Contractor Websites
Internet Marketing For Contractors

Contractor Websites -- Contractor Marketing -- SEO for Contractors

We specialize in contractor marketing on the Internet and building contractor websites. Most contractors say that their biggest problem is getting a steady stream of customer calls and those much needed contractor leads. In today's world, this requires Internet Marketing -- getting customers to your contractor website and getting them to call. This may not be as true if you're in a small town. But in urban areas, your competitors are increasingly moving onto the Internet and searching for websites for contractors because that's where the action is. The most recent survey available (July 2008) found that nationwide, only 30% of customers relied on Yellow Pages to find contractors, whereas 60% relied on the Internet to locate electricians, plumbers, HVAC, and other kinds of contractors. This statistic in favor of Internet marketing for contractors has only become more lopsided in recent years.

HappyContractor was started by Kim Hopkins, who owns an electrical contracting company in Los Angeles that wanted more customers. In 1996, Kim went onto the Internet to find customers. He had started by looking for a company that specialized in Internet marketing for contractors. At the time, the Internet was only a few years old and no such companies existed. So, he built his own contractor website. Since then, he's been on a mission to learn everything there is to know about contractor marketing on the Internet -- both Pay-Per-Click and Search Engine Optimization. And it's worked -- the website of The Electric Connection usually ranks Number 1 on the search engines (just below the three Pay-Per-Click ads at the top of the page). The company is now a 25-person electrical contracting company.

Contractor marketing on the Internet requires the knowledge and skills of two fields -- contracting and Internet marketing. There are a number of companies out there that offer to build websites for contractors, manage AdWords campaigns, or do SEO for contractors. However, do they know what customers look for in a contractor website? Do they know the customer "Go Buttons" that should appear on websites for contractors? Do they know how SEO for contractors differs from that of other small businesses? The staff at HappyContractor does. They made the website of The Electric Connection Number 1 in Los Angeles and then went on to do the same for contractors across the country. Our clients in the Number 1 spot for their locality include plumbers, HVAC contractors, electricians, and general contractors.

Websites for Contractors

Check out the HappyContractor sample websites for contractors in your trade. Our contractor websites include a number of informative articles. This is helpful to customers, but also is important to boost a website's rankings on search engines. Search engines like Google rank websites, in part, on whether they provide useful information. This is in their interest, as the more useful information they provide to searchers, the more people will use the search engine.

Getting your website to the top of the search engines is the key to customers being able to find it and getting more contractor leads. But once customers find your website, will they call? Our staff at HappyContractor design customer appeal and customer hot buttons into your contractor website so that your customers will call. Our first website, for The Electric Connection in Los Angeles, is the major source of new customer calls for the company. It generates over $500,000 a year in new electrical business. You can check customer reviews for how our websites work for plumbers, HVAC contractors, electricians, and general contractors across the country.

Call HappyContractor at 800-990-5811

If you would like to find out more about whether Internet marketing will work for your contracting company, please give us a call. If you have a website already, we'll be happy to give you a free evaluation as to how it could generate more customer calls. If you are already doing Pay-Per-Click, we can give you a free evaluation of that as well. If you're new to Internet marketing for contractors, that's fine, too. Call 800-990-5811 between 8-5 Pacific Time. We can tell you all about how to get contractor leads by using SEO for contractors. We look forward to talking with you.

Here's our most recent Contractor Blog post:

Two Tips for Contractors on How to Save with Pay-per-Click

In a recent article, I wrote about how contractors can save money on Pay-per-Click. Here are two more key tips on how to save money on your Pay-per-Click campaign.

Put your contracting company phone number in your Pay-per-Click ad. Some people will see your ad, call your number and never bother to click through to your website. There was no click, so you just got a call without having to pay Google.

Turn off the “Content” option on Google Adwords. Google Adwords places ads in two settings. Let’s say a searcher types in “plumber Topeka.” Google will show him thousands of websites about Topeka plumbers plus at the top and right side Adwords ads for Topeka plumbers. So far, so good.

You’ve probably also noticed lots of ads on webpages that you visit. Let’s say you surf over to a weather website for your city. While you’re looking at the forecast, you can also enjoy ads for wrinkle-removal cream, get-rich-quick schemes, etc. These are Google “AdSense” ads. They’re Pay-per-Click ads that Google thinks might interest you. The webpage owner has an AdSense deal with Google where money will flow to both the owner and Google each time a visitor clicks on an ad. Of course, the Pay-per-Click customer pays the bill.

In fact, this very thing happened to me when I first ran Pay-per-Click ads for my electrical company in Los Angeles. I was checking out the weather forecast when up pops a Pay-per-Click ad for my company, The Electric Connection. At first, I was thrilled. There was my company name for all the world to see. Then, I became curious. What was it doing right next to the weather forecast? Someone might click out of idle interest but how likely was it that they would be into hiring an electrician at that very moment? Then, I was furious! How did this happen?!

I found out that Google’s default setting is to put Adwords ads onto any webpage that it deems relevant, in this case the weather for my city. Google calls this the “Content” option. I was paying for those clicks. I immediately turned off the default Content option so that my ads ran only if someone expressed an interest in hiring an electrician by typing something like “electrician Los Angeles” into the Google search box.

You might think, who would click on an ad for an electrician when they were really looking for the weather? Could enough people looking for the weather click on your ad to really make a difference in the cost of Adwords? You’d be amazed.

You can look at the phrases that people have searched on before clicking on your ad. Your Adwords account provides this information for you. It tells you exactly what every searcher typed into Google just before they clicked on your ad. For my electrical contracting company, I’ve found that many searchers were looking for an electrician, but some were looking for an electric razor or a contractor’s license school. Those are clicks that aren’t going to turn into electrical work for my company.

I’ve found that turning off the Content option on Pay-per-Click ads saves me money on wasted clicks without causing a noticeable decline in customer calls from my Adwords campaigns.

Click here to find out more about how you can save money on your Pay-per-Click campaign. Or give us a call at 800-990-5811 Pacific Time 9-5, to discuss your campaign. We look forward to talking with you.

Kim Hopkins

CEO, HappyContractor