Blog

Jul '18

The Best Way To Get Roofing Leads

The roofing business is driven primarily by one thing; leads. In the realm of roofing construction services, leads are a currency. Those who thrive in this business have diverse channels through which leads are generated and a consistent stream of prospective customers throughout every month of the year. How does a contractor or company reach that point? By establishing a long-term vision and taking the steps towards realizing it.

To generate exclusive roofing leads, a contractor must develop an infrastructure that is built to last. Compare your business plan to the construction of a roof. A faulty infrastructure will cause early roofing failure. The same is true of your lead generation process. Think about the negative ramifications of rushing through a construction or replacement. If you apply your knowledge of roofing to a long-term marketing plan, sustained success is a reasonable outcome. Roofing Webmasters helps contractors realize their vision. Check out some of the best ways to get roofing leads:

Roofing Company Website

Most leads are digital in 2018 and having a central hub for your online presence is one of the foundational components to a successful marketing plan. But not just any website will do. To really set a strong foundation, your website must have professional qualities, rather than something thrown together on a whim. Roofing Webmasters is a website design service for roofers and has experience developing successful sites for local contractors. There’s a few non-negotiable qualities that must be present for your website to achieves sustained success:

Design: a professional designer to craft a custom website for your company
Domain Name: A traditional .com domain name, preferably with your company’s name
Hosting: A reliable hosting service which hosts your website
Usability: A mobile-friendly website that is easily navigable on smartphones

When consumers in need of roofing services find your website online, they’ll be able to contact you directly. This presumes that the proper contact information is included on the site itself, including your company’s name, address, and phone number. Professional designers can even implement click-to-call functionality which allows smartphone users to click the phone number listed on the web page, and be connected directly to your office line. Once that call is placed, a lead has been produced for your roofing company, which indicates your site is working as intended.

Search Engine Optimization

But how will prospective customers find your roofing website? That’s a fair question. And here’s a fair answer; through search engine optimization, otherwise known as SEO. This methodology refers to the process of refining a website and its content to improve its ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs). A company website and SEO go hand in hand, and while other digital entities contribute to SEO as well (more on that shortly), your website is the central hub of your online presence, and therefore is critical for search optimization. Website SEO consists of:

Content: The on page content on each web page
Keywords: The placement of terms and phrases you hope to “rank” for
Meta Descriptions: Descriptions of each page
Titles: The meta titles of your web pages

While a company website is the central hub of a marketing campaign, and therefore a major component of SEO, it is not the only one. Website SEO falls under several specific categories like on page SEO, local SEO and technical SEO, and even indirectly falls under off site SEO. However, other elements are more prominent when it comes to off site optimization. For example, social media activity, digital business listings, and online reviews all make up what is referred to as off site optimization. Because link building comes from external sources, it falls under multiple categories, including both on page and off site SEO.

Pay Per Click Advertising

As sustainable as SEO is, sometimes roofers want leads immediately. While there’s no way to go from 0 to 100 overnight, there is a fast way to produce leads for those of you who are especially impatient. The method is PPC advertising which allows roofers to pay their way on to the top of Google SERPs. If you’ve ever done a Google search, you’ll recognize the results at the very top have a small box next to their link, reading “ad.” This denotes that they are a paid advertisement, rather than an organic result that was earned through SEO. PPC ads require:

Budget: A fixed budget that covers the cost of each click on your ad
Headline: An attention grabbing headline that appeals to target consumers
Landing Page: A website or single page that the ad leads to once clicked
Measurement: Real time measurement of the campaign’s effectiveness

PPC advertising is not as sustainable as SEO. Still, it works fast and can be a good way to supplement traffic to your website while you wait for SEO to take full effect. Some marketers attempt to define SEO and PPC as conflicting concepts, when it reality they are best used in concert with one another. Think of pay per click ads as a way to get your company’s name out there, and to generate quick traffic to your website. If the site in question happens to be well optimized, your chances of converting that traffic into leads grows exponentially. It’s ideal to use both concepts together.

Reputation Management

Even if you build a great website that ranks for keywords, consumers are going to check your reviews on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. Once they get to this point of the buying process, they are already strongly considering you for their roofing project, but the presence and tone of your reviews can make or break that final decision. To garner a favorable online reputation , you must establish both the presence and quality of customer reviews. Focus on these aspects or online reviews and reputation management:

Quality: Do great work and ask customers to leave a review afterwards
Response: If you have reviews, negative or positive, respond to them professionally
Visibility: Make sure you have an optimized profile on Google My Business, Facebook, and Yelp
Website Integration: Have links to your review profiles in your website’s footer area

Although Google, Facebook, and Yelp are there of the most popular review platforms, they aren’t the only ones. Be sure to check for reviews on a number of different platforms including Angie’s List, Better Business Bureau, and HomeAdvisor. When you print business cards, consider a note that asks for reviews at the bottom. Similarly, try including links to your company’s reviews portal on the signature of your emails. The more feedback, the better chance you have to rank well and generate more leads.

Perform Quality Work

Not to be overly simple, but sometimes leads derive from the quality of your work itself. For this reason, ensuring your employees are up to par with industry standards is one of the most effective ways to sustain success. The saying that “the cream rises to the top” is especially true in the roofing business. There are many fly-by-night roofers that attempt to swindle homeowners into fixing their roof after a storm, making bank on insurance money, and then fleeing to another region of the country. Sometimes the proof of your company’s legitimacy can only be proven on the ground. Focus on:

Affordability: Don’t overcharge customers
Communication: Enhance the customer’s experience with great communication
Ethics: Be transparent about your services and the time needed to complete them
Performance: Repair, replace, or restore roofs that will last

Oftentimes simplicity is the best answer to a question. When contractors ask us how to generate roofing leads, we tell them that a combination of factors will contribute to lead generation, or lack thereof. If you have a high quality company that you’re very confident in, that’s a great starting point. When combining that with a planned marketing campaign, there’s every reason to believe that leads will begin to manifest at a much higher rate. Once your company starts receiving customer inquiries from various channels, you are on your way to sustained success.

Roofing Webmasters Can Help

If after reading this post you would like to start implementing the concepts mentioned, a great place to start is Roofing Webmasters. We offer services that help roofers get leads. From website design and SEO, to reputation management and PPC, our team of marketing experts is ready to take your company to the next level. We are a competitively priced marketing company that focuses on your specific niche; roofing. We’ve been marketing roofing contractors online for years and have a large database of clients who can attest to our superior services. We hope to hear from you soon.

Handling digital marketing on your own can be challenging, and even in some cases become a detriment to your overall business. Since day to day roofing operations require undivided attention, finding time to design a website, write blog posts, and post on social media is just not realistic. That’s where the team at Roofing Webmasters comes in. We will perform each of these tasks on your behalf and allow you to focus on the quality of your roofing services and the employees that perform them for customers. Call (800) 353-5758 to learn more about the best way to get roofing leads.

Jul '18

Elements of The Best Looking Roofing Websites

Designer Includes Elements of Best Looking Roofing Websites — The Majority of Users Concur That Color, Font, and White Space All Influence Design

How much of a roofing website’s success depends on its visual appeal? Quite a bit according to research conducted by Adobe. 38% of users will leave a website they find unattractive, according to Adobe’s State of Content Report. That’s more than ⅓ of consumers and prospective customers that won’t even provide a substandard designed website with a second look. To determine if a website possesses exemplary appeal, one must first define what constitutes visual content in regards to a roofing company website.

What is Visual Content?

Visual content is any element that is visible to the user’s eye. It can refer to one or more of the following components:

Color
Font
Images
Resolution
Shape
White Space

As one might imagine, visual content encompasses several disciplines within the sphere of web design. After all, there is graphic design, user interface, and several other aspects of a roofing company website. How users perceive a website, and subsequently how well and on what level it appeals to them, can make or break a website’s impact and value. Roofing Webmasters provides website design services to contractors throughout the United States. Our services cover the full range of design elements, from graphic design, to website presentation. Call (800) 353-5758 to improve your roofing website’s visual appeal.

What Do The Best Looking Roofing Websites Have in Common?

Since appeal is subjective on some level, the user’s perception will influence what designers lean towards when crafting a website layout. Innovation is widely lauded in most design communities, but it comes with a caveat in the world of website production. Since users have grown accustomed to certain elements, throwing too much at them, too quickly, could disturb their interpretation of your website. If innovation is to be exercised, it should start subtly, and gradually work its way to more pronounced introductions. Here’s what we do know about what users perceive to be the best looking roofing websites in 2018:

They Evoke Trust

Once users have visited a website, they often form an opinion based on reasons that are not immediately tangible. When a website “feels” good, its design is evoking trust in some manner. Conversely, when a website “feels” spammy or just plain bad, it is normally reflected in design elements — -graphic or otherwise. The most appealing websites are clean and regulated from a design standpoint. There’s not too many outlandish elements, if any at all, but enough zest to hold attention. Trustworthy design elements include:

Mobile Presentation: How the website appears on a mobile device
Navigation Menus: Plainly visible menus that lead to other pages
Viewport Resolution: Dimensions that fit within the corresponding screen size

They Demonstrate Consistency

One of the least discussed but most important components of a visually appealing website is consistency. Color schemes, layouts, and graphics should be uniform throughout the entirety of the website. Sudden shifts in any one of the aforementioned qualities can cause an aesthetic disturbance of the visitor and prompt them to exit the website while tagging it as untrustworthy somewhere in their memory. In contrast, websites that exhibit uniformity in design elements, are far more likely to be received favorably, and therefore to convert the website visitor into a prospective customer. Elements that should remain consistent include:

Buttons: The style of clickable graphics should be identical
Colors: If your logo is blue and red, keep that constant throughout the site
Fonts: A font of times new roman abruptly changing into arial won’t do your site any favors

They Hold Attention

In a society of increasingly short attention spans, grabbing the user’s attention is the foremost consideration. With that known, there is also such a thing as over-doing it. Finding a balance between seizing attention and retaining the qualities of a professional roofing company can be difficult. Roofing contractors often find themselves too far in one direction, most frequently on the side of understatedness and neutrality. Here are some design elements that grab a user’s attention:

Color Scheme: There’s color combinations that work well together, and pull a user in
Image Quality: Whether it’s within the site’s header, or elsewhere, HQ images seize attention
Layout: Balance in the site’s layout can actually calm the user’s central nervous system, research indicates

They Use Company Photos

For a website to connect personally with its visitors, it must present company photos rather than only stock ones. In many cases, stock photos evoke a “cheap” feel to the website in question, and can lead the visitor to presume that quality extends to the company’s standards. Photos displaying your roofing company and its employees in action are the most optimal images to upload onto a website. Remember to optimize images for web-use before uploading them, and to add Alt Text to each photo afterwards. Stock photos can still be used sparingly and strategically, but look for ones that can be blended into the website without standing out. Aside from those, consider utilizing these kinds of company photos:

Employees: Photos of employees
Services: Images of your very own roofers performing repairs, or restorations, etc.
Vehicles: Roofers often have wrapped trucks that show their logo, which make for great images

Roofing Website Design

If your roofing company’s existing website lacks one or more of the elements above, it’s time to change your design. Roofing Webmasters offers custom web design for roofers and has years of experience producing custom websites for contractors and companies throughout the United States. With a team of in house designers, none of our sites use templates, and each of them incorporates your company’s logo (if you have one) as well as any company images you provide to us. We work closely with our clients to ensure complete satisfaction in regards to their site’s design. We don’t launch the site until you sign off on its presentation, ensuring that their will be no buyer’s remorse.

Each of our clients’ sites incorporate responsive web design (RWD) which allows them to adjust to the device on which they are accessed. For instance, an iPhone user and a windows desktop user will both be able to access the website with optimal presentation. While we focus on mobile design first and foremost, we do ensure that your pages display optimally on desktop and tablet as well. Aside from the visual components of design, we also ensure that navigation is seamless, and that calls to action are displayed prominently but in an aesthetically pleasing manner. Call (800) 353-5758 to learn more about web design for roofing contractors.

Jun '18

Midyear Review For Roofing Websites

Editor Reviews Roofing Website at Midyear — July 1st is Ideal To Asses Your Roofing Company’s Website

Closing in on the 2nd half on 2018, it’s an appropriate time for roofing companies to assess their digital marketing progress, most specifically, their company website. Hopefully the individual or company who handles your internet marketing services has incorporated measurement tools such as Google Analytics in order to produce quantifiable data for analysis. Below, Roofing Webmasters will detail checkpoints for roofers to assess in regards to their company’s progress or lack thereof. Take a look:

Behavioral Analysis

While the end goal is clearly defined (gain customers), in order to improve its likelihood, the process of getting there must be measurable. Google Analytics is a powerful tool that empowers roofing companies to measure every digital action that takes place on their website. Furthermore, it generates reports that separate the data into various contexts. These reports will be invaluable when finding areas in which your website requires improvement, and aids companies in properly investing their resources. Behavioral metrics to consider include:

Average Page Views Per Visit: The average number of pages viewed by a website visitor per visit
Bounce Rate: The rate by which users exit your website immediately after entrance
Rate of Return Visitors: The ratio by which former website visitors return on a separate occasion

Checkpoint – Have key behavioral metrics improved this year? If not, what is the data revealing?

Conversion Rate

The amount of metrics involved in marketing analysis can complicate matters quickly. It’s important to always return to the basis of marketing in general, which is conversions. The reason why roofing companies have websites to begin with, is to gain customers. To do so, all relevant metrics must lead to an ultimate goal; a conversion. Knowing this, conversion funnels should be established so that Google Analytics can track a user’s journey from website visitor to paying customer. There’s more than one way to measure a conversion rate. Some examples include:

Lead Conversion Rate: The rate by which website visitors who have completed a defined call to action (i.e. contact form, email, phone call, etc.) become customers.
Page Conversion Rate: The rate by which individual page visitors become customers
Visitor Conversion Rate: The rate by which website visitors become customers

Checkpoint – Has your conversion rate increased from January of 2018, and if so, which sources are most responsible?

Return On Investment

Marketing is above all else a numbers game. Roofers want to profit off of their website investment, and for good reason. The challenge in measuring website ROI is properly defining attribution. It’s not as simple as saying “my website made me $___ this month” since an online presence works on both quantitative and qualitative levels. For instance, a website normally improves brand awareness which leads to more sales, but quantifying this effect is unrealistic. With that noted, here are some of the ROI metrics that can be quantified:

Cost of Website: How much you pay for your website per month, per year, and otherwise
Cost Per Lead: The website’s cost divided by the number of leads generated as a result of it
Cost Per Visitor: The website’s cost divided by the number of website visitors

Checkpoint – Has your cost per lead decreased in 2018?

Website Traffic

What good is a website without traffic? Not good. A website that fails to generate visitors, let alone, unique ones, is just taking up space on the web, and worse yet, draining your marketing budget. Luckily Google Analytics can track website visitation and produce reports based on that information. As you may or may not know, not all web traffic holds equal value. Roofing websites that can attract unique visitors are far more likely to succeed from a macro-level marketing standpoint. Let’s take a look at some of the metrics that measure website traffic:

Mobile Traffic: The percentage and total number of mobile users who enter your website
Traffic Sources: Percentages of visitors, separated by their point of access
Unique Traffic: The number of unique visitors who enter your website

Checkpoint – Has your web traffic increased from January of 2018, and if so, by how much?

Custom Websites From Roofing Webmasters

Has your roofing company’s website failed to perform up to expectations at the mid-point of 2018? If so, it could be time to invest in a new service. Roofing Webmasters offers custom website design to roofing contractors throughout the United States. Our sites are integrated with Google Analytics to track and report on data in real-time. Best of all, each website is crafted for the individual client, and stock templates are never used. Our goal is to design a website that represents your brand specifically, and helps generate more leads going into 2019.

Our services are not limited to web design. Roofing Webmasters offers content marketing, organic SEO, social media management, and much more. Our websites share a common goal of lead generation. We understand the nuances of the roofing market, and what customers look for in a local roofing company. We use this data and knowledge to your advantage by placing your company in the best position to succeed online. Call (800) 353-3409 to learn more about Roofing Webmasters’ internet marketing services.

May '18

Spring is The Season For Roofing Leads

Spring Roofing Leads Graphic As the weather warms up, most homeowners begin budgeting for potential roof repair or replacement. Winter weather is one of the primary sources of roofing damage, and your potential customer’s property almost certainly sustained some extent of its damage during the coldest months. Capturing leads during spring also allows roofers to fill their schedule for the rest of spring, all of summer, and the beginning of fall. Booking jobs in advance prevents down time, and encourages a consistent flow of revenue, which helps your company reach its business goals in 2018.

Roofing Webmasters helps contractors throughout the United States secure exclusive leads. As an internet marketing company that has been helping roofers for years, we understand the seasonal fluctuation that comes with your industry. Lining up leads during the spring months is an ideal scenario for companies, and our services which include SEO, content marketing, PPC, and web design, place your company in the best position to succeed. Reasons why spring is the best season for roofing leads include:

Job Scheduling

Because repairs, installations, and replacements are difficult or impossible to complete during winter, maximizing the rest of the calendar year is critical from a business perspective. Lining up jobs for the months in which conditions allow for work to be done efficiently is the best case scenario. From a budget standpoint, your company must account for the winter months in which business will be particularly slow, and find ways to make up for that downtime in the surrounding months. Another consideration is the projected length of a job. For example, a massive commercial roof repair must be completed before winter. Scheduling impacts the following:

Budget: Allows contractors to set a defined budget and map out financial projections
Efficiency: Booking jobs in advance allows business operations to run more smoothly
Performance: Leaving time for job completion before winter ensures peak performance

Weather Conditions

While early fall is probably the most ideal roofing season, spring or summer jobs are much better than winter ones. Some jobs are going to take a long time, and contractors want to ensure its completion before cold weather sets in. Failure to finish a job before late fall or early winter can spell doom for your project. Conversely, spring and summer provide favorable weather conditions for repair, replacement, and maintenance. Sure, rain will be a factor now and again, but it will usually only last a day or two. Weather conditions impact roofing jobs in the following ways:

Duration: Repairs and replacements are completed more quickly in fall, spring, and summer
Equipment: Lack of freezing weather means equipment doesn’t have to be winterized
Quality: Winter weather can impact the quality of installation and the longevity of materials

The #1 Internet Marketing Company For Roofing Leads

Roofing Webmasters is the premier online marketing service for lead generation. The leads produced from our services are exclusive to your company and empowers you to set a schedule for your peak business months. Maximizing your market reach allows you to secure leads from every channel imaginable. Whether it’s Google (SEO), content marketing, or social media, the returns will be favorable. Each of our clients receives a custom website, optimized for mobile devices.

Investing in marketing services is not a decision to take lightly. After all, the quality of your choice will likely make or break your 2018 numbers. With this knowledge, trust should be a top priority. Who better to trust than a company that works with roofing contractors all of the time? As you might have guessed from our name; Roofing Webmasters, we specialize in internet marketing for roofers. With experts in web design, PPC, and SEO, we can help you secure leads in 2018. Call (800) 353-5758 for exclusive roofing leads.

May '18

5 Qualities of a Strong Backlink For Roofers

Roofing Webmasters Performs Actions That Help Earn Quality Backlinks

When people speak about SEO they mostly refer to on page optimization like keyword placement, and content marketing. But the most influential characteristic of a website’s search visibility is not keywords, or even content. It is inbound links, often referred to as backlinks. These connections are formed when external domains (other websites) deliberately link back to your website. Roofing contractors should be weary of the nature through which links are formed, since Google has vehemently denounced manipulative link building tactics. Before some of Google’s major algorithm updates, websites routinely purchased links as a way to improve their search ranking — and it worked. In 2018, that is no longer the case, as these tactics are now easily flagged by Google and can lead to a penalty and severe rankings drop. But backlinks still hold great influence over search ranking — when they are generated ethically. Here are 5 qualities of a strong backlink:

1) Relevant

An easy way to spot spammy links is when the source and destination have nothing in common. For example, a national content farm that posts celebrity gossip should not link to a local roofing website. Instead, links should originate from relevant sources. For example, a link from a materials manufacturer would be a sensible connection to a local roofing site. Relevant links are:

Contextual: Are exhibited within the context of the page’s topic
Helpful: Serve a purpose to the reader of the source webpage

2) Trustworthy

Links from spam sites have the opposite impact of an effective backlink. Google rates websites based on their level of spam, and determines their trust level accordingly. A content farm is likely to have a poor spam score and therefore would not serve as a helpful backlink. Conversely an established website with no spam can have a very positive impact on the page it links to. Trustworthy links are:

Organic: Did not require financial incentive
Spam-Free: Lack any kind of on page spam

3) Engaging

The fundamental object of a backlink is to provide the user / reader with a useful anecdote. The engagement level of link can be determined easily by the number of users who decide to click on it. If the link is properly integrated into the page’s content, it should encourage more clicks. Conversely, a backlink that seems random and out of context is unlikely to be interacted with by the user. Engaging links are:

Appealing: Worthy of the user’s attention
Facilitating: Ease the user’s web experience

4) Unique

Having all of your inbound links coming from a single domain is not conducive to higher rankings. The most valuable backlinks come from a unique source, unrelated to your current library of backlink sources. SEO tools like MOZ categorize unique sources as Linking Root Domains, and the number of them outweighs the number of total links. Unique links are:

Isolated: Are an individual entity
Original: The first link from a particular domain

5) Non Reciprocal

“Help me Help You” is not a mantra Google adores. Link exchanges, for lack of a better term, occur when websites form an agreement or “understanding” that they will create inbound links to each other’s’ sites. While this won’t merit a Google penalty, it fails to provide any meaningful value to either website, rendering its use ineffective. Non reciprocal links are:

Earned: Based on the linked page’s value and merit
Genuine: Born out of necessity rather than incentive

Internet Marketing For Roofers

Are you a roofing contractor hoping to earn quality inbound links to your website? If so, investing in Roofing Webmasters is a great option. We use content marketing, SEO, and social media management to foster intriguing backlink opportunities. We never engage in manipulative tactics or black-hat SEO, which will incur an official Google penalty. Instead we focus on creating the best possible website with the best possible content, which will naturally lead to more inbound links from quality sources. Although earning quality links doesn’t happen overnight, consistent and productive actions will eventually secure valuable connections. Call (800) 353-5758 for internet marketing services for roofers.

Apr '18

Should Roofers Worry About Google Algorithms?

Google recently rolled out a search algorithm update, something the search engine says they do routinely throughout a calendar year. Though some roofing websites might be affected, Google stresses that there is no “fix” for pages that suffer a rankings drop. Instead, the internet powerhouse urges web developers to focus on creating great content, a recommendation that speaks volumes about the direction of internet marketing through the first quarter of 2018. With each official statement from Google, it becomes more evident that “staying the course’ is the best strategy for small businesses that market services online.

The consensus from Google, and other marketing experts, is that those impacted by recent algorithm updates should not react at all. Micro-level changes to Google’s algorithm should not worry roofing companies, and their focus should remain on macro-level philosophies endorsed by Google, namely user experience, and responsive website design. While we can’t know exactly what tweaks are made in each algorithmic update, we do know the goal of the updates, and that’s what we can work towards in our own website development. In summary, roofing companies should not concern themselves with each Google algorithm update, and here’s why:

Algorithms Change Regularly

Reacting to every single algorithm update would mean constant changes to your website, something not conducive to brand development, search engine optimization, or customer retention. Aside from the fact that exact parameters of algorithm updates are not released publicly, being proactive rather than reactive is a better overall strategy in the long term. Google’s overarching philosophy is well documented, and websites that continue working towards it have the least to worry about going forward. Some of the ways in which roofing companies can be proactive with optimization include:

Content Marketing: Crafting high quality content through pages, posts, and social shares
Responsive Design: Implementing RWD so your website can be accessed through any device
Structured Data: Organizing content so it can be accurately interpreted by web crawlers

Google’s Priorities Are Clear

Since exact criteria is not released, crafting a website around Google’s algorithm is implausible. What we do know however, is that Google’s overarching philosophy is the enhancement of user experience, and that’s a methodology applicable to every aspect of a website. By implementing elements that cater to user experience, roofing companies can fundamentally improve their site’s ranking potential. Consistently publishing great content, and meeting the needs of your target audience with mobile usability, both contribute to marketing success in 2018. Google’s priorities are:

Mobile Usability: Accessibility to mobile users
Site Speed: Lighting fast loading speeds
User Experience: Presenting users with relevant information quickly

Roofing Webmasters

We are a leading online marketing company for roofing contractors throughout the United States. Our years of experience marketing on behalf of roofers equips us with notable insights that cannot be replicated with other services. General marketing firms often represent a wide range of industries, preventing the level of focus found with a specialty company like ours. We help roofing companies reach their online potential through SEO, web design, PPC, and social media.

For a proactive internet marketing campaign, sign up with Roofing Webmasters. Our team of web designers, content marketers, social media specialists, and PPC managers, collaborate to put contractors in the best position to succeed for 2018 and beyond. By increasing visibility on Google SERPs and generating valuable traffic through PPC and social media advertising, leads will start to increase exponentially. To learn more about Google algorithm updates, and how they affect your website, call us today at (800) 353-5758.

Apr '18

5 Ways To Improve Online Presence

Roofing contractors are often wondering “How do I establish an online presence?” The answer depends on your resources and willingness to venture into uncharted territory. If you haven’t joined the digital revolution, it’s not too late. The team at Roofing Webmasters can help you get on track in a short period of time. We offer a wide variety of online marketing services that can establish your company in its local community. Check out these 5 ways to improve online presence:

#1. Create a Website

It’s easier than ever before to create a website. Several DIY website builders like Weebly, Wix, and Squarespace offer visually pleasing templates that can be edited without knowledge of HTML. These services do not come without a downside however. Since the coding is pre-designed, sites like these tend to lack the SEO potential of a “from-scratch” website. They also present limitations over the control of your source code, as well as your hosting, depending on the setup. Hiring a professional web designer is a better choice, for the following reasons:

Brand Development: Have a designer craft your website with your company’s logo, color scheme, etc.
Custom Design: Stand out in an oversaturated market, filled with stock template websites
SEO: Rank higher on Google search results

#2. Join Social Media

The internet is different than it was 10 and 20 years ago. In 2018, roofers can establish an online presence even without a website. That’s thanks in large part to social networks like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube. These platforms offer free promotion for brands and companies across the world (not to mention paid advertising opportunities). With so much access, having a predetermined social media strategy is recommended and something Roofing Webmasters can help you with. Social media marketing can include the following:

Customer Interaction: Converse with customers through digital platforms
Media Sharing: Curate content from other sources, or share your own through posts
Social Networking: Connect with other businesses, or new and current customers

#3. Start a Blog

It seems like everyone has a blog nowadays. But research shows that blogging is beneficial to businesses. As an informal channel of communication, blogs help companies market themselves in ways that would not be possible through a traditional website. Generally speaking, there are two types of blogs, an external blog, and an internal blog. External blogs are hosted on 3rd party platforms like Google, WordPress.com, and Tumblr. Internal blogs are extensions of a primary website, and therefore hosted on the same server. At Roofing Webmasters we include internal blogs with each of our custom website designs. More benefits to blogging include:

Fresh Content: Publish new posts regularly to keep your website active
Keyword Targeting: Rank for niche topics that aren’t appropriate for your main site
SERP Indexing: Earn indexed posts that appear on Google search results

#4. Claim Your Listings

Nobody looks in the Yellow Pages anymore. Instead they look on internet directories like Google My Business, Facebook, HomeAdvisor, and Angie’s List. Claiming and optimizing your listings on these platforms can increase your likelihood of generating relevant leads. Niche platforms like HomeAdvisor and Angie’s List, cater specifically to the service industry, including roofers. Branding your company listings with a logo, description, and link to your website, can really enhance their value. Regardless of which platform you’re listed on, ensure accuracy and consistency of the following:

Company Address: The exact postal address of your business, including the suffix
Company Name: The verbatim spelling of your company name, including abbreviations
Company Phone Number: The exact phone number listing with its area code

#5. Respond to Reviews

Webmaster Prepares Internet Presence — Call (800) 353-5758 To Sign Up For Services

Review platforms closely parallel listing directories, and sometimes are one in the same. Yelp, for example, is both a listing directory as well as a review website / app. It’s no secret that online reviews significantly impact a consumer’s perception of your business. This includes the nature of the reviews (positive, or negative) along with the presence or absence of them. Companies with zero testimonials have trouble earning trust from potential customers, and usually lose out to more established competitors. One way of improving online presence is to respond to reviews you do have. Follow these guidelines:

Be Professional: Use appropriate, business-like language
Be Encouraging: Offer solutions and work towards a resolution (if negative)
Be Grateful: Regardless of the nature of the review, thank the customer for taking the time to comment

Roofing Webmasters

If you’re intrigued by any of the concepts above but don’t have the time and / or resources to pursue them, contact Roofing Webmasters today. We are an internet marketing company for roofers and offer a wide variety of services including search engine optimization, social media marketing, website design, and much more. We’ve been working with contractors like you for years and have the knowledge and expertise to establish an internet presence on your behalf.

Roofing contractors can be stubborn, and many have resisted the encouragement to establish an online presence. One reason why is that marketing companies don’t usually understand the roofing business, and how to appeal to its consumer base. Roofing Webmasters is different. As a marketing company that specializes in roofing, we understand the nuances of your market and how to best pursue lead generation moving forward. Call (800) 353-5758 to establish an online presence.

Apr '18

Do Roofing Keywords Still Matter?

Content Team Reviews Keyword Channels — Roofer SEO & Internet Marketing Are Always Evolving

If you’ve invested in internet marketing services in the past, you’ve likely been conditioned to believe that keywords are the gateway to online roofing leads. While they cannot be discounted entirely, Google’s evolution provides several reasons to reevaluate the usage of keywords. It helps to understand what a search engine, and more specifically; Google, actually is. In our race to exploit it for our own personal gain, we’ve lost sight of its primary intention, and it’s coming back to bite us. The goal of Google is to provide the most relevant information possible to its users. As its algorithm has gotten smarter, and has developed a greater ability to understand language, context, and overall user intent, the information it relays to those users has changed.

It’s poetic justice that roofing companies who’ve been attempting to generate leads ethically for years are finally being rewarded for their behavior and those that have engaged in manipulative tactics are now suffering the consequences. Still, there exists a massive grey area between websites that are designed entirely for the user’s benefit, and those whose only purpose is to trick search engines into improving their rankings. If we’re being honest, most roofing websites lie somewhere in that grey area, and the question becomes; “what should we do?”. One thing is clear, it’s time for roofing companies to start moving away from keywords, and moving towards user experience.

An Emphasis on User Intent

Back in 2012, Google shifted its focus away from its primary algorithm (PageRank), and began considering “semantic search” which means that the presence of verbatim keywords are no longer necessary to prompt relevant results. Sites stuffing”cheap roofer” in their content no longer have an advantage over websites that refrain from using such terms. Instead, websites that provide engaging and valuable content and inform users of their roofing services, prices, and contact information can still rank without verbatim keywords. Aspects of user intent include:

Context
Relevance
Semantics

For roofing websites, this means that filling on-page content with “affordable roofer” is not as important as creating a website about your affordable roofing service. What would your content look like if keywords were not a consideration? If your only goal was to inform the public about your roofing company and the services it offers, what would your website look like — and read like? These are the questions you should be asking and answering as you decondition yourself from an antiquated philosophy.

The Emergence Of New Channels

Another reason why keywords were once the be all end all of search marketing is because the top organic ranking was the only place to guarantee conversions. Today, many other channels exist in which to acquire traffic and generate new leads. Research even indicates that the click-through-rate (CTR) of organic results has diminished, as new and more engaging outlets have come to the forefront. Newer channels include:

Local 3 Pack: 3 Local results appearing on SERPs
Featured Snippets: A highlighted snippet from a chosen web page
Knowledge Graph: The top right portion of a SERP, showing a company profile
Social Media: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others

With so many new avenues to reach consumers, the premium on organic results has been somewhat deemphasized. That’s not to say it should be abandoned altogether. In fact, organic keyword ranking should remain a part of your search engine optimization strategy. The difference is that it should not be your only focus, as the manifestation of new channels has promoted diversity in online lead generation. Roofing Webmasters is eager to help you get started today. Call (800) 353-5758 to further discuss roofing keywords and what they mean for your business.

Apr '18

Hidden SEO Tips For Roofers

Roofing Webmasters Hidden SEO Tips Roofing companies who have invested in an official website have likely been faced with the task of search engine optimization. While some SEO techniques like keyword research, and NAP citations are common knowledge, others are less talked and written about. Roofing companies can take advantage of these “hidden SEO” techniques and take their online presence to the next level in 2018.

Do you manage your own website? Or do you pay someone to manage it for you? The first step to optimization is defining your goals and delegating responsibilities. It’s important to know who’s doing what, when they’re doing it, and so forth. As is the case with any business investment, properly attributing the source of your leads increases overall efficiency and revenue. Take a look at some of the hidden SEO tips for roofers:

Image Optimization

Images are a an often overlooked part of SEO, and can be the difference between a mediocre performing page, and a high performing page. There are several ways in which images can be optimized for search. Roofing Webmasters performs each one as part of our SEO services:

Alt Text: Keywords should be placed in alt text
File Name: Should be renamed to image-name.jpg
File Type: Should be in .jpg or .png format
File Size: Should be compressed using WPSmush or other tools

Featured Snippets

Every roofing company would like to rank #1 on Google. The reality though is that there are numerous competitors for a single spot. Traditionally, the only way to secure the #1 organic ranking was to have the best links, the best on page optimization, and the best off page optimization, not to mention a good reputation. There is now another way, the featured snippet:

Step 1: Pose a question in your title or header
Step 2: Answer the question in the subsequent paragraph text (in list or bullet point form preferably)
Step 3: Follow standard SEO protocol
Step 4: Hope you earn a featured snippet which appears on top of organic results

Most websites that earn featured snippets already rank in the top 10 for the given search query and / or keyword. That’s why step 3 is so important. Your entire website must be optimized — not just the section you are trying to earn a snippet for. Regardless of which, featured snippets present a new opportunity to rank #1 on Google.

Schema Markup

Ever wonder why certain search results appear more attractive than others? It’s because their data has undergone a process known as schema markup. The schema.org project was started by Google and collaborated on by some of the world’s top developers and companies. It is an agreed upon set of microdata tags that can better communicate your webpage content to Google. Examples of schema markup includes:

Reviews Snippets: An aggregate review rating of your roofing company underneath the result
Rich Snippets: Sub menus underneath traditional results
Video Snippets: Accompanying videos with search results

Roofing Webmasters

Want to take advantage of the hidden SEO in your market? Roofing Webmasters can help you get there. With our internet marketing services, we can give you the edge over competitors. In addition to the obvious optimization techniques like keyword placement, and on-page SEO, we also pay attention to every last detail, from Image optimization to schema markup. Our design team works collaboratively with our content team to form the ultimate marketing solution for roofers.

You might be sick of promises made to you by various marketing companies. They might promise an abundance of traffic that turns out to be empty (doesn’t lead to conversions). They might promise an increase in metrics (click-through rate) that once again don’t lead to conversions. The best way to ensure good marketing services is to demand accountability. That’s what is done at Roofing Webmasters with our month-to-month agreements. You are never locked in long-term, so we are constantly evaluated and held accountable. Call (800) 353-5758 for more hidden SEO tips for roofers.

Mar '18

Making Your Roofing Website Mobile

Making Your Roofing Website Mobile Digital marketing is very much a trend-based industry. The trend most at the forefront of today’s market is mobile usability. In 2018, 79% of global internet usage is expected to occur on mobile devices. Advertisers have taken note, and begun to reallocate their resources to mobile advertising, rather than more traditional desktop promotion. Roofing websites who hope to increase their revenue stream in 2018 must join the mobile revolution ASAP, if they have not done so already. The presence of a mobile website is not enough — it must be highly functional and provide a superior user experience. Most of your leads will come from smartphones, so adapting your website to fit mobile dimensions is the ideal course of action. The below factors determine the quality of a mobile website:

Call To Action

One of the most profound changes in the shift from desktop to mobile is the call to action — both how it is consumed, and how it is delivered. In today’s mobile-first age, calls to action can lead to faster interactions than were previously plausible. Because mobile users are mostly accessing your website via smartphones, they can connect with your company by phone in a matter of seconds. With this in mind, mobile calls to action should be:

Clickable: Mobile calls to action should be as simple as clicking a button
Direct: Click to call functionality can take a smartphone user directly from your website to a phone call
Urgent: CTA’s should create a sense of urgency and encourage immediate engagement

Navigation

The biggest distinction of a mobile website from its desktop counterpart is the navigation. While desktop users will be navigating websites via mouse pad, smartphone users will be navigating with their thumb or other fingers. Needless to say this is quite a difference, and one that must be accounted for in the design stage. When creating your mobile-first website, you’ll want navigation to have the following qualities:

Convenience: Users should be able to easily navigate your mobile site without exerting much effort
Expansion: Expanded menus make navigation simpler and more user-friendly
Functionality: User’s should be able to navigate your site using only their thumb

Presentation

A mobile presentation will vary considerably from a traditional desktop display. Forget everything you once knew about web design. This is a new era of internet, and mobile presentations should be a major departure from the once dominant desktop layout. Today’s users prefer to consume information as cleanly and directly as possible. With this in mind, mobile website presentations should present the following qualities:

Aesthetics: Consider your layout from the eyes of your target audience
Interactivity: Include interactive elements like videos and responsive menus
Simplicity: Less is more in the world of mobile web design

Mobile Web Design From Roofing Webmasters

If your roofing website has not adapted to the mobile revolution, Roofing Webmasters can jump-start the process. Our web design team is well versed in mobile design and creates each website with a mobile-first philosophy. Our SEO experts create compelling calls to action and integrate them within the framework of your design, which by they way, will be unique from your competitors. Unlike many web design services, we don’t use stock templates. Our designers create a custom website, specifically for your roofing company.

If you’re worried about your mobile site translating to desktop, you shouldn’t be. We utilize responsive web design so that your website will adjust to the device on which it is accessed. That means your market of smartphone, tablet, and desktop users will all be reached, with extra special attention paid to mobile users, since they are the overwhelming majority of your visitors. Roofing Webmasters is a company that knows your target audience well, as we’ve been marketing on behalf of roofing companies for years. Call (800) 353-5758 for mobile web design for roofers.