Baltimore HUD Homes Blog

How to get more leads from your home improvement website

Everyone wants leads - but you know it is an amazing thing - lots of companies build websites, even spend some money on Pay Per Click Advertising (such as Google Adwords) and perhaps even pay to be listed is some directories and then wonder why they don?t get leads, or don?t get as many leads as they would hope to.

To add to their disappointment - they will often have spent significant sums on the website and employed some “talented” web site designers. The challenge is that while a lot of these web designers can build you nice looking websites (with all the bells and all the whistles) - many don?t know how to build a web site that converts visitors to leads.

Sometimes home improvement companies even write of the Internet as ?not working? - failing to realise that they actually control their websites destiny and the fact the site is not producing leads is that Nine times out of Ten - they don?t make it easy for their website visitor to give them a lead.

As an Internet Marketing Consultant I am often asked to review websites - and come up with some ideas for improving the conversion ratios (usually - visitor to leads ratio). I don’t really think the following could be considered a “trade secret” - but perhaps it is, as so many website designers are still building home improvement websites with this ?built in fault?

To increase your leads - Make It Easy For Your Visitors To Contact You.

Often a website will have a ?contact us? button tucked away in some far corner that is not easy to find.

Please, put your contact details on each page - and also ideally - strategically within the website copy.

Better still - change ?Contact Us? web form to a ?Free Brochure? or ?Free Info? or ?Free Information Pack? and you will see a significant increase in sales leads (as much as 50 - 100% increase sometimes)

You should also have clearly - and in large type have your phone number at the top of each page.

You should have both a form to fill in and your contact phone number showing.

Far too often salespeople and sales managers worry about the tyre kickers and the brochure hunters - and try to qualify their leads too much. The point of most contractor based, supply and install home improvement websites is not to sell a product but to sell visitors on the company and encourage them to request more information. (produce a lead)

I spoke to a sales manager the other day who complained how bad business was and the economy was all wrong blah, blah?..

A little later we are talking about web leads and he declares he only wants leads of his websites from people who want to have one of his sales people out for a quotation. (hence why his website only had a request a quote link)

Clearly he had not considered that some people may wish to make a ?softer approach? first - to find out more about his company before asking a sales person to quote.

Sad for him, sad for his sales people and sad for his company

Please don?t make this mistake.

Of course the above can be applied to just about all types of websites, not just home improvement websites.

Barry Dunlop is an Internet Marketing Consultant specialising in the Home Improvement Industry. Barry has real world experience of running his own home improvement companies and was one of the first in the UK to develop a portfolio of home improvement websites, which focused on lead generation. Find out more at his website: http://www.barrydunlop.com