Why the Roofing Industry is a Great Fit for Search Engine Optimization
Ever wonder why your business gets called by 1000s of Search Engine Optimization companies every year? There’re are several reasons, but the first has to do with the margin for profit in the Roofing Industry. It’s pretty high, around 300% to 500%. Not only that, but the time it takes for a roofer to complete a project that pays you upwards of $10,000 can often be done under a week flat. This kind of high revenue and quick fulfillment business model is the main reason what makes it such a profitable niche. Now we do know that most roof repair jobs are going to be $500 – $2000 depending on where you live but another side of the spectrum there are full roof replacements. These jobs that can easily go over $10,000 – $15,000 which shoots the average value per customer in the roofing industry at a whopping $2500+
What it means in terms of SEO? Let’s use Long Island, New York for example:
Here is a screenshot off Google keyword planner – a free tool that anyone can use to see what homeowners type into Google when they’re searching for roofing contractors around their area. As you can see, on average the phrase “Long Island Roofing” has an average searches 590 people per month.
Let’s take a moment to understand what that means – based on data on the last year, every single month there’s an average of 590 people searching for roofing contractors in Long Island by typing in “long island roofing” into Google.
Google 3 Pack – What happens Next?
The first and the 1st thing that comes up organically is the Google 3 pack. In our testing, being in the top three spots for Maps in your location is the most important thing you can do for your business. Not only does it come up before the organic listings, but all the information a homeowner needs to make a decision right then and there to give you a call – they have it in front of them. Information such as, your previous work, how far are you located from them, your reviews, and of course most importantly your phone number. Putting aside all conversation about rankings and charts, as a business owner reflecting on how you use the Internet when you want to look up something ask yourself, do you click on the ads? Do you scroll down and click on the listings to search the website? Are you simply pick somebody from the maps? If you’re like 70% of population – the answer is maps.
The Roofing Sales Process From Online Marketing
Now let’s do something interesting, I will show you what most SEOs never really go through with. Here is a breakdown of what you can expect if you are the top three spots in maps for “long island roofing”.
I’m going to break down for you from charts and numbers to cold hard cash. Make It may get a little nerdy but it’ll be very interesting and revealing. Ready?
Ok, 590 people are searching for roofing contractors using that term every single month. Out of those 590 people, how many would actually click on you?
Well, we know that 70% of the people pick somebody from the maps. So, 590 x.70 = 413.
Now it’s left to the three of you, top three roofing contractors – all things being equal, you will have roughly 33% chance of being clicked (to increase this chance you have to increase the number of reviews have).
There we have it, 137 people calling your business from having visibility for this keyword.
Is just a simple math. We have call volume to prove it.
To learn more for exactly how many people are searching for your services around your area, call us at 347-920-9521 or for a strategy session.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Back to the sales process, you’ve got people coming to your website, 159 of them per month. The next part of the funnel depends mainly on 3 things:
- Website Layout
- Design
- Your Reputation in the Client’s mind. (The raw truth about conversion rate optimization that web designers don’t tell you)
A note about number 3 (reputation) is that, whether you have serviced somebody or not – people subliminally remember advertisements, things to assign signboards signboards, and direct mails. Not trying to make this complicated, but the point I’m trying to make is a certain part of the buying process is always going to have to do with the raw emotion that people feel when they hear your business and as a business owner you should acknowledge that.
Back to numbers, the average website that gets clicked, gets anywhere from 10% – 20% call to actions. Your goal should be to be closer to the 20% it’s not actually over it, the easiest way to control this is by the first factor which is website layout.
Here is a good example off a website layout, the call to action is above the fold. The phone numbers big and clear and placed in the right side of the page. In America, we are brought up to read books from left to right, so naturally when we visit websites our eyes glaze from the left side of the page to the right side of the page. You want your customers to see your Logo/Business name and then swift over to see the phone number.
Now, phone calls are not the only type of actions that you should expect from your website. Part of being a service to your visitors, is making it as easy as possible for them to reach out to you. In today’s world many people shop during times when they can’t make a call. Example: Susan in her job cubicle, glazing over some roofing companies in her town, basically window shopping on the net. Now, even if she likes what she is seeing, there’s no way they are going to come to your website and make the call right then and there due to her boss! She may just try to put a reminder in their head that she will come back to it later – and we all know what happens to reminders in our heads. Studies show that you can get as much as 17% more interaction if you leave a call back form.
Just this little guy right here. Now from here on forward even go as deep as you like, changing the colors of the buttons testing different things but I will let you know right now that what I just stated above here is the 80/20 of conversion rate optimization, it does not have to be much more complicated than this.
Phone Calls – The Best Part
Finally the fun stuff, phone calls. By this time if we were to go by 15% of the people who came on the website made a call, we would be at 23 calls a month. Not bad, eh? What does 23 qualified calls mean to your business? That answer to this question is obviously going to vary greatly from business-to-business, in my experience it blows my mind at least once a week to find out how many customers a business is losing by employing a lousy receptionist. Phone calls coming in from potential customers? This is the fruit of all your marketing efforts! This is where the rubber meets the road and there should be someone with some basic training how to at least ask for sale and do things like call back numbers that ring once and cut, etc.
There’re a few more quick things you can do to increase conversions here as well such as shortening or taking off the automated message filter. If you have three steps of “press 1 if you are first time customer, 2 if you are….” And a second set after they pick the first selection, Don’t be surprised when I tell you that you are losing customers before the phone even rings.
All things being equal, the close rate I hear from most roofers is 25%. 1 out of every four calls coming into your business are going to turn into some kind of job. Going by the example again, .25(close rate) x 23(number of calls per month) = 5.75 sales. This times the average the revenue of $2500 we are looking at $14,375 of revenue being added to your business every single month. There you have it.
To wrap this up, If this was for a restaurant – The value per customer in dollars would be so low that it be very difficult to track the exact return of your investment. HoweverIn this industry, just five sales can make you over $14,000 worth of revenue month after month – something very easy to approve and track. However, It is worth noting that this revenue above is not taking into account a critical factor, that is long term value of the customer. Given that you keep your relationships right, have some kind of system to follow up with your customers, whether that be email marketing, social media campaigns, or even good old direct mails sent out every now and then can increase this average revenue of $2,500 by much, much more. Your relationship with the customer does not end when the job is done, the relationship is lifelong.
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