Friday
Contractors - Are You Blogging the Right Way?
Sorry the long hiatus away from the Contractor Update. We've been incredibly busy here at ConstructionDeal.com. We've increased our marketing staff to help bring our contractors more construction jobs, remodeling jobs, drywall jobs... you name it, we're working on it.And we've got a brand new look coming to our website starting in April. You might say our website has been... Under Construction.
Also, I wanted to address something. I've been noticing a problem with a few contractors and construction industry companies out there. You've all been joining Twitter, MySpace, FaceBook and some of you are even writing blogs hosted by Blogger, Wordpress and others.
I think that's great. You're marketing your companies and getting your names and faces out there for the world to see (and find you.) But writing a blog provides a lot of valuable "content" that search engines love to see on websites. Content, especially content that is regularly updated, is what attracts Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and all those other search engines to find your website and push you up in the rankings on their pages.
If you're high on those "organic" rankings for your site, it means people could find your company and your services... at no cost. Yes, free! No yellow pages ad, no paying for flyers, no... construction lead fees. Bad for me. Good for you.
So, instead of giving all your content to Google and Yahoo!, give all that credibility to your website. You can still use Blogger and Wordpress to host the blog, but put it on the FTP server (ask your hosting company) that you're using to host your company's website.
The same people who helped you set up your site can help you make sure your blog is also on your site, giving you lots of fresh and helpful content to boost your website up naturally. This blog, for example, is written using Google's Blogger. But you wouldn't know it because the blog URL (or, website address) is www.ConstructionDeal.com/ContractorBlog. But to the search engines, even Google, it looks like it's part of our website because it's hosted on our FTP server instead of on Google's servers.
Which means I get the credit for what I write and not Google. And you should to. Talk to your hosting company if you write a blog and it's not part of your website. You can transfer everything you've ever written over to it. And it's not hard at all.
Labels: Blogging, construction jobs, ConstructionDeal.com
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I think one of the best construction blogs would be Pat Morril's Roof Life of Oregon. The whole site is built on WordPress. Morril is a natural-born blogger too.
While organic search results are free, blogs do take up quite a bit of your free time. It is a lot of work to come up with original content that will rank. I have seen all too many blogs that are nothing more than copy/pastes of eZine-type articles, which does nothing for your rankings.
I have a personal blog which started out on Classic Blogger (via FTP) back in 2004. I even hacked the theme to accept Php script (includable header, sidebar, footer). Basically, the only thing that was pushed to the server was the actual post (cut publishing time drastically).
Just recently converted over to self-hosted WordPress. In my opinion, if you are just starting out ... WordPress should be used over Blogger. There are the rarities (like yourself) where Blogger has served you well, but are hard to maintain or evolve.
You are correct in that blogs will gain you a ton of traffic. Just how targeted that traffic is, is another story. We took another route with the RoofInfo blog and separated it from the main company website (we are roofing contractors in Aurora, IL).
RoofInfo covers anything, even things that we do not deal with contractually. Outside of few links to the company site, it is pretty much devoid of any self-promotion. The linking strategy combined with a complete over-haul of the company site has produced amazing 'local' search results that are highly targeted. We are now generating 1-2 leads a day via our online estimate request form.
While organic search results are free, blogs do take up quite a bit of your free time. It is a lot of work to come up with original content that will rank. I have seen all too many blogs that are nothing more than copy/pastes of eZine-type articles, which does nothing for your rankings.
I have a personal blog which started out on Classic Blogger (via FTP) back in 2004. I even hacked the theme to accept Php script (includable header, sidebar, footer). Basically, the only thing that was pushed to the server was the actual post (cut publishing time drastically).
Just recently converted over to self-hosted WordPress. In my opinion, if you are just starting out ... WordPress should be used over Blogger. There are the rarities (like yourself) where Blogger has served you well, but are hard to maintain or evolve.
You are correct in that blogs will gain you a ton of traffic. Just how targeted that traffic is, is another story. We took another route with the RoofInfo blog and separated it from the main company website (we are roofing contractors in Aurora, IL).
RoofInfo covers anything, even things that we do not deal with contractually. Outside of few links to the company site, it is pretty much devoid of any self-promotion. The linking strategy combined with a complete over-haul of the company site has produced amazing 'local' search results that are highly targeted. We are now generating 1-2 leads a day via our online estimate request form.
I Like the comment by Ronnie, sounds like your on the right track for white hat seo. Getting on the organic search result in the home improvement industry can be quite competitive depending on your locale.
Not saying that your site wouldn't be in the search result of Google, msn, yahoo. Just saying it can be challenging to get placed on the first page in the #1 spot for most contractors.
Just saying it is a bit of a treadmill to get traffic and to get people to call you up for an estimate on a daily or weekly basis.
Sorry if I sound pesimistic, I'm not. I do want to point out don't just rely on being organic but on several different web properties on a social level.
That would mean yes, you would have to join your local merchant group and rub elbows with other merchants. Sometimes this may be the best way to get referrals for off line as well as online link building for your website.
This is what is referred as to word of mouth marketing, but you can use the internet as the medium.
West Coast Vinyl
Not saying that your site wouldn't be in the search result of Google, msn, yahoo. Just saying it can be challenging to get placed on the first page in the #1 spot for most contractors.
Just saying it is a bit of a treadmill to get traffic and to get people to call you up for an estimate on a daily or weekly basis.
Sorry if I sound pesimistic, I'm not. I do want to point out don't just rely on being organic but on several different web properties on a social level.
That would mean yes, you would have to join your local merchant group and rub elbows with other merchants. Sometimes this may be the best way to get referrals for off line as well as online link building for your website.
This is what is referred as to word of mouth marketing, but you can use the internet as the medium.
West Coast Vinyl
You make an excellant point; I've always shared those sentiments. Blogs, portals, and other site features are usually modular in nature and can be added to your company web site for free. Besides working in the construction industry, I do web sites as well, and have found this to be invaluable. Thanks for the post.
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