Many contractors look at a website as an unrelated expense from marketing. This is regrettable and the major reason why many websites under-perform in their sales potential. Having a website is one thing, but you do not want to scare away your potential clients. The Internet is still very much in its infancy and therefore our view of the internet is still developing. It’s been a slow process, but many contractors’ stance towards website development and marketing has begun to evolve.

Unfortunately, far too many contractors still don’t consider websites as a part of their marketing efforts. They’ll pour thousands of dollars into traditional forms of marketing but fail to properly plan and execute their website or invest in effective online marketing strategies. The beliefs that the only reason a contractor should have a website, is so clients can see that they are ‘legit’, or see some photos of work they’ve completed, is tremendously wrong thinking.

As you begin to put time, energy and money into your online presence it is important that you consider your website as part of your overall marketing plan. Instead of being viewed as just another expense, your website should be considered as a marketing endeavor worthy of being incorporated fully into the marketing budget. Contractors that take this view are setting themselves up to have a long-term presence on the Internet as well as lasting success.

Listed below, we are going to explain the different pages that all websites should have and the importance it should reflect on your potential clients.

Home Page

Every website has a home page. The home page is the single most crucial page of a site because it is the page most likely to be viewed, as well as the page most likely to send people away if they don’t like what they see. It doesn’t matter what you have beyond the home page if you can’t get visitors to click past it and into your service or estimate page.

Your home page must achieve several things:

Establish Your Brand

Your visitor’s need to immediately know where they have landed (who are you), what you do or offer (broad concepts), and you must be able to touch them in such a way that they will be interested enough to click deeper into your site and/or return at a later point. Basically, the home page needs to state your USP (Unique Selling Proposition). For example, if someone is searching for replacement windows in Ann Arbor, Michigan , and land on your page, ask yourself, “Why should they stay there?”

Show What You’ve Got

Depending on your trade, visitors need to see pictures to understand your services. Online visitors need to quickly be able to find the specific service they came looking for in the first place, with a clearly established path to take them to the relevant pages. If you can’t direct them effectively from the home page, you lose them at the first hit.

Generate Interest

If your site is not compelling, all the information in the world won’t get them to click any further. Your copy and layout must generate enough interest and give them the desire to keep digging. This is what we call a ‘Call To Action’. Each page, especially the home page, needs to have some kind of ‘Call To Action’. So, someone visits your site. They are not going to figure out what they need to do. You will need to tell them. The main purpose to A) collect their information or B) Call you for a consultation/estimate.

Establish Trust

Trust is an important building block in the online sales process. Your home page is often the first impression your visitors get of you. If your site comes across as a contractor working out of the back of his truck, then that is the way you will appear. If you want to come off as a professional company, then your website needs to reflect that. Websites with broken tables, oversized images and basically an amateurish feel is a reflection of the work you will do for a potential client. Also, besides the simple aesthetics of professionalism, you need to supply at least one testimonial on the home page. Even have a picture of the person explaining how they helped your service, will establish some credibility with the visitor.

Don’t Overload Your Home Page With Information

Pace yourself. Don’t try and give too much information on your home page. We know that every additional click a user has to perform causes visitor loss; however putting too much information on a single page can also confuse them. Sometimes forcing them to click is the surest way to establish active interest. Think about what you want a visitor to do, and figure out a way for them to do it from the home page Want them to sign up for a free newsletter? Want them to input their info for a free estimate? Want them to view your work? The most important place you want your online visitors to go is the information you want to highlight on the homepage.

Contact Us Page

Every site needs to have a designated contact information page. Even if you have your phone number, email address, fax number and snail mail address on every page of your website, it’s still important to have a full page dedicated to this exact same information. Why? Inevitably there will be people that will simply not notice the obvious and start looking for the contact page. Also, each Contact page must have an online submission form. Internet viewers are more likely to submit their information if requested then pick up the phone and call you. If they were going to do that, they may use the yellow pages. Your website is not only a sales ad, but a way for consumers to gather information not only about your company, but also about their own project.

You can use the request form to gather some information such as name, email, project interest and phone information, as well as subscribing them to your newsletter, auto responders, or mailing list. Those who don’t want to fill out the information can utilize the other ways of contacting you, but don’t be too intrusive; otherwise you’ll lose the contact altogether.

About Us Page

The “About Us” page is one that is used to provide information that instills additional confidence in your business in the hearts and minds of your visitors. The “About Us” page can be used to provide reassuring company information such as how long you’ve been in business, organizations you belongs to (chamber of commerce, BBB, NARI, etc) as well as provide bios of the main people that are in the company. You should have complete bios of the owners/presidents, but it is also good to have biographies of your leads, project managers etc. This allows the potential client to actually see/know the actual individual they will be working with. All of these things will help many visitors feel more comfortable when deciding to take the next step in purchasing your products or utilizing your services.

Product & Service Pages

The key to selling your services is taking the time to fully describe how your services benefit your potential clients, albeit windows, siding or even landscape maintenance.

Then as soon as you've piqued their interest, provide a way for them to make a small commitment to becoming your client. The home page information paired down and uses product or service pages to expound, giving additional details, testimonials, and uses, expected results, frequently asked questions and so on. These pages will allow you to tell anything that anybody might possibly need to know to make an informed purchase decision. Each service page should go in-depth of your services, products, etc. Remember, you may know what a “nailing fin” is, but 99% of your potential clients only want windows…. You need to be an educator, as well as a contractor and your website is the easiest for both you and the client.

As with the home page, don’t overload a single page with too much information about the product or service. It’s recommended that you break out information over multiple pages, each highlighting a different set of information. This ensures that each visitor can quickly and easily navigate to the information that helps them make their buying decision.

FAQ – Frequently Asked Questions

If possible, assemble a FAQ page for each product or service you offer, or each grouping of your products or services. This allows a one-stop page where potential buyers can find out just about anything they want. FAQ pages can be as long as they need to be to cover all of the potential questions someone might ask. You can also break long pages up into multiple pages with the main page highlighting each question and linking to its answer.

Site Navigation

Construction of your site navigation can make or break your website’s performance. Shoddy and haphazard navigation schemes can easily confuse visitors causing them to make that dreaded click out of your site and onto a competitor. A properly constructed navigation can help visitors easily move from page to page finding everything that they are looking for quickly and easily.

Be Obvious

Being obvious with your navigation prevents your visitors from “getting lost” on the site and not knowing how to navigate back to other important pages that may be in different sections of your site. It’s important that your visitors be able to quickly discern what page they are on and figure out where to go from there.
One of the simplest ways to display where a visitor is on your site, regardless of how deep within the site’s architecture they are, is to use breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are a set of navigational links that show the navigational path from home to the current page.
Putting all of these pieces together, much like a puzzle, allows you to present a complete picture of who you are, what you do, and how you can meet the needs of your visitors. While your website can and will function without any one of these pieces, there will always be “something” missing, and that something just might be what some visitors need to push them into that final decision to contact you. A complete website, with all the pieces in place is a much more effective website through and through.