Website Lead Generation Troubleshooting: Why Your Contractor Website Isn’t Generating More Leads

Your word of mouth is red hot, your current customers love you, and you’re an absolute pro on the tools. But your website lead generation is next to none. Sound familiar?

Chances are you need to change your perspective. Most home improvement business owners see their site as a brochure or business, but that’s guaranteed to slow your leads. People check out your site with specific problems in mind. If you can turn your site into a resource that solves people’s problems you’ll never have a shortage of leads again.

Website lead generation is hard at the best of times.

But plenty of contractors make it harder than it needs to be with websites so full of problems they actually turn potential customers away.

To make things worse, close to 80% of leads will NOT go on to become customers – and that’s across the board no matter what trade you work in. So if your leads are coming in slowly, or they’re mostly low-quality, your chances of getting more work and growing your business are next to none.

Thankfully, fixing your website is easier than you think.

It doesn’t matter what trade you work in either, because your customers all share a common trait – they have a problem and they need a solution.

If you can recognize that problem and offer yourself as the best solution, your home improvement website will become a lead-generating machine.

Here’s how you do it…

Your phone barely rings. Your inbox is mostly full of spam. And your website hasn’t brought a quality inquiry for months.

Sound familiar?

Leads are the lifeblood of your business. Unfortunately, it’s not enough to have the best products or the most professional service. Most of your customers will connect with you through your website, so it’s not your business that’s the problem if the leads are slow – it’s your website.

The most common mistake trade business owners make is to think their website is a brochure of their products and services. If you’ve got this attitude your leads will stay crap until your business goes under.

The purpose of your website isn’t to be a glorified business card, but to be an active marketing tool that brings in quality leads 24/7.

The problem is, your prospects judge everything on your site from the copy to the design, the ease of use to the overall quality. Get one aspect wrong and you’ve got a hole in your site for leads to fall through.

So here are 6 reasons your site is bleeding leads – and how to fix all of them.

Imagine going into a hardware store and telling the bloke at the counter that you’re keen to spend $1,000 on tools.

You’ve been thinking about new tools all week, and all you need is a nudge in the direction of the tool aisle.

Instead of telling you where to go, the bloke at the counter smiles and says “yes, we have tools” before walking away.

That’s what happens on your website when you don’t have clear call-to-action on each page.

Website visitors often know what they want, but they need help with how to take the next step.

It’s a HUGE mistake to assume they’ll figure it out for themselves. With plenty of businesses offering the same products and services you do, if your website makes it impossible for people to figure out how to take action on their home improvement goals, they’ll leave and find a website that makes their lives easier.

Most contractors assume their customers hate the hard sell (and they’re right).

But a call-to-action ISN’T a super hard sell. It’s an invitation for people to take the next step. If someone is looking for a new splashback, they want to know their options.

Your website could have multiple call-to-actions to suit someone looking for a new splashback, including:

• Download a FREE guide to splashback design
• Request a FREE quote on splashback installation
• Book a FREE on-site assessment and quote

Notice how all of these options aren’t pushing the hard sell. They’re giving prospects a clear reason to take the next step, and directing them to take that next step which will send your conversion rate up.

Keen to get more work through your site? Use these simple tips to boost your conversion rate and grow your business

With these types of buttons on your website, you’ll start generating more leads from people looking to spend their money. Instead of losing interested prospects who couldn’t figure out what to do next and went looking for your competition instead.

TRADIE DIGITAL TIP: If your call-to-action (CTA) isn’t easily found within 4 seconds of someone landing on your site, you’ll keep losing leads.

No matter what trade you work in, your customers prefer to deal with people, not bland businesses.

No one wants to reach out to a home improvement business that speaks exclusively in buzzwords and uses crappy stock photos on its site. When someone is trusting you to come into their home or business, they want to see the REAL you.

The two most common ways that home improvement websites lose leads through a lack of authenticity are:

• The copy feels like it was written by robots
• The design is a free template that 4,675 other trade businesses use

The challenge of losing leads thanks to a lack of authenticity is that most of the time you won’t even notice, as prospects land on your site and leave quickly when they don’t feel a connection to your business. While you start slashing your prices and working overtime on weekends to try and give people a reason to get in touch, it’s actually a low-quality website that’s bleeding leads.

Put simply, your customers want to do business with businesses they trust – because trust is the currency of the internet.

To become a more authentic business and build more trust, considering adding:

• Customer testimonials in the form of videos
• Real images from past projects or of your team
• Changes to your website template to stand out
• Copy that’s more informal and casual because that’s how your customers speak

The more REAL people, REAL customers, and REAL stories you include on your site, the more leads you’ll generate.

“What’s in it for me?”

That’s what every single person who lands on your site is asking themselves. Of course, you want people to reach out and request a quote or make a booking, but what are you doing to make that action worth their while?

Remember, it’s a mistake to think your site is just a fancy business card.

A great contractor website should be a problem-solving hub. It sounds crazy, but your site should show people how to solve their problems for FREE.

Giving away free info and value that solves people’s problems is the ultimate trust builder (remember, trust is the currency of the internet) and in the long run, that’s how you drive more leads.

Here’s how the cycle works:

• Prospect goes on Google looking for help with a problem
• Prospect finds your content full of free tips and tricks to solve the problem
• Prospect looks into applying tips and tricks but realizes the problem is too challenging
• Prospect considers paid solutions and weighs up their options
• Prospect chooses the business that provided free value from the start = YOUR BUSINESS

The more ways your site solves people’s problems – whether that’s through helpful content on your blog or free consultations and free guides to help people save money while they compare their options – the more leads you’ll generate.

People like things that are easy.

That’s why you can order food from your phone and why Netflix plays the next episode in a series without you needing to move.

People expect the same ease of use for your trade website, and if it’s lacking then they’ll go elsewhere. That doesn’t mean you need to spend your free time learning about web development to see if your site is user-friendly. Just click on a random page and put yourself in your customer’s shoes.

Is it easy to get from where you are to a contact page? A phone number? A related service? A quote request? Is this page clearly offering a solution to a problem?

Answering these questions correctly is crucial because every potential customer is on their own journey – known as the buyer’s journey.

This buyer’s journey includes the following stages:

• Awareness: “My car is getting hammered with rain every time a storm hits, I need a carport”
• Consideration: “I could buy materials from Bunnings or hire someone to build me a carport”
• Decision: “I’m going to hire a builder because it’s quick, easy and the carport comes with a 10-year guarantee”

Your website needs to be set up to appeal to prospects in each stage of their own journey, and guide them to the next stage until they’re ready to make a decision.

If a skillion roof wasn’t sloped then water would never roll to the ground, right? And if you’re not a builder that just means your site needs to have a clear direction for people to naturally move in.

If people land on your homepage through Google it should be easy to find your major services. If they land on your major service pages it should be easy to find your niche services. And when they’ve finished reading an article or page it should be easy for them to request a quote or get in touch with you.

In other words, your website’s #1 goal is to generate leads. And the way you do that is by making an easy journey from interested site visitors to excited leads.

Nervous your site is a nightmare to use? Learn what awesome websites look like (this is called your ‘Website Architecture’ and we’ll show you how to nail it)

Do you need a blog to run a successful trade business website?

Not necessarily.

But it makes a HUGE difference in earning more leads.

Just like you don’t NEED a nail gun to complete a fast and accurate roofing job, but it helps. That’s why websites with blogs are indexed (aka ‘found by Google’) around 434% more than websites with no blog.

Far from a trade secret, the more blog articles you publish, the more keywords you can rank for, the more ways for Google to find you, and the more traffic you get to your website. But getting a blog up and running isn’t just a way to bring in more traffic, it’s a powerful way to increase your leads.

How? Because your audience has problems they need help with.

Maybe it’s a crap roof that needs upgrading, smashed glass on the back patio, a dead lawn that needs some TLC. Whatever the case, they go looking on Google for help. When your blog is full of helpful, valuable content that makes these people feel heard, they’re more likely to contact YOU to help them out.

This turns your blog into a lead-qualifying machine, after all, if someone has contacted you after reading one of your blogs, there’s more chance they’re looking for your service and a quality lead.

Learn how a blog can bring new customers in month on month

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Guess how often that approach works? (Hint: It’s somewhere between zero and never).

As a home improvement business, your goal is to earn a sale or new customer. You want someone to pay you, and there’s no harm in admitting that to yourself, but don’t make it so obvious to your prospects.

Leads are extremely fragile.

One wrong move, or one red flag, and you’ve lost them. To help bring them towards a quote request or call-out, you need to give a little first. If you’ve ever popped into your local bottle shop and been offered a free sample of the latest beer then you’ve already seen this tactic in action.

Going straight to the fridge and grabbing a case is going from 0 to 100 real quick. But trying a free sample, learning about the flavors of the new beer, and then going to the fridge to grab a case isn’t such a leap.

In this example, it feels like you were always in the power position. You got a FREE sample, you had the upper hand while the beer rep told you about the product, and you chose to buy a case. At no point did you feel the hard sell, so it was easy to take each step.

That’s what YOUR website needs to do with leads.

Instead of a free sample of your products or services (which is going to run you out of business), you can offer free quotes, free on-site assessments, and free downloadable guides.

Education is motivation. ‘Free’ doesn’t mean giving away your products and services for nothing but giving away information for nothing.

Let’s say you’re a roofer.

Your customers need help with their roof, and it’s up to you to come up with a way to provide it. You already offer roofing services, so you post a status on Facebook or add a ‘Roofing’ page to your website, but the leads still suck.

Why? Because you haven’t given people a reason to reach out to you.

It would be crazy to replace the old terracotta tiles on a prospect’s roof before they paid you – because that’s giving away your service for free.

But it’s NOT crazy to go out to a prospect’s house and provide a quote on site. Just like it’s NOT crazy to send a prospect a free guide called ‘5 Ways To Save Money On Your Next Terracotta Tile Replacement’ – because that’s giving away information for free.

Prospects need to become familiar with your business before they’ll bite the bullet and become a lead. If your website is asking for too much, you’ll scare people off. Lower the stakes instead, offer to give away something for free and watch your leads spike.

Looking for a contractor website that brings in leads 24/7?

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