Your website needs to be built strategically to rank on Google. Search engine marketing (SEM) is pivotal for the success of your home service business. When people need home services, the first place they look is Google. 

40% of home service clients who call from search make a purchase. That’s no coincidence; When people search for home services, they’re looking for an immediate quote. Having a website that doesn’t have the right pages or enough information means losing the kind of leads you’re looking for. However, with a little renovation to your website, you can ensure that not only are you ranking on Google, but consistently converting leads to clients. 

Pages to Include

People searching for your services are looking for quick, straightforward, and detailed information. You need to give clients enough information to trust you. Clients need to quickly decide if they want to book a job with your company or one of your competitors. 

When it comes to the pages you include, don’t reinvent the wheel. Follow the industry standard. That way, when users come to your website, they will instinctively know where to find what they need. A typical home service website will have between 15-20 pages. Anything less than 10 pages and your website won’t fully encompass your business. 

The pages you see on home service websites tend to fall into 3 buckets: Your home page, Informational pages, and sales pages. All these pages work together to ensure you’re converting leads into sales.

Home Page

It might seem like a no brainer to include a homepage on your website. But, if your home page isn't directing users where it's supposed to, you might as well not have one. It takes seven seconds for your business to make a long-lasting first impression. People are quick to lose interest; if they don't see everything they need on a home page right away, they will click off.

The goal for your home page is to help the business rank on Google when people are searching for your name and direct traffic to appropriate pages on the site. This means your website needs to capture the searcher's attention and clearly display how to get information for whatever service they're looking for. Fail to meet these criteria, and people will abandon your website to book with your competitor. 

We have written an entire article on how you make sure your website will impress from the drop. 

Informational Pages

Essentially these are pages that provide information on how to work with your business. Think about the types of questions people tend to ask and make that information extremely clear on your website. Calls about business hours or financing options take precious time from your sales representatives. You can easily avoid those calls by providing clear information on your website.  

The goal of these pages is to help increase loyalty with your brand and promote interactions with the users of your website. You are not going to receive a lot of conversions from these pages on their own. However, when written well, it helps increase your conversion rate on your Service Pages.

Each of these should live on its own page: 

• Our story
• Promotions
• Careers 
• Financing 
• Insurance

Sales Pages:

Service pages are your sales pages. We recommend bringing your sales and marketing teams together to plan these pages out. Essentially, it's your first sales pitch for your service. Measuring the conversion rate from each of these pages allows you to determine how well they perform.

All of your core services should have a dedicated page. But, don't try to be Jack of all trades! The pages on your website should only focus on key services you'd like to promote and grow. Otherwise, it can overwhelm users and dilute your expertise. If you’ve installed windows once, you don’t need to include it on your website. If you would like to grow window installations, yes you should include that on its own page. 

Name your service pages specifically.  Avoid naming service pages “Furnaces”. Instead, use “Furnace Repair” or “Furnace Installation.” Describe precisely what services you offer and create a new page for each service. It will rank better on Google and get more qualified clicks to your website.

As an example, if you are a Roofing Company your pages may look something like this: 

• Roofing Replacements 
• Residential Flat Roofing 
• New Construction 
• Roofing Repair 
• Sun Tunnels & Skylights

Contact Page:

Typically businesses have a "Contact Us" page. But it must include certain elements, pushing users to make contact. 

Ask yourself, how do you want your business to be contacted?  Do your Customer Service Reps book jobs more often when someone calls the business as opposed to submitting a form? If the answer is yes, you should place the phone number on your "Contact Us" page above the form.  

These pages should provide multiple options for contacting your business, plus your location and business hours. Remember to ensure your name, address, and phone number are listed exactly the same on your contact us page as is shown on Google My Business (and everywhere else online). If they are not exactly the same it could hurt your SEO rankings.

Do Your Research

To get the best possible results from the pages on your website, we recommend taking a bit of time to research what's working within your industry and service area. To start, take a look at what the competition is doing. Determine your top 5 competitors by Googling similar services.  

Take a look at the pages they have. Look at each page's content to determine if you want to add or subtract from your pages based on what the competition provides. Now, let's take it a step further and look at some solid data.  

You can see which pages are ranking well on each competitor's website using  SEMrush. They even offer a free 7-day trial, so it won't cost you a penny. By seeing which pages are performing well for others in your service area, you can apply similar principles to your pages.  

Next, it's time to look at your website. You can use Google Analytics to find out which of your pages are getting the most traffic. You can then build up these pages or remove them if they aren't ranking.

Make Your Pages Rich

When we say make your pages rich, we mean rich with information. Users should be able to land on any page and have enough information to move forward with a purchase. This ensures that no matter what page people land on from a search engine, you've provided them with everything they need to understand your business and how you can solve their problem.

What we recommend including on every page: 

• Call to action (CTA) 
• Reviews
• Testimonials
• Other services 
• Location information - Google will prefer that 
• Value propositions 
• Financing 
• Contact information

Follow the Rule of 3 

The rule of 3 outlines that nothing on your website should be more than 3 layers deep. To get to any page, the user shouldn’t have to click more than 3 times. After 3 clicks, users are likely to become frustrated and leave your website. So by providing rich pages, the user experience should be comfortable and seamless. Plus, Google won’t index pages if they require too many clicks. Creating rich pages is a win-win for both search engine optimization(SEO) and user experience.

Final Thoughts

Building a user-friendly website that ranks on Google is one of the best investments you can make. It’s important to remember that you are not married to the pages and content on your website. You can change things as your business grows and expands. Put tracking on your website and pay attention to the results. Your website is a living and breathing entity, so it should never stop evolving. Look at what's getting the most traffic and clicks, then give those pages the attention they deserveHow's your website doing? Book a website audit with one of our experts. It’s on the house.

Your website’s homepage is like the first handshake with a potential customer. As you know, you can tell a lot about someone through a handshake. Similarly, you can tell a lot about a company by looking at their homepage. Creating a strong foundation on your landing page allows for an impressive, functional website that will attract more customers to your service and fill your schedule. 

It takes seven seconds for you and your business to make a long-lasting first impression. People are quick to lose interest; if they don't see everything they need right away they will click off. By earning the scroll, the “hero area” (also known as the main banner section) of your website has interested them enough to inquire further. This is the role of your homepage, and you want it to work.

To see these principles in action, check out the homepage of our website. If you take complete advantage of this information you can ensure your landing page will knock it out of the park every time.

Earn The Scroll

If a company's homepage is cluttered and unorganized, no matter how skilled they are at roofing your house, or installing your electrical systems, web visitors are more likely to switch to a competitor's website. A comprehensive website demonstrates that you know exactly what you’re talking about and sets a foundation of trust with your customer. 

What a customer immediately sees on the website without scrolling is extremely important, this is referenced to as above the fold.

There are a couple of key aspects of your landing page that are the driving force in attracting customers to choosing you as their service provider.

Looking Professional

Brand focused custom photography can be an extremely effective tool in piquing your viewer's interest. Images bring the brand to life, including pictures of your technicians on the job can help push an aura of professionalism and security for your customers. Using tools like custom photography can only be as effective as you make them. Understanding who your target audience is and what interests them is crucial. It will help you capitalize on the visits you're already paying for by getting more users to convert into customers. So make sure any photos on your website will appeal to your target audience.

The Easier The Better

Consumers like things easy; the more accessible you make your service the more likely they are to book with you. A phone number prominently displayed on the website constantly reminds the viewer that you are easily accessible to inquire about your services. Utilizing an automated response system to quickly converse with prospecting customers will streamline your process.

Due to the nature of the industry, a large amount of information needs to be present to detail the methods and tools your company uses. Having easy access to this information is crucial to a good homepage. More importantly, use clear and simple wording to explain your services. Consumers of these services are already on guard, don’t further intimidate them with elaborate and complicated terminology that will only hinder them from wanting to get serviced. 

Give Yourself Credit

If your company has won awards or you have guarantees that you stand by, show them off, make sure your customers are aware of them. Not only does that build a sentiment of confidence with clients but gives your company memorable attributes that may push on-the-fence buyers towards your service.

Your awards and guarantees should be prominently placed at the top of your website or above the fold. Therefore when your website is clicked on, the first thing they see is how successful and committed you are to doing a good job.

Conclusion

In the ever-changing world of the internet, having a robust online presence is guaranteed to increase the number of customers choosing your company for their home services. A strong homepage creates a solid foundation to uphold the rest of your website and promote your company. The more people that are intrigued by your homepage, the more people that will be calling and emailing you to arrange a possible consultation for your service. The major takeaways are developing a clean and efficient website, displaying attractive aspects of your business above the fold, and displaying your information directly and accessible. Get ahead of your competition, you have to kill it with your homepage.

Last tip: Don’t just stop at your homepage! If you're driving traffic to a service page, then you need to look at your service page the same way you just analyzed your home page. Any landing pages that your ads are driving traffic should be to be built to convert.

Need help with your website? Get a free website audit. 

When was the last time you needed information quickly and used your mobile device? Probably 5 minutes ago, you might even be doing that right now. The percentage of people using their phones to surf the web has been steadily increasing for years. In 2019, 53 % of website traffic worldwide came from mobile devices.

With over half of your customers using mobile to find information on your business, it is time to prioritize website functionality on mobile devices. This is especially true since the data shows that 93% of people will quickly abandon their web search if the website does not display properly on their device. 

What is a Responsive Website?

As the name suggests, responsive websites are designed to “respond” to the screen size being used. A responsive website will take the desktop version of a website and scale it to whatever size of screen being used. From smartphones to tablets, to even larger screens such as widescreen monitors, responsive websites will make sure that everything on your website will fit to scale.

Compared to a non-responsive website this is a huge upgrade! This offers flexibility and the opportunity to ensure a website will generally fit the screen size of each website visitor, regardless of device choice.

The Downside of Responsive

Responsive web design is not infallible. It essentially shrinks or expands the current website, which has typically been designed for a desktop. When you try to fit all content from a desktop website into a condensed mobile version, the result can lead to crowded information and images that don’t scale down well, creating a poor user experience.

 People have different objectives when using their mobile devices compared to when they are sitting at their desktop. On mobile, they want to find important information quickly and easily, and often won’t be taking the time to read many of the details. 

What is Mobile-Optimized?

When a website is designed with mobile optimization, it includes the scaling abilities from responsive, yet has features specific to screen sizes. With progressive enhancement, the content shown is truly optimized for mobile viewing, and as the screen size grows, it allows for more complexity (more content added) to deliver the best user experience for each device.

How These Websites Look on Mobile

Okay, let’s see these principles in action! Here is an example of a website that is responsive on a mobile device.

As you can see the content is a bit crowded and the images don’t seem to fit quite properly.

Now, here is a website with mobile -optimization.

What you will notice here is that the page can be scanned more easily and the content is more digestible. The images were chosen specifically for a mobile experience and so they fit the screen perfectly. With this more simplified version, it is easier for users to find the information they are looking for quickly.

How Your Choice Affects User Experience

The biggest advantage of creating a mobile-optimized website lies within the user experience.  As you can see in the chart below, by using progressive enhancement you significantly increase many of the key factors for improved user experience.

Why Businesses Should Make the Switch

Improving the mobile version of your website will not just make it visually more appealing, but will actually get you more views. In 2016, Google created the mobile-first index which places a ranking priority on the mobile version of the website instead of the desktop version. What this means for business owners, is that if you want to increase your ranking on Google, the mobile version of your website needs to provide an excellent user experience. Designing your website to be optimized for mobile will ensure that no matter what device your customers are using, they will always get the best experience.  

The last tip: If you’re not sure how your website was designed, take a look at your website on your mobile phone. Are you happy with the way it looks? Is it easy to find the phone number or request a quote? Try it on a tablet or someone else’s phone. This will give you an idea of how your website performs on multiple screens. 
If you need help getting your website up to speed, book a demo with us. Designing websites for the home service industry is our specialty!