Transform Clicks into Clients

This year has been challenging for most areas of the country. Between elections and the volatile economy, many homeowners and building owners are hesitant to spend money. What is the best way to keep projects coming in?

Our analysis indicates it is significantly more cost effective to convert existing website traffic than to attract new ones. If you can increase the number of times contact information is captured from your current flow of visitors, the opportunity for new projects increases immediately.

With that in mind, we have pulled together some of the top conversion options to consider for your website.

On-Exit Pop Up. This little gem automatically pops up when a visitor moves the cursor toward the close or back button with a brief attention grabber (i.e., “Did you receive our flyer?” or “Interested in a free inspection?”). A picture is worth a thousand words, so please check out the demo below by clicking on the image. This gives the visitor another opportunity to reach out to you. Offering something of value is key to the performance of this conversion tool.

Ballpark Estimator. Since dollars are the bottom line for any business owner, our ballpark estimator allows your visitor to enter their own roof size and receive an instant ballpark range based on the pricing you select. As part of the process, the visitor’s name and email information are collected, allowing you the opportunity to follow-up and close the deal. See it in action below.

Project Map It. Similarly to RealWork Labs but at a lower cost, this platform solution allows you to showcase the other jobs you have done in the area. In addition to the location, projects are searchable by project category or even product type. It also makes collecting reviews easier. Project Map It can really help a roofing company reinforce that they are well-established.

Instant Online Messenger. We have all seen them, the little person that pops up in the corner of a webpage and asks if they can be of assistance. With a real person on the other end, you are immediately accessible to your potential client and available to answer questions as part of making an immediate conversion. Whether you choose to respond personally or have someone else do it for you, nothing beats real life, immediate responsiveness to start a new customer journey.

Virtual Brochure. Do you have a great brochure or presentation that you would like to get out to more viewers? Have it converted to a virtual flipbook, and it is immediately available to anyone visiting your website.

Illustrations. Add illustrations or multi-step pictures of processes like roof coating, foam insulation benefits, metal roof restoration, etc. to provide the business owner with a deeper understanding of the roofing system and why it is a benefit for them. This increases the visibility and interest of your existing site while simultaneously increasing your potential for conversion.

Social Media. Whether you love it or hate it, people refer to social media in making a purchase decision over 75% of the time. If you aren’t actively posting, you are losing out on those potential clients. Offer beautiful, custom graphics with regular postings on Facebook, LinkedIn, and other key platforms with a call to action and direct link back to the appropriate location within your website. This approach offers the dual benefit of increasing internal/external links and improving overall SEO within the Google algorithm.

Additional ideas are available by reaching out to us directly. We are delighted to sit down with you and discuss the particulars of your business and the ways we can work within your existing marketing framework to help convert more clients and help you grow your business.

8 Digital Marketing Strategies for Roofing Companies

Roofing contractors often lack the time and/or experience for properly launching and optimizing digital marketing initiatives for their business. As a result, digital marketing agencies are usually hired to take care of things for them. While outsourcing digital marketing activities to experts is a good idea overall, having some basic knowledge of popular strategies in the space will go a long way to ensure that you get the most value for your buck.

Why Digital Marketing is Crucial for Roofing Contractors

For any company to have an effective web presence, digital marketing is essential. While there are number of tactics that can boost your digital presence and result in more leads, some strategies are more effective than others. Here are 8 digital marketing strategies with information included specifically for roofing companies.

Keyword Research

Keyword research is not only important for search engine optimization (SEO), but it can also turbocharge your PPC and social media campaigns. You can find what your target audience or potential customers are searching for the most by conducting a thorough keyword analysis using any of the many tools available. Google Ads Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, SEMrush, Microsoft Ads Keyword tool, and Moz are some of the most popular tools for conducting keyword research.

For best results, evaluate relevant long-tail keywords such as “flat roofing companies in Chicago” as they tend to convert well regardless of the marketing approach chosen. In general, people want an expert in the specific service type needed. However, if the main purpose for your research is to go after highly competitive short keywords with higher traffic volume such as “roofing contractor”, then we would generally recommend going after smaller cities that have less competition. The reason is because even if you are successful getting a broader keyword in a large city, usually it’s only a matter of time until someone with additional resources puts in more time and money to take it away from you.

SEO

Writing keyword-specific content is one of the best ways to signal to search engines that your website is the perfect match for what people want. It’s also important that you fully optimize the title tag, meta description, alt tags on images, schema, etc. so that you can outrank competitors in your industry. Of course, there are other factors like page loading speed that can also impact how well you are favored by search engines.

While SEO has changed a lot over last 2 decades, it still remains the most effective way to get targeted traffic to your website without having to buy ads. SEO does require a lot of time, energy, and resources to get ranked on the first page, but the results are worth the effort. Once your website is ranking high for a long list of keywords, you will keep getting organic traffic 24/7, 365 days a year with proper maintenance.

Backlinks

Building backlinks is a digital marketing strategy all on its own. Contrary to what some marketers may say, it still works well as even a few links from high-quality websites in your industry can boost your first-page rankings for multiple keywords. At the end of the day, the backlink profile of your website will always matter. If a large number of quality sources are linking to your website, search engine crawlers will know that your content is of high quality and deserves a higher rank on search pages.

PPC

PPC or pay per click ads are one of the fastest methods of getting targeted traffic to your website. While SEO takes some time to deliver results, there’s no such issue with PPC as the results are visible as soon as your ad campaign is launched. Although, it’s important to keep in mind that unlike SEO, PPC involves buying ad space and the success of your PPC campaign also depends on several factors including the budget that you have for PPC.

Ideally, PPC should be used to complement your SEO efforts when fast results are desired. Otherwise, you will find the best ROI if you fully commit your resources to SEO since you can keep grabbing more and more keywords over time. The snowball effect of constantly creating new content and securing more first-page rankings pays off in a way that no other approach can.

Social Media Ads

To truly achieve success with social media advertising, many different aspects must be understood well. First, be sure to use a platform that allows for advanced targeting features like Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn. Also, keep in mind that considerable branding of your logo is needed over the long term if you’re not already well-known among the targeted demographics. People usually won’t engage with you the first time they see your ad. The average person needs to see something 7 times before they truly consider engaging.

Another key tip is that social media platforms will favor you more if you don’t encourage people to leave their platform. For instance, instead of driving traffic to your website, use the ads to encourage users to send you a direct message right within the app.

You should also change up your ads every 7-10 days with something fresh. Whether focusing on different services, introducing specifics of your unique process or showcasing the personality of your team members, it’s important that your content never gets boring to those you’re targeting.

Call-Only Ads

Call-only ads are ads that are designed to increase the number of calls to your business. When a searcher sees your call-only ad on search page, they’ll be able to directly click the call button and connect to you quickly. These ads are ideal for roofing companies as long as someone is readily available to answer the phone.

Retargeting Ads

Retargeting, also known as remarketing, refers the practice of showing your ads to customers who might have visited your website or clicked on an ad in the past. With installation of the necessary code, Google and other ad networks can store tracking data of each visitor to your site and then use this information for showing display ads across other websites and apps.

Local Search

Local search should be an integral part of your digital marketing mix. This applies to every single roofing company or contractor out there as people instinctively look for local roofers compared to distant ones.

Listing your roofing business in Google My Business and local business directories is the first step in the process of optimizing your business for local searches. The next step is to improve your listing and make it more visible using techniques that are out of scope of this article. However, at minimum, you should get as many reviews as you can and upload photos of your projects.

Conclusion

These 8 digital marketing strategies for roofing companies have all been time tested and still work well. If executed correctly, these strategies will ensure that you have a steady flow of targeted traffic, qualified leads and paying customers.

Why Use a Marketing Company that Specializes in Roofing?

Being perfectly frank, we all know there is a proliferation of do-it-yourself website and marketing programs out there. Plus, you can do a search and find literally hundreds of thousands of marketing companies willing to take your dollars to market your company. Literally, search Google under “marketing company” and see the 9,860,000,000 listings pop up.

So, why choose one with a focus on roofing? Perhaps a better way to look at it would be with an analogy. If you have a broken foot, why choose a doctor that specializes in that area? Why not search the internet for a cheaper doctor, regardless of specialty? There are probably millions available, and one doctor is as good as the next, right? Better yet, save yourself money and take care of the problem personally. No one can do it as well as you, right? Seriously???? This may be an extreme example, but no less compelling.

There are many forms of marketing, so let’s take a look at the primary options your commercial roofing company is considering.

Website

Let’s start with a little homework. Take a moment and search “commercial roofing company” and your local town name (i.e. “commercial roofing company Columbus, OH”). How many listings come up? Hundreds? Where does your company fall in those pages? Statistics show that 93% of online experiences start with a search engine inquiry just like the one you did. Furthermore, the large majority of those searches STOP on the first page. If you are falling back on page 4 or 5, how much potential business are you losing?

Let’s go over a little Internet 101 now. Google, and all other search engines, use algorithms that evaluate every site based on certain words and phrases that repeat within both the content as well as the “back of the site”. Knowing the right words in the right order helps determine ranking (below those that pay for top spots in the sponsored section). This is one area that a specialized marketing company comes into play. To rank as high as possible, without bankrupting your company with paid advertising in ineffective areas, requires a deep understanding of SEO, organic growth, content creation and the terms customers most frequently utilize when looking for YOUR roofing services.

Direct Mail

Perhaps you care considering a different form of marketing at this time. Your website is a long-term lead generator. It isn’t a quick boost, and maybe that is what your company is looking for. Direct mail is a popular option for marketing roofing services and getting immediate results. Some compare a direct mail campaign to a steroid boost. Again, there are a lot of companies glad to print up a cheap direct mail piece and mail it out for you. How do you know what to look for?

Your perfect direct mail marketing campaign will know the phrases and imagery that have been proven as most popular in your specific region. Images and text that work great in Maine may be less effective in Phoenix. Even more important than the piece itself is where and to whom it is sent. The most effective marketing campaign is one that gets in the hands of your target audience. If you are a commercial roofer, looking for more 10,000+ square foot jobs, do you want your mailing going to gas stations and other undesirable businesses or do you want to work with a marketing company that specializes in roofing and knows how to ensure only quality deliveries?

Brand Marketing

Brand marketing has become quite the trend over the past years. It is effective, building layer on layer of repeated exposure that ultimately leads the consumer to immediately think of your company when considering a product or service. This is most effectively done with a combination strategy. Your website, company printables, social media campaigns and even transportation all reflect the same logo, with the EXACT same color scheme and consistency. The best way to ensure consistency is to work with a single marketing organization.

You are a roofing contractor. Your company deserves a marketing company that understands, in a deeply fundamental way, what your business does and who your customers are. Without that gut-level knowledge and specialized expertise, you might as well hire a plumber to fix your next dental cavity.

Top Roof Marketing specializes in marketing on behalf of roofing companies. For more information on our services, please call (800) 795-2187 to speak with one of our team members and learn how we can help your company grow.

Benefits of Customer Appreciation Efforts

This time of year, our minds turn to things we are thankful for in our lives. Of those, “having a roof over our head” is always one of the first things that come to mind. Your company should be proud to share in that sentiment with millions of other Americans. Without you, those roofs would not exist or would be in poor repair, so thank you.

Of course, without your customers, you would have no business. So, your thankfulness should extend to those families, business owners, and property managers that keep your business afloat. Perhaps this is the time to reach out to them and let them know how much their trust and confidence is appreciated.

Done correctly, customer appreciation efforts can reap multiple benefits for your organization. Here are just a few.

Top of Mind Marketing

When people need or want a product or service, they are most likely to go to the company that first comes to their mind. This is the primary premise behind social media marketing and other forms of branding initiatives. The more people see your name or company logo, the more likely they are to think of your company when they have a roofing situation.

It takes an average of 5 to 7 impressions for someone to begin remembering your brand. Taking the time to send “thank you” notes, holiday greeting cards, or even regular “just for you” promotional offers. This will help keep your company in their mind and establish those necessary impressions.

Though simply sending a Christmas card every year is not sufficient to effectively establish your brand in your customer’s brain, it is a very simple and inexpensive step and absolutely should be part of your overall marketing strategy.

Special Offers

As a part of your customer appreciation effort, you can include special “just for you” offers. These may lead to increased business for your company in the future.

Perhaps you offer a free roof inspection to a select number of former customers. Providing this service, complete with a well-written, comprehensive, and concise report detailing your findings could easily lead to establishing a scheduled inspection and maintenance program for your business. This leads directly to increased revenue.

Another special offer you may consider is thanking a customer for their referral by providing a reward. Many companies now offer a monetary reward, such as providing $50 or $100 when a new customer uses the name of an established customer as their referral. This type of referral program has been shown to increase referral rates by as much as 42% for some industries.

Customer Retention

Getting new customers is all and good, but you also want to keep the customers you have already established. There are estimates that more than 65% of customers will leave a company if they don’t feel like that company cares about them. This is not an oversight your company shouldn’t tolerate.

General statistics show that it is 7x more expensive to get a new customer, in terms of advertising costs, time and energy, than it is to maintain your existing customer base. Maintaining your relationship with past customers makes good business and financial sense.

Increased Referrals

By maintaining good relationships with former and present customers, you increase the probability that they will give your company name to their friends, family members, and business associates who need roofing work done in the future.

One statistic shows that 91% of purchase decision makers prefer a business-to-business (B2B) referral. That is a powerful message! Clearly, if you can increase the probability of receiving a business referral from an established customer, you are vastly increasing your odds of closing the deal.

Other important referral statistics include:

Leads that come from a referral have a 30% higher conversion rate than other leads.
92% of consumers trust referrals from people they know.
84% of B2B decision makers start the process with a referral.
Referred customers are 4x more likely to refer others to the same business.

Final Thoughts

Your company’s customer appreciation program can reap so many more benefits than simply saying “thank you”. If properly set up and managed, it is a valuable, yet inexpensive tool in your overall marketing strategy.

If you don’t have a customer appreciation program in place, perhaps this information will cause you to re-evaluate that decision. If so, we are thankful we were able to help.

The Role of AI-Generated Content in SEO

Technology changes so fast, it is hard to keep up with it.

The advent of AI tools like ChatGPT is a prime example. Since becoming widely available in the past year, it has taken the world by storm. Finally, a tool that will help generate content quickly and professionally. What a great time saver!

Alas, if only it didn’t come with any downsides.

The Truth About AI-Generated Content

Though AI has come a long way, it is still not human.

AI develops content by the user providing a list of “keywords” they want the article to be about. The AI then searches the internet, piecing together content based on those keywords. There is no original content provided. Obviously, this is a simplification of a vastly complicated process. If you want more details, you may want to review “Pros and Cons of AI-Generated Content”.

The two main problems are that AI is not human and the content is not original.

AI-generated content is limited to the information it has been given or can research. The AI simply organizes available information in what seems to be a reasonable order and spits it out for the consumer.

Recent algorithmic changes at Google have been implemented to put an even greater focus on the quality of the information being provided. Search engines are always looking for information that adds to the consumer’s knowledge or understanding of a given subject.

As AI-generated content is nothing but a quilt work of information already on the Internet, no additional value is given.

Does Google Identify AI-Generated Content as Spam?

There are many sites that say Google considers AI-generated content to be spam and treats it as such. That is partially correct.

Google can’t tell AI-generated content from human-generated content with complete certainty. Neither can the so-called AI generator detectors. What each does is analyze sentence structure, syntax, word repetition and flow, then using an algorithm (irony anyone?) it “decides” the probability the sentence, paragraph, or page was written by a human or generated by AI. Even if a page is “determined” to be AI-generated, Google will allow it providing it consists of good, high-value information.

What is correct is that Google will penalize pages that show an excess level of poor or low-value content, such as that frequently found in AI-generated content and will either give it less value or even fail to index it entirely.

Better said by Google Search Advocate John Mueller, “It’s still against the Webmaster Guidelines. So we would consider that to be spam.”

Is SEO Affected?

If you aren’t already aware of the basics, we suggest you review our previous article “SEO 101”.

At a high level, your ability to get high rankings are based on how Google perceives the information you are providing. If the information is perceived as poor quality, you will be pushed farther down the results provided or the page won’t even be indexed and will never show up in search results. Clearly, either result directly impacts your SEO investment.

What do we do?

Why choose us?

Industry Knowledge
Fine-Tuned Strategies
Commitment to Quality

Learn More

It is our policy that AI-generated content is not acceptable in our SEO blogs or website content.

At Top Roof Marketing, we write over 300 original, custom blogs for our SEO clients every month and publish dozens of webpages on a regular basis. With this level of content development, we monitor technology carefully. Understanding what is available to support our writers, while still providing our clients with the highest quality content possible, is simply good business.

Instead of using AI-generated content, our team of writers optimize the content with things Google looks for. Things like adding alt-text to all images, the use of internal and external linking, and other techniques that may be more labor-intensive but provide a higher return on investment for our clients. This clearly works as many of our clients are on the 1^st page of Google 100+ times for multiple cities they target. We would be happy to show you proof!

To learn more about the impact AI-generated content may have on your SEO, or about the ways we help clients get on the 1^st page of Google for dozens of different keywords, call us today at 800-795-2187 or complete one of our inquiry forms and we would be delighted to speak with you further.

By the way, this was 100% written by a human being!