Roofing SEO Podcast

At Roofing Webmasters, we get calls from prospective clients who question whether it’s possible to reach their competitors’ success level. The reality is that on the internet, nobody knows the full history of a business. Sure, reviews matter. Reputation matters. But a 10th year, 2nd generation roofer with a terrible website and no reviews will not benefit from their tenure. People simply don’t care because they don’t know. You can quickly close that gap as a 1st or 2nd year roofing company with a robust website, fabulous logo, and frequent reviews.

Some people call it future-tripping or preconceived notions. But roofers coming up with reasons why their business can’t succeed is a limiting thought. Sure, competitors may have an advantage in tenure, but that doesn’t mean they’re spending thousands on their marketing campaigns. The noise in your head is often a fear-based mechanism that reduces your ability to grow. The good news is that at Roofing Webmasters, we’ve helped new clients become rockstars within only 12 months. Some roofers have left their parent roofing company and branched off as their own. They’ve found great success with SEO, web design, reputation management, and other marketing techniques.

Perception matters online, and whether you are a relatively new roofing company or a tenured one, your digital presence can make or break how consumers view your business. In the same breath, Google refrains from ascribing such designations to any company. Instead, they look for activity, like branded signaling. While consumers look at your logo, web design, content, and services, Google notices your activity on GMB, Facebook, your website, and other digital properties. When these two agendas merge simultaneously, roofers can become marketing rockstars within six months.

At Roofing Webmasters, we get calls from prospective clients who question whether it’s possible to reach their competitors’ success level. The reality is that on the internet, nobody knows the full history of a business. Sure, reviews matter. Reputation matters. But a 10th year, 2nd generation roofer with a terrible website and no reviews will not benefit from their tenure. People simply don’t care because they don’t know. You can quickly close that gap as a 1st or 2nd year roofing company with a robust website, fabulous logo, and frequent reviews.

So how do roofers close the gap between new companies and tenured ones? It’s simple. Place your resources towards marketing levers that move the needle. These include organic search, branding, and lead generation. Sure, PPC and pay per call can also help roofers in the short-term, but the SEO and branding components make the difference in regards to online presence. Addressing these crucial components allows for relatively new contractors to dominate long-time roofers. 

SEO helps roofers rank on Google SERPs, which gets free clicks to your website and other digital properties (like Google My Business). A high percentage of clicks come from the Local 3-Pack, which means you’ll need a strong organic presence with both your website and business listing. Free traffic is the best traffic, and not just because there’s no cost. Visitors who click directly on your properties are more likely to engage with your company and become repeat customers. It’s far superior to plucking one-time jobs from PPC ads. The organic and GMB aspects work together to strengthen your online brand.

Speaking of brands, Google pays quite a bit of attention to branded signals. It doesn’t matter necessarily how long you’ve been in business,s but more so that consumers are engaging with your brand. Branded engagement can manifest itself in various ways. Are people searching for your name online? Are they finding favorable reviews on Google and Facebook? Do they like your posts on social media and other online platforms? Roofers can attain each of these signals and reach the top of the mountain for pure domination.

Exclusive leads are always the best for roofing companies, and that’s driven home when you experience the difference in call quality. For example, PPC calls are usually people who don’t care much about your brand. That isn’t good when you need to repeat customers. Furthermore, PPC leads will cost money each time. If you buy leads from a 3rd party vendor, their brand gets all the signaling and will benefit from the repeat business. There’s no disputing that leads from organic sources provide the highest ROI for roofing contractors in 2021.

The post Online Roofer Obscurity to Rockstar appeared first on Roofing Webmasters.

Most roofing contractors covet high-quality leads for their business. For those who’ve been in the industry for a long time, they know that hail storms often spark an increase in estimate and inspection requests. But those calls typically go to only a few roofers within the damaged community. So how do you become one of those roofers? One of Roofing Webmasters’ top clients recently reaped the rewards of a storm in their primary service area. 

As you can see from this breakdown, organic searches are the top lead source. But a highly diverse set of leads came in through various channels. It’s important to realize that even on non-organic clicks, the user still found the phone number on the website or Google My Business page. That’s where reviews, reputation management, and brand optimization become critical. This contractor was already well-known in their community and had plenty of social proof to confirm their standing.

Organic search is hands-down the best return on investment for roofers. Organic refers to both traditional organic search results and the local 3-pack. However, the second-best ROI is something called Level 2 Branding. It may not work as quickly as PPC, but it provides a far better long-term return. Our client received several hundred hail damage leads in large part due to Level 2 Branding.

Level 2 Branding is a compilation of high-return marketing efforts, including referral partnerships, pixel tracking, and selective online advertising.

Level 2 Branding has impressive long-term benefits over time. It may take a hail storm to reveal the real impact of its reach, but even without storms, it outperforms PPC advertising. 

This roofing client shows that PPC is highly overrated for lead generation. This customer cleaned up on hail damage leads, and only a small percentage came from PPC. With years of data to support our claim, SEO and Level 2 Branding dominate PPC across the board. It helps if you have yard signs, truck wraps, and a community presence in churches and other local intuitions. PPC can never make up for branding in the world of lead generation.

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Things have changed quite a bit since Nolen started Roofing Webmasters 10 years ago. At that time, roofers would often call looking for “Roofing SEO” or “digital marketing for roofers.” After years of being screwed around by trash marketing, things changed. In 2021, most people inquire about leads for roofers. While leads are certainly a valuable currency for contractors, it is essential to differentiate a quality lead from a harmful one and find a lead source that consistently produces the former.

Living lead to lead puts roofers in a gig economy scenario. That’s one of the most significant downsides of buying roofing leads from lead brokers. While sources like HomeAdvisor may produce a quality lead now and then, the process of fighting for shared leads over and again takes its toll on any business. Roofers who generate consistent, high-quality leads from their digital properties are the ones who go out on their boat trips each year. You can do the same if you avoid trash leads.

Branded roofing leads are the best available. What does branded mean? It means the consumer found your services through one of your branded properties. Offline, this might be a lawn sign or a billboard. Online, a property can be any digital asset, including a website, a business listing, or a social media profile. Branded leads are exclusive and have a much better chance of creating repeat customers. Word of mouth is another branded channel, and one created through reputation management.

Typically, roofers look for the cheapest leads. Sometimes they forget to consider the ROI of those leads and how sustainable they are going forward. Leads from organic search provide the best ROI for several reasons. First, they are “Free” to acquire. Unlike PPC, organic clicks don’t cost money per click. Once you establish a presence on top of search results, you receive regular clicks for no fee. Over time, free clicks that become repeat customers double, triple, and even quadruple your ROI.

Sometimes “organic” search results are confused with only being the ten blue links beneath the ads and map pack. That’s not the case at all. Map listings are “organic” search results, and it is critical that roofers appear in the top 3 (in their service area) for consistent lead generation. Leads from the map pack are even higher quality than traditional organic links. Since GMB listings include reviews, contact information, and the precise location, consumers who call are almost certain to become repeat customers. All you have to do is perform great roofing services, and they are yours for life.

Once roofers understand that branding directly translates to lead generation, they begin to invest in SEO. You can check out our roofing SEO guide to learn more about the exact process and how it can help your roofing company. Ultimately, though, the change in philosophy must be rooted in a desire to achieve more remarkable results and earn more revenue. Roofing companies can choose to dominate their service area online or resort to a gig economy business style that barely keeps them afloat. The choice is yours. Click the play button below to listen to the full podcast.

The post Why You Need Leads for Roofers appeared first on Roofing Webmasters.

Getting screwed by roofing SEO companies is par for the course in 2020. The amount of disingenuous marketing “experts” has reached its peak. The sad part is that hard-working roofing contractors get hosed by whizkid marketers with bad intentions. Aside from the simple fact that roofing marketing costs too much in today’s market, the actual services are also garbage. From template websites to the PPC shelltrick, marketers are getting away with everything. Roofing SEO Webmasters has made it our focus to counteract this trend by providing affordable roofing services with strategies that actually work. We help roofers rank on Google ethically. Take a listen:

At Roofing SEO Webmasters, we understand the frustration of roofing contractors. We actually were in the service industry ourselves back in the early 2000s and got screwed around by some hack marketers who hosed us out of thousands of dollars. That’s when we decided to do digital marketing ourselves and eventually converted it into a full-time business. So unlike most marketing companies, we actually empathize with the client. We’ve been on their side of the spectrum and understand what getting screwed looks like in the world of digital marketing. We’ve made it our pledge to not screw roofing contractors who need proper web work.

The problem with buying roofing SEO services is that many so-called marketing experts are actually novices. They bought a social media marketing cost for $297 after getting remarketed to on YouTube and Instagram. They think now because they took a course from an individual who is not even an expert themselves, that they can now provide a competent service to clients. Furthermore, their focus on social media won’t help them provide SEO as it is meant to be. Social media can help SEO through signals, but it is not the foundation of SEO which involves more hands-on practices that require real training and experience.

Another problem with hack marketers is that they don’t say no to any request. If a roofer comes to us and asks us to perform black-hat SEO we tell them that we don’t do that. First of all, it doesn’t work and secondly, we aren’t going to perform a service that we have no experience with. Many of these marketing gurus will attempt to do anything you ask of them, and will then do it poorly. Worst of all, they are likely to get your website or GMB penalized by Google, further draining your bank account in addition to the overpriced yearly contract that gamed you into signing. Don’t fall for it. Always do your homework before signing a contract.

We talked a little about the signs of a bad marketing service but there are other tell-tale signs to look for as well. First, does the company or individual have a website? If so, does their website look professional? Is there a company name, address, and phone number? What do their rankings look like? If they can’t even rank on the first page for relevant keyword terms, what makes you think they are going to be able to rank your website? If you find someone on YouTube, make sure their success translates to organic SEO. You can’t simply apply a YouTube SEO strategy to Google since they are two entirely different algorithms. Let’s consider some red flags:

Once you know the name of your marketing company, perform a search for them on Google. If nothing comes up, there’s a high chance that you’ve been scammed. If something does come up, check out the website. Look over the design and content, and decide if it looks professional. If it does, make sure you search for keywords related to their business. If they don’t rank for their target keyword terms, it’s unlikely they will be able to help you rank.

If you are negotiating with a marketing company, and they bring up a yearly contract, try to avoid signing it. The reality is that any marketing expert who needs a year to prove their worth is worried that they won’t be able to deliver. In 2020, SEO should be executed within 3-months and results should be evident in a maximum of 6 months. The best contracts are month to month so that the company is held accountable every 4 weeks.

There’s no shame in giving an up and comer a fair shake, but you should always be aware of how few clients a so-called expert has. There’s no expert with 0 clients. If they call themselves a professional, it is expected that they have a minimum of 15 clients. At Roofing SEO Webmasters, we have over 250 clients. We can show our prospects existing websites that rank for relevant keywords which helps them feel comfortable using our services.

The post How To Keep From Being Screwed By Roofer Marketing Companies appeared first on Roofing Webmasters.

When it comes to roofing SEO, things have changed a lot in the last 10 years. There was once a time when Google would reward content for the sake of it. Why? Because they had so few choices of what to crawl, index, and ultimately; rank. But since the whole “content is king” mantra became mainstream SEO, everyone and their mother has created some form of web content. Since Google’s success is dependent upon the satisfaction of its users, trash content no longer does the trick. Not only does Google have countless amounts of superior pages to rank over yours, but your over-saturation of their index is also only polluting their search engine and making your website less appealing overall. In today’s Roofing SEO podcast, Nolen Walker goes off on trash SEO content for roofers and why you should transition to other forms of content that are far superior for both the end-user and Google’s search crawlers alike.

Roofers still need content marketing in 2020 but the type of content is now much more dynamic. Mediums like video, podcasts, check-ins, user-generated reviews, and testimonials are just a few of the new waves of content that roofing companies should focus on to grow their business. An inherent problem with text-based content is that it’s boring. But quality text content can actually still serve a purpose. However, the vast majority of content published online in 2020 is pure and unadulterated garbage. And no other industry is more guilty of exercising this practice than roofing contractors. Luckily, they now have new ideas about what content is.

If you didn’t know by now, reputation management for roofers is very important. But one aspect of reputation is proof. And with online check-ins powered by BrandRevu, roofers can enjoy the social proof of job site check-ins. Every time you perform a service at a verified location (via your BrandRevu tool) you will see that check-in populated on the corresponding page of your roofing company website. As users and Google see that you’ve worked on specific services in specific areas, they will be more confident about using your services in the future. Additionally, Google will acknowledge your location pages as legitimate since verified check-ins in the corresponding locations now populate the content of the web page. It’s a win-win for everyone involved.

When you perform a check-in, for example, you can snap a photo of your job site and of the roof you are working on. As you showcase to your audience real-time imagery, you prove your worth as a legitimate roofing contractor and gain their initial trust. When you combine images with reviews, videos, and check-ins, you begin to establish a level of credibility that your competitors lack. Images are important for SEO as well and are made more impactful by the inclusion of alt text which describes the image to Google and also to users with visual impairment. Having unique images is critical since stock photos are pure trash and will make your roofing business look like a joke and an utter disgrace to society. Furthermore, nobody will trust you. Commit your focus to images of your team, trucks, equipment, and logos.

As you may know, reviews are the integral part of the aforementioned reputation management. BrandRevu, in addition to providing check-in technology, also helps you generate reviews from satisfied customers. The software tool sends text and email reminders to recently serviced consumers with links to review your business on Google or Facebook. These reviews are then showcased on your roofing contractor website for potential customers to see. Not only is this beneficial for SEO purposes, but also for conversion rate optimization. The best part about reviews is that they are generated by verified users, rather than a roofing company or their hack content writer. Prospects are way more engaged with how a previous job went than how great your content writer can describe your services.

YouTube is one of the largest platforms on the internet and a place where consumers spend much of their day. This is true both through mobile devices as well as desktop computers. Embedding YouTube videos on your website is beneficial for multiple reasons. First, Google ranks videos in a separate algorithm on its search engine. Surrounding your video with other forms of contextual content, helps it rank as a video, and vice versa. When you integrate Google and YouTube you can get great results on both platforms. In addition, website users are more likely to engage with visual content. If you can show one of your services or provide an inspirational description, on camera, you are far more likely to succeed with converting web traffic into lead generation for roofers. 2020 is the time to appeal to users visually.

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