Marketing for builders: how to elevate your tradie digital marketing

If you ask us, tradie digital marketing is something that no tradie can overlook – and yes, that includes builders such as yourself.

There are plenty of factors that go into a successful tradie digital marketing strategy.

Today, our tradie marketing experts will be explaining the power of digital strategies, and how they can make marketing for builders even more effective.

Tradie SEO, and why it’s a crucial part of tradie marketing

Google results aren’t permanent – the entire system runs on algorithms that are constantly crawling the internet for web pages, and ranking them based on their relevance to users’ searches.

SEO is the art of ensuring that your web pages are ranked highly on the searches that matter to your business. If you’re a builder based in Dandenong for example, that might mean getting your website is ranking for searches such as:

• “House builder Dandenong”
• “Building contractor Noble Park”
• “Construction services Mt Eliza”
• “Home extension builder Dandenong”

Commercial builders generate many of their leads through tenders and networking.

Domestic builders, on the other hand? That’s an altogether different story!

When individuals want to build a new home, they don’t have the connections that a big commercial client might have. Essentially, they’re starting from scratch.

And in many cases, they’re starting with a Google search specifically.

By optimising your website so that it is featured prominently on Google, you can ensure that you’re getting found by potential clients.

Of course, it isn’t enough to just get found – you need to ensure you’re being found for the right searches.

For example, let’s go back to the example of the builder in Dandenong.

While builders have wider service areas than a plumber for instance, there’s still a limit on how far from your “home turf” you can operate – you probably don’t want to be called for jobs in Ballarat, for example!

You need a portfolio

This should go without saying!

Building a house is a big deal. Naturally, clients want to ensure that they choose a builder who they can trust to carry out the job successfully.

If your website doesn’t have a dedicated portfolio section already, you need to implement one – preferably in a part of your website where they’ll be prominently displayed, and hard to miss!

What many tradies will do – builders included – is simply set up a page and fill out a list of bullet points of successful jobs. The most in-depth they’ll go is simply writing out the name of the client, and maybe leaving a small thumbnail.

If you ask us, a good portfolio goes a lot deeper.

For starters, consider segmenting your portfolio by type – this is especially useful if you’ve worked on a wide variety of projects. Residential and commercial is a good starting point for segmentation, with both types of projects having their own webpages.

Another good idea is to write out a description for some of the more impressive projects – if you’ve got something worth showing off, then by all means, show it off!

Some things to talk about include:

• Unique challenges
• Custom additions
• Completion time
• A quote or two from the client

Good marketing for builders is highly targeted

Let’s face it: construction services aren’t exactly a mass market type of service. And unfortunately, many traditional methods employ a scattergun approach, casting a wide net and hoping that at least a couple of people caught up need a builder.

If you ask us, good marketing for builders is closer to a laser.

We know what you’re thinking: won’t you be missing out on a lot of eyeballs?

While that may be true, it’s also important to remember that not all of those eyeballs will be thinking of building a new house soon. In fact, we’d say the vast majority of them aren’t!

Good tradie digital marketing strategies are based around targeting specific locations, as well as specific clients. What you lose in volume, you make up for in relevance.

Not to mention, most builders only need a handful of large projects each year to stay afloat. While volume is nice, it isn’t always necessary!

Think about content

At iformat, we’re big fans of content marketing.

Essentially, content marketing is all about creating content (written or otherwise) that builds credibility for your business and gets people to call.

The idea is that this content demonstrates your know-how and experience, and establishes your credibility and skill as a builder.

This content can take the form of a regular blog (like this one), informative articles, a regular newsletter, a news section of your website or a series of YouTube videos. And this is on top of the content on the rest of your website!

Of course, you can’t just use any old content – it needs to be carefully selected to show potential clients that you’re on the ball.

What’s more, it needs to be stuff that clients care about!

Some things you can focus on include:

• Interior design ideas and trends
• Engineering challenges
• Case studies
• Different financing options
• Ongoing or current projects
• Specific pieces of advice for home builders

All of this helps demonstrate that you know what you’re on about, and that you’re the builder clients should be choosing.

Not to mention, it also has a role in improving your tradie digital marketing – in particular, your SEO strategy!

Creating good content has a tangible impact on your search engine rankings, and can help push your website higher up on Google in addition to persuading potential clients.

Remarketing, and its role in your digital marketing strategy

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you’ll leave a website, and you’ll essentially be stalked by ads for that very site afterwards?

This is what we in the business call remarketing, and it’s a strategy that we employ often at iformat to help our tradies generate leads.

Essentially, remarketing presents banner ads to people who’ve already visited your website.

The idea is as follows: many website visitors will be in the “shopping around” phase in the purchase cycle. They’re comparing different offerings and comparing sites – as a result, they might quickly visit your site, before checking out the competition.

By essentially “following” them with ads, you keep your business at the top of their minds. When they start narrowing down the field, you ensure that yours is one of the businesses that makes the cut.

Certain businesses don’t really have to worry about this – “reactive” tradies like emergency plumbers are a good example. People often just call the first number they find (just another reason tradie SEO is so important).

However, builders like you don’t have that luxury.

Finding a builder is a decision with a lot of thought and consideration that goes into it. Potential clients have likely visited several websites for builders over the last couple of hours to compare prices and to look at portfolios.

With remarketing, you ensure that you’re the builder they remember when the time comes to start narrowing down all the candidates they’ve looked at.

Time for a case study: Blint Design + Construction

While it might be early days, things are looking promising for Blint Construction + Design!

Unlike many other builders, Blint operates solely in Melbourne’s Bayside suburbs. This is one of their major points of differentiation, as it allows them to claim a unique local perspective.

They have a laser focus on Melbourne’s Bayside – as such, iformat has also adopted a laser focus on getting Blint found for construction jobs in the Bayside suburbs.

Since Blint also sells itself as a boutique builder, we can afford to overlook searches with higher volume such as “builder in Melbourne” as that’s too broad for their ideal client.

With a new website and an ongoing SEO strategy, we’ve helped push Blint’s website to an all-time high for visibility.

In particular, the SEO strategy we’ve crafted for them has pushed them onto the first page of Google for several searches that are extremely relevant to their goals such as “Bayside builders” – a term that is searched 210 times a month!

Tradie digital marketing that guarantees results

Call iformat today!

At iformat, we’ve devised and executed digital marketing strategies for all sorts of businesses both big and small.

Many of our clients have been tradies, including builders. In fact, you could say it’s our specialty – hence the banner on this very site!

Our mission is to make your digital marketing efforts count.

In fact, we’re so confident in our ability to generate leads, that we guarantee we’ll bring in enough new jobs within the first year to cover our monthly fee, at least!

Learn more about our tradie marketing packages and services made just for you.

And once you’ve read up, you can contact iformat on 1300 88 6450 or fill in the form to get in touch with us today.