In this series, we’re taking on remodeling contractors and how their business can be found online by previous and potential customers. If you’re a contractor this marketing model works, we know because we use it. If you are not a remodeling contractor don’t tune out, this advice applies to all companies who want to be found online.

Joe: Welcome back to the Being Found show. You can always check us out at beingfound.com, you can watch the video of the show, believe it or not, while we’re recording we’re actually recording our screen live too, and so you can follow along and check out the same reports, stats, numbers and cool tools that we look at.

So when we left the last segment, we were starting to look at the statistics and the power, or the growth that’s coming for the remodeling industry in 2017. And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to talk about how would a remodeling contractor actually take advantage of being found. And first off, I think the way to do that is you really do have to target your own geographical area. If you’re a remodeling contractor, let’s say in Memphis per se. If you’re a contractor in Memphis, you need to define what your opportunity is in Memphis or the surrounding area.

So what I did is, I looked at the statistical data of the average spend on remodeling in the Tennessee, Memphis area. And that average spend is $2,110.00. So on average you could think of every customer that you got or lost as a $2,000.00 bill. So now that we got that, now we go, that’s a number that may or may not be worth it for me. Now let’s see if anybody’s even looking for my services. And so one of the things we’ve done is, we’ve used the Google keyword finder tool. It’s a tool that Google lets you use for free in their AdWords. You can put in any term. You hear us talk about this all the time. You can put in any term. We put in remodeling contractors.

And then you ask Google to give you ideas. What Google will then do is tell you about how many people are searching per month in that area, and they’ll tell you what kind of words they’re looking for. And so this is where you can start to get an idea of the opportunity or if it’s even worth being found. And Chauncey, as we’re looking at this, I would say the volume’s pretty decent. It’s around 15,000 searches or people typing in Google, related terms to a remodeling contractor. That’s nothing to shake a stick at.

Chauncey: No, it’s not. And the growth on that is, well I mean even when you were talking about a smaller amount of 2% you know, I mean $2,000.00, if you think about the population in an area like Memphis, that’s multiple calls a day of $2,000.00. So establishing these terms, this is your channel in. And frankly, it’s your most reliable channel in.

Joe: If I’m a remodeling contractor, I’m thinking it’s crazy if I’m not being found. So let’s talk about what some of the opportunities to be found are and what they might mean to someone, Chauncey. Let’s break this down a little bit.

One of the first things we want to do is figure out the opportunity, so we can see one of the terms is remodeling contractors. We can see that’s one of the main ideas that people are looking for, but we can also see terms like bathroom remodel. There are 880 searches for bathroom remodel. So-

Chauncey: Bring up your screen would you?

Joe: Yeah. Can you not see my screen, Chauncey?

Chauncey: I can see the map.

Joe: A-ha. Because I’m not showing you the picture. This is what happens when you go live. Okay, so I’m going to do this while we’re going. I’m going to keep going through the show Chauncey and I’ll pull this up for you.

Chauncey: No hurry.

Joe: But essentially, there are 880 people looking for bathroom remodel.

Chauncey: Right, in a given area.

Joe: In a given area. But the thing is Chauncey, that’s high competition. This tool is telling us that it’s high competition right? So now if it’s high competition, what does that mean for the opportunity? What do we do, how do we look at a term like bathroom remodel, which, there’s 880 searches a month. Which, if I’m a contractor who does remodeling, I’m happy to know that there’s 880 people looking for that specific term. But when I see that it’s high competition, that makes me start to realize I may not be able to win, I may not be found on that term.

How do I tell my marketing team, or how do I strategize this to recognize whether that’s going to be valuable to me or not?

Chauncey: Well it is valuable to you. For one, you’re looking in the Google keywords tool, which is absolutely helpful. But when that says high competition, you can relate that to the amount of traffic that’s coming through, but really what it means is there’s a lot of competition for that key phrase because there’s a lot of traffic associated with it. So high competition means that there’s a lot of bidding war going on for that key phrase.

So being available, you definitely want to be there, that is what you want to target, first and foremost. And another thing to take into consideration is the way that the world has gone to mobile. People are constantly thinking in terms of my city. What I’m not showing up number one in my city, but, your mobile phone is actually a cellular phone, and your city is made up of a lot of different cells. And Google is utilizing the cells. They’re not utilizing your city.

And so, you are still ranking higher for people in your area searching for mobile devices and from their computers and from their IP addresses. Just because somebody else is ranking number one 20 blocks away, it doesn’t mean that they’re ranking number one where you’re sitting.

Joe: More and more, I talk about this earlier in the show, more and more I’m seeing in the statistics of the back end of marketing campaigns, that we have shifted to mobile way faster than I think anyone could say. And I know marketers and I know pundits and myself are saying hey, everything is going mobile, but I’ll tell you what, it’s happening big time.

Chauncey: Oh, it is. Just look at your own activities, and anybody who’s listening to this, look at your own activities. How much more mobile have you become? And chances are you’re going to say a lot. And then the other thing to take into consideration, while you can get very scientific about this, and we do, it’s long tail end alternate terms. So here we’re looking at remodeling contractors, right? And so everybody just kind of assumes that if I’m looking for a remodeling contractor, I type in remodeling contractor. But really only about 40% of people do. The other 60% are typing things like remodeling contractor near me, I need a good remodeling contractor, where’s a great remodeling contractor in Memphis.

They’re typing in all these variations. And so as you create your page called remodeling contractor, the content of your page is inadvertently answering some of those long tail key phrases. So you need this page to get started, to build from. You need the-

Joe: Okay let’s start there. Before this segment’s over, let’s make sure everyone understands what we’re talking about too. Part of being found is what’s on your website right? I mean you’ll be finding directories and your associations can talk about you, and there’s a lot of other stuff to being found. But the core to being found is do you have a web page that has the information about, let’s say, bathroom remodeling. That you do bathroom remodeling where you are. And all this. Do you even have that web page?

And so I think that’s, at least for me early on in my career that was kind of a light bulb moment where I’m like, here’s one simple thing, I’ve got to have a page for it.

Chauncey: Right. You absolutely do.

Joe: Okay.

Chauncey: Ultimately that’s the premise behind being found. In order to be found, you’ve made yourself available. So if I’m a remodeling contractor, I’m going to have a page for bathroom remodeling, because for one, it allows me to be found there, and for two, it allows people to find out more about that service I provide.

If I’m a remodeling contractor that only does bathrooms, my entire website is going to be focused at that, therefore my homepage is going to be bathroom remodeling. But if you’re offering several services, you need to add those top level service pages explaining what each of those services are.

Joe: So when a remodeling contractor’s asking why they’re not being found, or they Google themselves and they’re not being found, there is a really simple step that they have to go into, which is do they have a web page? I say simple, it’s not easy, but it is simple. There’s a lot to making sure a page ranks and all that other stuff, and our goal here is to make sure you as the business owner, know it has to happen. Not necessarily that you have to do it. So that you can communicate with your web team or your marketing team and say hey, where’s my page for bathrooms?

Chauncey: Look at it like playing poker. I’m going to play poker against somebody else. In order to play poker first, I need to have some cards. If they don’t have any cards, I won. Now if they have cards, I need to have better cards than they have. But if you’re not playing the game and you didn’t show up with cards, you’re not going to be found. You automatically lost.

Joe: Okay that might be one of the most brilliant things you’ve ever said. Somehow I have to get that quoted and pulled out of this show.

Okay, we’re coming up to the last minute of this segment, but we are going to be right back after the break. You’re listening to the Being Found show, you can check us out at beingfound.com and we’ll talk to you in a minute.