Why
Choosing a House Painter in [You Town Name] – What Should You Look For & What Are the Red Flags?
Remodeling Your Kitchen? A Complete Timeline of What to Expect

Blogging for Brand Awareness

Blogging extends beyond mere search engine optimization for your website. Through crafting content on industry-relevant subjects, you can connect with a broader audience in your target market and cultivate credibility for your brand.

By offering valuable and insightful articles, you foster customer loyalty and amplify recognition of your corporate identity. This way, when someone in your area is ready to paint, they already know who to choose – YOU!

Strategy 4 – Link Building and Secondary Citations

Google’s ranking algorithm considers numerous factors to determine the order in which websites appear in search results. While the exact details of the algorithm are closely guarded, one key element when determining rankings is backlinks and citations.

Building Backlinks

The number and quality of links from other reputable websites to your site, known as backlinks, plays a crucial role. Google views these as a vote of confidence in your content’s credibility and authority. The more quality backlinks your website has, the more relevant it will be seen by the search engines.

Some easy ways to get backlinks to your website:

Join your local Chamber of Commerce (make sure your profile is filled out completely)
Join a BNI group (make sure your profile is filled out completely)
Activate “Creator Mode” in LinkedIn and add a link to your website in the profile
Add a link to your website in your YouTube Channel’s profile
Check to see if your college alumni association allows links in your alumni profile and link to your business from there

Building Citations

Citations are an essential component of local search optimization. They involve mentioning your business name, address or phone number on third party websites without linking directly to it.

While citations may not have the same impact as links, they still play a crucial role in improving rankings by increasing brand awareness and credibility among customers and other businesses alike.

One tool that can help you build your citations is called Yext. You input your information once and it distributes this information to over 75 different directories. IFTS is currently running a special on this service for $50/month.

Interested? Contact si@iftsdesign.com to get started.

Strategy 5 – Reviews: Improve Your Reputation By Getting More Positive Reviews

Though the exact number is not known, reviews are estimated to account for about 40% of Google’s local ranking algorithm. This makes reviews extremely important to your painting company, or any local service business!

The more positive reviews that you have, the more favorably Google should look upon your Google Business Profile listing. Typically, people like to see a company have a 4-star reputation or higher.

Obviously, the best way to get reviews is to do the best job for your clients, so they are positively bursting to tell others how amazing you are.

Sometimes, it’s not that easy. So, setting up processes to get reviews is a good idea.

A few processes that you can put in place:

Create review links in your email signatures
Have a review email sequence that goes out after the final walk through
Use a QR code on a business card that your employees use to ask for reviews
Offer an incentive (which they must disclose) to get a review
Create a page on your site that allows them to submit reviews

To see a step-by-step guide of how to set up a review process, check out this blog post from IFTS.

Conclusion – Start Putting SEO into Place Today For Your Painting Business

The rise in internet usage has made it crucial for local businesses to invest in quality SEO services and market their brand within their area.

With more people turning online when searching for products or services, this is no longer an option but a necessity if you want your house painting company to thrive.

To remain competitive in today’s digital landscape, implementing an effective local SEO strategy is crucial for businesses. This approach will attract more customers and give you the edge over your competition. Don’t miss out on this opportunity to grow, so start today!

Need help getting started with this?

Let us handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on running a successful painting company! Email si@iftsdesign.com to find out more!

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for House Painting Companies in 2023: Help Your Brand Stand Out In The Search Results (SERPs) Part 1

Does your painting business’ website show up where you want it in the Google search results for ALL potential clients?

If not, this article is for you.

We will review what SEO is, why it’s important and the steps that you can take to improve your ranking.

Unveiling the Significance of SEO: Boosting Your Painting Business Through Effective Strategies

The success of your business largely depends on how well you rank online. To achieve this goal, it’s essential to prioritize the right SEO techniques that will boost your marketing efforts and drive growth. With these strategies in place, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish!

Google processes over 5 billion searches everyday! One out of five queries originate from mobile devices. In fact, more than half of mobile queries are “near me” searches. For the desktop inquiries, which make up the other 80% of searches, roughly twenty percent have local intent.

This trend highlights the importance for businesses to optimize their online presence and ensure they appear prominently when potential customers search nearby.

Its evident that local search behavior has immense potential for generating new house painting leads! By crafting a targeted campaign focused on consumers in specific areas and implementing effective marketing techniques you can enhance your visibility online. This will ultimately lead to increased chances of attracting fresh customers who may not have known about you otherwise.

Strategy 1 – Business Listings: Enhancing and Tracking Key Elements

By optimizing your Google Business Profile Listing correctly, you could potentially reach the top of organic SERPs within the local results section for your niche.

However, don’t limit yourself to just focusing on your Google Business Profile alone when it comes to improving your local SEO campaign. Optimizing your business listings on social media sites, Yelp and other major listings is crucial for attracting customers.

To achieve this, you will need to claim, optimize, verify, manage and sync all relevant information about your company across these platforms.

(Need help with this? Our services will ensure that potential clients find accurate details about what you offer when they search online. Don’t miss out – let us handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on running a successful painting company! Email si@iftsdesign.com to find out more)

So, what do you need to sync across all of your listings?

Business NAP (Name / Address / Phone Number)

Make sure that your company’s name, address and phone number is written exactly the same across all listings and your website.

As an example, if your address is “123 North Smith Street,” don’t have your website say “123 N. Smith Street” and the Google Business Profile say “123 North Smith St.” Choose one version of the name/address/phone number and stick to it.

Your Painting Business’ Website

Having a link to your official website is crucial. This gives Google and other search engines a link to follow, which gives them relevant information about your company. It also allows customers looking at your citation to go directly to your site.

Business Hours / Description / Categories

All your listings should have the same hours, description and industry categories. If they don’t, the search engines will be confused about which is the correct and most relevant data about you. This could result in a lower result for your website in the results.

Images / Videos Of Your Painting Jobs and Team

Including high-quality images and videos can set your citation apart from others in your industry. It will maximize your visibility and sometimes, will make your citation larger than others, which catches the eye of the person browsing.

Online Reviews

While you can’t optimize your reviews, technically speaking, it is still essential to keep a close eye on them. Regularly checking up on new listings for fresh feedback is important. So is flagging any spam or inappropriate comments.

Bad review? No problem! Responding professionally when dealing with dissatisfied customers who may have had negative experiences shows that you care about the client experience and gives you a chance to fix the issue.

This approach helps ensure that everyone has an opportunity to share their thoughts while also maintaining the integrity of online review platforms overall. By staying vigilant about these matters, painting businesses like yours are better equipped than ever before to address concerns head-on and ultimately improve customer satisfaction levels over time!

Strategy 2 – Local SEO: Attract More Clients Near You

Want to improve your local presence online? Start with your website!

Using multiple SEO strategies to optimize your website is crucial to getting more local house painting clients.

Here’s a great way to start this process:

Website URLs, Page Titles, and Meta Descriptions

When Google and other search engines crawl your site, it’s important to have these elements filled in and optimized.

[Side Note – If your website is created in WordPress, you can use the Yoast plugin to take care of all of these]

The website URL is the website address of the page www.yoursite.com/page-name. You’ll want to be sure that the page-name element contains keywords and your local town name.

The page title is the name of the webpage that appears in the tab on your browser. A good format for naming your webpages is “Keyword 1 – Keyword 2 | Company Name.”

The meta description is the short paragraph that appears below the website name in the search engine results. Google does not look at this when determining page rank, but your client is going to read it. Put the most relevant information in there for them.

Contact Information and Business Hours

Just like with the citations, you want to be sure that your website clearly lists the hours and how to contact you. Make sure that this information is consistent with the citations as well.

Landing Pages

Want to attract clients from multiple areas?

Have a landing page that is optimized for each location. However, one important thing to note – these pages cannot have the exact same text on each page. Be sure to customize it to that town or be penalized by Google.

Blog

Having a blog is a great way to improve your SEO!

You can showcase your latest projects, highlight an employee, inform your clients and prospects about a frequently asked question, or talk about events that are happening in your town. Each one of these allows that specific blog entry to be optimized to a set of keywords that are relevant to your local area. More about this in the next post…

To Be Continued…

Ready to get started? Implement the two SEO tactics above.

In our next post, Strategy 4, Strategy 5 and Strategy 6 Will Be Revealed.

Local Lead Generation Techniques for House Painting Companies

Quality leads, better customers, less hassle

LEAD GENERATION FOR HOUSE PAINTERS, PART 2

Last time, we talked about generating leads for your painting business using Google Ads and Website Optimization.

Now, let’s talk about 4 more tactics as well as a plan to bring them all together.

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #3 – SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

60% of all organic clicks go to the organic top 3 search results.

– Business2Community

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of adjusting a website’s architecture and content such that it receives a higher page rank in search engine results pages in response to certain queries. In an ideal world, customers would just type a few keywords related to your business into Google and learn that you provide the best value for your customers’ money.

76% of people using “near me” searches visit a related business within a day.

– Google

In the real world, there is a long list of known factors that go into how high your website and content will rank in search engine results and SEO works to make your business as attractive as possible.

Organic position 1 receives the highest number of standard SERP clicks.

– BrightLocal, 2019

Search engine optimization is a powerful tool. It helps with attracting more qualified prospects who are ready to buy. If your website is optimized for search engines like Google and Bing, it will be more likely to be seen by potential clients who are conducting online searches for painting and handyman services.

The constant algorithm changes that Google makes are the largest obstacle to maintaining “good” SEO for your site.

Businesses that rely on search engine optimization for lead generation often find it difficult to keep up with Google’s changes to search ranking numbers. This dynamic nature of SEO means that many companies prefer to hire outside professionals to maintain their websites.

SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, outbound leads (ex. direct mail or print advertising) have a 1.7% close rate.

– Search Engine Journal

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #4 – EMAIL MARKETING

Email is ideal for generating leads since it can be tailored to each individual recipient and it has a low cost.

Email marketing continues to play an important role in any successful lead generation strategy, as it is widely regarded as one of the finest ways to communicate with consumers and prospects. In terms of bringing in new customers, expanding the reach of an existing brand, and converting existing customers, email marketing remains unrivaled.

42% of organizations believe email is one of their most effective lead generation channels.

– Circle Research

Use Dedicated Landing Pages In Your Emails

Each and every email you send should have a distinct purpose. Having a landing page dedicated just to said goal is a great way to keep your readers on the track you’ve set out for them. Every email must include one clear and concise call to action that instructs the recipient on what to do next.

Some example Calls To Action (CTA):

Get A Free Quote
Schedule Your Free Home Estimate
Download Our Moving Checklist
Make An Appointment

Companies see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15.

– HubSpot

By using a landing page, you can make sure that all of your reader’s attention is on what you want them to do. There are no distractions or offers of other products to give them more choices. Just an easy way for the reader to do what you want, which means a higher conversion rate.

For most painting and handyman companies, a landing page will typically have a form to fill out or an appointment scheduler as the main action.

Bring Prospects Back To Your Website Via List Building

Know that most of the people who visit your website will never come back unless you keep in touch with them regularly.

One of the best ways to do this is to get more people to sign up for your email list.

Only 4% of website visitors are ready to buy.

– Marketo

Email subscribers choose to join your list and confirm who they are by clicking on a link (double-opt-in). They are very interested in what you have to offer, so they are more likely to buy from you. Think of them as leads who have already shown interest but need to be won over and cared for.

No matter what kind of business you run or what industry you’re in, if you have a website and want to turn visitors into repeat customers, you need to get them on your email list.

Email lists also protect you from any sort of changes to a platform or account cancellation. A lot of companies invested millions of dollars getting Facebook followers so they could communicate with their followers for free. Then, Facebook changed the rules and a company’s post will typically reach 10% maximum of their followers. If that company wanted to be sure that their followers saw something they posted, they would need to pay for a Facebook ad to do this.

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #5 – PAID ADVERTISING WITH FACEBOOK

Companies that engage in social selling get 199% better return on investment.

– Awario

You can show ads to people in your area based on their location, age, gender, interests, and a lot more with a social media business account. And social media sites make it easy to tell your followers what they should do.

31% of consumers say they are using social media channels to browse for new items to purchase.

– Aimia

Because ads on Facebook and other social media sites often target specific people based on their demographics or actions, you can use what you know about your customers to reach out to those you think would be more interested. You can also retarget people that you know are interested in your services.

Facebook accounts for 50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue.

– Business Insider

Facebook Messenger and Lead Generation Ads

Digital marketing makes it possible for local painting businesses to reach their ideal customers in ways we never thought possible. With Facebook Messenger marketing, you can put your ad in people’s inboxes or chat directly with new and potential customers. This works better and costs less than other digital ads.

Local businesses that use Facebook Messenger to promote their business have a huge advantage in being able to reach out to people who are actually interested in their product and live near them.

Facebook added two new features in 2019 to make it easier for your business to market itself. They added lead generation templates right to the Ads Manager to get people to go to a question-and-answer flow in Messenger that is run automatically.

And an appointment booking interface API that can be connected to a business’s calendaring system so that people can see the most up-to-date available appointments.

Messenger marketing is about SO MUCH MORE than just ads and chatbots

When you use Messenger for marketing, you can put an ad in the chat inbox of your ideal customer, where it will be hard to miss. But there’s more…

You can: make interactive stories, give customer service by answering FAQs, customize product or service suggestions, book appointments, send purchase or shipping confirmations, send newsletters and notifications of new blog posts, deliver downloadable content like lead magnets or catalogs, and send event reminders.

LEAD GENERATION TACTIC #6 – REPUTATION MARKETING

The people who work for you or buy from you now trust you enough to do so.

But how do you get new prospects to trust you and your business?

How do you get leads to turn into sales?

With reviews and testimonials on your website and on other sites like Google, Yelp, Facebook, and review sites that are specific to your industry, like Angi.

Before making a purchase, over 90% of people in the United States look online for reviews and recommendations.

90% of online users trust reviews.

– Google

If a lead visits your website or your business’s online presence before or after the research phase of their buying cycle, they should get a clear and bold message about how great your business is.

Make sure that NEW reviews and testimonials are easy to find on your website. No one will be impressed by a testimonial from three years ago, and it won’t show prospects what you can do for them now.

44% of consumers will not consider a review to be relevant if it was written more than one month ago.

Power Reviews

You can easily automate the posting of reviews and testimonials on your website with cheap reputation management services that gather reviews and post them where they matter most. Good star ratings and customer reviews have been shown to have a big impact on how consumers decide what to buy.

HOUSE PAINTING LOCAL LEAD GENERATION

A good lead generation strategy includes elements that draw in the best prospects, which are people who have said they need or are interested in your services offered and want to find out more about what you have to offer.

These leads are most likely to turn into customers quickly and easily because they are ready to buy. That’s why your lead generation strategy should avoid spam and general telemarketing that reaches people who might not be interested in your product. Instead, it should focus on building you a list of qualified leads who are willing to pay good money for a service you sell.

When you have a good lead generation strategy, you can use effective activities and a focused approach to get qualified leads that turn into loyal customers.

Your strategy should try to get prospects’ attention, make it easy for them to find your business, and turn prospects into customers.

Your plan for getting leads needs to be as flexible as the people you’re trying to reach. Make and test appealing offers, calls to action, landing pages, and lead generation forms, and then promote them through a variety of channels and platforms.

Find the ones that work and do more of those.

A good lead generation strategy takes planning and consistent work to bring in good leads for your business, but the return on investment (ROI) is unbeatable when compared to traditional and outbound marketing methods.

NEED HELP?

This publication is not a how-to guide. Instead, it is a source of information that will help you make smart choices when making and putting into action a marketing plan to get more leads for your painting business.

There are some business owners who know enough about online marketing to do it on their own. But because the tools, rules, and best practices that make up online marketing today are always changing and growing, others should think about working with professional digital marketers who have experience with local lead generation to make sure their campaigns are effective and bring in the most money.

Talk with IFTS today for more details at 412.715.6266!