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Archive for June, 2011

PPC versus SEO or PPC and SEO For Remodeler Marketing

June 13, 2011
by David Alpert

PPC (Pay per Click) marketing and SEO marketing are often seen as competing marketing tactics. While it is true that some remodeling companies select one or the other, in an ideal remodeler marketing world, you would use both PPC and SEO and use their strengths in a complementary fashion. (In most cases this is also the most cost-effective strategy, although not cheap.)

The benefits of PPC for remodeler marketing are that it is highly localize-able, controllable, quick to roll out, and you only pay for clicks. However, you still have to do keyword research, write ads, create landing pages that are similar to what you need for SEO remodeler marketing, tweak and modify the program over time, and of course you could end up paying for a lot of clicks that generate no leads. Therefore, when doing PPC, it is extremely important that you also do website optimization to make sure that your landing pages and website make the best use of every click you pay for.

The benefits of SEO for remodeling company marketing is that it is long-term, you don’t have to pay for clicks (especially ones that don’t turn into sales), and it can be less expensive for similar or better results. Furthermore, remodeler SEO efforts build upon themselves so that the longer you use SEO, the better your results. SEO also lasts longer than a pay per click program which is either on or off. Perhaps most importantly, SEO results show up in organic searches, where most people prefer to click, rather than sponsored links and ads.

In that ideal world of remodeler marketing, one would kick-start an online marketing program with a PPC marketing program while at the same time developing and executing an SEO marketing program. If done properly, you will be able to determine which keywords yield high organic rankings via SEO and therefore for which you can stop using, and paying for, PPC. As the SEO program for your remodeling firm continues, you can build your rankings for many of your keywords with SEO and stop paying for those keywords in your PPC program.

Eventually, you may find that there are some important keywords that, no matter what you try, you cannot feasibly rank high in the organic listings using SEO. For those words, you can continue a PPC program and therefore get the benefits of each – SEO and PPC – most cost-effectively when marketing for your remodeling firm.

If you have any questions about this post or other remodeler or contractor marketing questions, please contact us.

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: Online Marketing, Remodeler and Remodeling Contractor Marketing, Remodeling Contractor Marketing Strategies and Tactics, Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
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Are Consumer Ratings Important?

June 2, 2011
by David Alpert

Does a bear…? You Bet! And, consumer ratings are extremely important in today’s remodeler marketing environment because homeowners who research remodelers on the web look for consumer ratings that other homeowners have given a remodeler they are considering. In today’s market, a four or five star consumer rating carries the same kind of weight as a good reference or referral. Consumer ratings are your online reputation.

So where are homeowners rating remodelers? Angie’s List, Google Places, Yelp, and a whole lot of other online local business directory and search engine places. If a homeowner is looking up a remodeler, let’s say on Google, and they find seven remodelers, three of which have four and five star ratings, but your listing has no consumer ratings, it might be that the homeowner will consider calling the other remodelers, or at least go to their websites first.

It is accepted wisdom that the people most likely to rate a business online are those who are happiest or the most dissatisfied. An unhappy experience with your firm can lead to a bad online review. While only a percentage of people who are unhappy will write an online review, you can expect it to be a poor one. I expect having a poor experience with a remodeler is more likely to result in a bad rating than a good or satisfactory experience will result in a positive review. That is unless you encourage happy customers to write positive reviews about their experience with you on specific sites where consumers rate businesses.

For the record, it is illegal to incentivize a homeowner to write a review about you unless they disclose that the review was a compensated review. However, if you have a satisfied homeowner as a client, you can explain to them how important reviews are to your business and suggest a few places they may share their positive experience with others. While not a lawyer, I am not aware of any federal regulation that would make it illegal or unethical to provide a homeowner who gave you a positive review with a token gift of your appreciation after they placed the review, as long as they didn’t know they would get anything before they provided the review. In short, there can be no quid pro quo.

If you have any questions about this post or other remodeler or contractor marketing questions, please contact us.

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: Remodeler and Remodeling Contractor Marketing, Remodeling Contractor Marketing Strategies and Tactics
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