Thinking about setting up a website for your building business? If your building company isn’t online yet you should be! Getting a website is the single biggest thing you can do to publicise your business and bring in more customers. The building trade is still built on the same values it always was – hard work, attention to detail and a knack for solving problems – but the way clients find a builder has changed massively.
Websites for builders are becoming a must have business tool. People looking for a contractor these days aren’t likely to pick up the phone book. Instead they’re going to fire up their PC and search for a tradesman in their area. If you don’t have a website the chances of anyone finding you that way are pretty low. Your name is probably in a few directories, and these listings might show up in a search, but that’s not the way to get business. You don’t have a lot of control over the information that’s listed, for one thing. Setting up your own website lets you highlight your location, the sort of jobs you specialise in and any extra services you provide. You can handle 24-hour callouts? Get that on your site! If someone needs urgent repairs on a Friday night and Googles “24 hour builders Sydney Lindfield” guess who has a better chance of getting their custom – you, with a professional looking website giving loads of details about your firm, or somebody with a ten-word entry in a local business directory? It’s not a hard one to answer. If your clients are happy with your work you can get by on regular customers, word of mouth and the minority who still use the phone book, but the bulk of the work now goes to builders who impress on a web search.
What’s the best way to go about getting a website then? It’s easy enough for a big outfit – they can afford a professional marketing department to handle all that for them. It’s not so easy if you’re a small firm or an independent tradie – a marketing team is probably a luxury you can’t afford. A lot of people try to develop a site themselves. It’s not really all that hard – if you’ve mastered the building trade you can get the hang of putting a basic website together, no sweat. It does take a bit of time to learn how to do it though, and do you want to spend that time? It’s not your business at the end of the day – your business is building stuff.
At TradiesGetOnline our business is creating websites for tradesmen. We’re based in north Sydney and work with builders in our local suburbs to get them online (but we can help you anywhere else in Australia, too.) All you have to do is pick a website template; we’ll add in your logo and content, and put it all together for you. It’s fast, easy and your site will be live and bringing in customers in no time. We use Business Catalyst to create sites so you’re guaranteed a top quality website design that can be easily updated as your business grows. You’ll also get a range of tools to let you analyse your web traffic and see where visitors are coming from, edit content and add new stuff, build a list of clients, and take advantage of marketing features. It’s all easy to use, too. We know you’re busy with your core business, so our builder’s websites are designed to bring in customers and let you get on with what matters. People are searching for a builder in your area right now – make sure they can find you.
