Let me ask you a quick question... Have you ever had a customer or a prospect ask you if you had a website? If your answer to them would be NO, why the heck not? It's 2008 the Internet has been around for over a decade! As a Contractor running your own small business you want your customers and potential clients to think you've got your act together.
Think about this... When someone new to your area buys a home and needs a contractors services I'll bet you more then 70% of these people will go online and look for someone before they'll try the yellow pages. People want to access information "instantly" they don't want to thumb through the phone book calling and interviewing different contractors. This wastes their time. It's not fun!
Your potential clients need somewhere to get information about your company fast. With a website they can meet you, learn about your company, learn about your services, your rates and even see some past projects or book an estimate if they like. This will all happen without you even lifting a finger. Your website does the work for you.
Interviews
Times are rapidly changing and most contractors are behind the curve when it comes to advertising and promoting themselves on the web. The simple fact is most small business contractors don't need something incredibly high-tech or expensive (this is what most design firms will be trying to sell you). A contractor just needs something that's direct, professional and showcases the services your contracting business provides.
Your website will quite easily be the hardest working member of your crew. A website will be wide awake and working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Sharing your services and information about your contracting business with everyone who stops by.
Here's a real life example for you. Just this past year my wife and I went through the process of purchasing our first home. There were a few subject-to's on the deal that required us to find and contact contractors to complete a few tasks before we could take possession. The home needed a water filtration system and some minor electrical work completed.
We were out of town buyers and lived 2 1/2 hours away. The most frustrating part was trying to find contractors in the area. Virtually NONE of them had a website. And the ones that did were so far from the first page of Google that it wasn't even funny! I had no hope of finding them.
As a potential client with money to spend I wanted to know who these contractors were... What they charged on average, Work they had completed and what I could expect of their services... The most important part was I wanted to find these contractors instantly using the Internet.
Instead I was left with just a bunch of numbers in the phone book (which we drove 5 hours roundtrip to obtain) Dialing away I called several contractors, some returned my calls, and some others just didn't even bother. The ones that did speak with me were very friendly, but I knew they were extremely busy guys, and most of the questions I was asking them could have been answered on a website quite easily. Saving us BOTH plenty of time. If they had great websites that showcased their services then the only call I would have needed to make was to book the estimate.
The simple fact is, my job was just a simple 00 water filtration system and some minor electrical work. This is small potatoes to many of the contractors out there... But stop and think about all of the other potential clients out there... Just like me that don't have any word-of-mouth referral, searching for a contractor to hire. Maybe they have a ,000, ,000 or ,000+ contract for whoever they can find and feel like they can trust first.
In this day and age I'll guarantee you that these prospective clients business will go to the first contractor with a website that answers most if not all of their basic questions first. So the real question is... Will that contractor be you or one of your competitors...?
Why Every Contractor Needs a Great Website
Carl Sorensen is an online marketer/web designer who specializes in creating, simple yet effective websites for Contractors and Tradespeople. You can learn more about his services at http://www.sites4contractors.com
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