Driving leads to a plumbing or HVAC business is the easy part.
The difficulty sets in once you attempt to convert them.
You may offer an amazing service but it doesn't matter if you fail to convey its value. Getting people to get in touch is a major hurdle you'll need to overcome if you wish to succeed. Luckily, you can overcome these challenges by learning how to optimize your website and experience.
The article you're on, today, shares deep insights about conversion rate optimization, site optimization, and tying it all together with your plumbing/HVAC operations to help you make more money.
The Importance of Website and Conversion Optimization
There are stages of a customer's journey:
- Awareness
- Interest
- Consideration
- Evaluation
- Purchase
The earlier stages revolve around discovery where customers are still learning what and who's out there. In time, and with lead generation strategies, you may be one of the companies they're considering for services.
Unfortunately, a lot can go wrong during the evaluation (ie. conversion) stage:
- Wrong presentation, tone, or branding
- Price points are too high (or unbelievably low)
- Reviews and reputation creating doubting
- Site usability and experience
Online conversion rates are shockingly low across the board. That's just the nature of it all. But, that doesn't mean you need to settle for paying a ton of money bringing people in to let them slip through.
Site/conversion optimization bumps these numbers up by removing friction points found on the site. Optimization efforts also improve upon the overall experience, leading to higher engagement. In all, the importance of optimization is that it offers a way to polish your site so it does the thing you want it to do: make you money.
Plumbing and HVAC Optimization Strategies
Every element of your site has an opportunity to be tweaked for conversation optimization. Trying to do it all will quickly get things out of control. Instead, we recommend focusing on "big wins" when it comes to CRO (conversion rate optimization).
Here's what we recommend you put in action:
Improve Website Speed
Imagine the dismay visitors have when your website takes forever to load.
Think they'll stick around? No way.
Website speed is one of the fundamentals of effective conversion optimization. This involves making your site load as fast as possible (usually in a few seconds). In doing so, the site begins funneling the visitor into its funnel vs hitting a barrier.
There are a few ways to improve site speed:
- Get better, faster hosting
- Remove unnecessary site elements
- Use a caching service/plug-in
- Optimize media elements
- Compress code and site elements
Set a baseline for your site's speed by running it through Google's PageSpeed Insights tool. Then, begin making tweaks to the site using the aforementioned tips. If anything, at least upgrade the hosting + use caching for the simplest, yet biggest impact.
Embrace Mobile Friendliness
Most Web browsing is now done through our phones. A user that hits the site and now needs to pinch & zoom, fight with buttons, and can barely see the elements will be quick to exit. So, it makes sense that your plumbing or HVAC site is mobile-friendly.
A conversion-focused, mobile-friendly site will:
- Adapt to a user's device and mobile preferences
- Arrange elements based on importance/hierarchy
Swapping over to a mobile website is a rather simple affair these days. In fact, many responsive site designs adapt to mobile browsers with ease. If not, then work with a developer to refine the theme so it looks great on mobile devices.
You could also build the site from the ground up. Or, update to a mobile-friendly theme + tweaking the design.
Localize and NAP
We talked about the customer's journey and how there's a moment of evaluation.
At this moment, you'll want to:
- Make them feel they've made a great choice
- Offer an easy way to contact your business
A great way to make buyers feel at ease (and follow through with the conversion) is by letting them know that you're local. You can do this by adding elements including local call-outs, phone numbers, addresses, photos, and more.
Localization adds a personal touch to the business site — you can do this via:
- A contact page with local + mobile phone numbers
- NAP (Name, Address, Phone) in the header or footer
- An about us with real photos of the local team
- Using local sayings, call-outs, and references
Your business isn't a faceless brand on the Internet anymore. It's local, it's their neighbor. It's a place they can swing into if they have questions or want to chit chat. They can feel assured you're not disappearing into the nether after they spend money.
You can further amplify these efforts by boosting local signals and citations. This gets your brand on local sites and platforms, helping to confirm you are, indeed, a local operation. These efforts also improve rankings and overall reputation and trust.
Leverage Lead Pages and Forms
There's always a moment of confusion when first landing on a website. This subsides after noticing site elements, content, and media. Yet, sometimes visitors can't get over it and rather back out than press forward.
Lead capture pages are an intelligent way to boost conversions when normal pages are to "busy".
- Duplicate a service page
- Strip out any/all unnecessary elements
- Tweak the heading so it has a story/hook
- Tout the benefits and customer experience
- Conclude the page with a contact form
You're building streamlined, stripped-down versions of your site pages. This removes distracting elements and friction points, letting it stick to the core message and purpose. Your copywriting shines and excites visitors to take action.
You can also leverage this concept through lead forms.
Lead forms let users input their details in exchange for something of value. This could be some free downloadable or maybe a free consultation for services. Whatever you choose this to be, it's an effective encouragement for visitors to get in touch.
Try placing the lead form in key areas like at the top (or middle) of posts, the sidebar, and in the footer.
Refine Your Call-to-Actions
CTAs are site elements that encourage users to do something.
Want to improve engagement and conversions? Try these CTA changes:
- Rework the wording so it's impactful and direct
- Try using different designs and sizes for buttons
- Place CTAs in different areas (where the attention is at)
- Use a coupon or some form of incentive tied to it
It's likely that your site's CTAs haven't been touched since the site's development. Well, now's the perfect time to give them a proper update to reflect your knowledge and expertise.
Track the difference between the old and new version while you're at it. Did the change make a difference? Reflect on that when refining other CTAs and elements of the site. Then, repeat this testing/improvement process over and over again!
We Can Help Optimize Your Website
As covered, there are plenty of ways to optimize your website. These require little more than effort and patience to see them pan out. Yet, these actions may prove challenging for those simply wanting to run their business and offer services.
Turn to our plumbing & HVAC marketing experts when you're ready to succeed.
Through collaboration and in-depth research, our experts will create a detailed plan to improve your optimization. Once approved, we'll get to work tweaking, updating, and refining your site so it turns more visitors into paying customers.
Ready to get started? Give us a call or drop a message for our free digital marketing audit.
