Tuesday, September 5, 2023

Winter’s frosty grip can be a formidable adversary for painters residing in colder climates. The plummeting temperatures force outdoor projects to a standstill, leaving painters with a shrinking pool of available jobs and intensifying price competition. The result? A dip in profitability that can send shivers down any painter’s spine.

But fear not, for there’s a silver lining to those wintry clouds! In this blog, we’ve compiled a treasure trove of insights from five carefully crafted articles, each designed to help you navigate the challenges of wintertime painting. These strategies will not only thaw the stress but also keep your profits thriving year-round.

Keep it Consistent

If you don’t keep your marketing engine going in the summer, it won’t be as effective in the winter, when you need it most.  This article explains why.

Increase Your Visibility

Not all marketing requires large amounts of money.  Being more active on Facebook and networking with real estate professionals and apartment managers is free. In addition, some home service listing sites only take a percentage of a job’s revenue after it’s been completed and you’ve been paid for it.

Contact Prospects Quickly

Most customers will only extend an offer to quote a job to the first few painters that respond to them, so it’s important to be among the first to respond.

Close More Deals

When you’re competing against so many painters, it pays to know how to impress the customer during the quoting process. And remember, price can certainly matter, but not as much as trust and credibility.

Offer Cold Weather Services

Hanging Christmas Lights, sidewalk salting and snow removal are all in demand in the winter in areas where it’s generally too cold to paint.

To learn more about how ProPainter Websites can help you gain more painting business, contact us at 866-665-1605 or email us at Team_PPW@ProPainterWebsites.com.

Tuesday, August 8, 2023

We have heard several painting contractors tell us, “We don’t need a website, we are on Facebook.” If you have enough business from your current customers, you don’t need to build any more business relationships, and all of your customers follow you on Facebook, then that statement might be true.

That’s not to say that Facebook can’t be a valuable tool. It certainly can be. But, for the vast majority of painting contractors a Facebook profile will be a very poor substitute for a website. Here’s why:

People use Google to find local businesses

According to a 2023 survey from BrightLocal, “87% of consumers used Google to evaluate local businesses in 2022, up from 81% in 2021.” Google still reigns supreme when it comes to local searches. And a website is going to give you the best chance to be found on Google by potential customers. That’s because they are accustomed to typing the name of the service, such as “Painting Contractor”, into the search bar and then combing through the organic search results to look at the websites of the businesses they want to consider.

The story is very different on Facebook. Unless somebody specifically searches for your painting business by name, the only place you’ll be seen on Facebook is in the news feed of people who already follow you when you make posts. So, you are significantly limiting your audience by trying to substitute a Facebook profile for a website.

Facebook determines what posts are seen in news feeds and it doesn’t like to show business posts

Facebook has an algorithm that determines what posts a user will see in their news feed. Their goal is to give the user more of what they want so that they will stay on Facebook as long as possible. Because people interact more with posts from friends and family, Facebook is more likely to show those posts (plus paid ads) than the posts from your business.

And you are posting, right? Remember, your only chance to be seen is by posting frequently. Contrast that with a website for which you do want to make small updates fairly regularly (like adding new photos one or two times a month) but certainly don’t have to remember to post continuously.

People expect credible businesses to have a website

Right or wrong, perception is reality. While consumers may be willing to buy a t-shirt directly from Instagram, they expect more from a business that is going to have employees spending time in their home. Credibility is extremely important for home services businesses. Your website can provide that credibility.

When consumers can’t find a website for a business, they are going to think twice about calling them. They’ll question the credibility. “Is it new? Is it a fly-by-night operation? Can I trust them?” You don’t want potential customers asking those questions about your business.

You control your website, Facebook controls Facebook

Whether you build and manage your own website, or you work with a service provider like us, you get to make the decisions on the images, content, design, etc. You have a very high level of control over the messages and pictures people see when they go to your website.

On Facebook you are at the whims of what Facebook wants to do. Just like they control their users’ news feeds, they control what you are able to do with your profile. So, while you may like the “control” you feel you have over your Facebook profile today, that could change tomorrow.

It’s time to build your web presence!

While Facebook can be a valuable tool for painting contractors, it is no substitute for a website. A website is essential for attracting new customers and building credibility. It allows you to:

• Be found on Google by potential customers who are searching for painting contractors in your area.
• Share more information about your services, including your prices, portfolio, and contact information.
• Build trust and credibility with potential customers.
• Generate leads by providing a contact form for potential customers to fill out.

Don’t know where to start? We can help! Contact us today!

Friday, May 26, 2023

Have you recently heard a news report about a large company suffering a cyber attack and thought to yourself, “I’m glad that our painting business is too small to worry about those types of attacks”? Unfortunately, the truth is that you do need to worry about cyber attacks.

Now that cyber criminals have gotten as much as they could from large companies, they are turning their sites onto smaller businesses. With increased security defenses built up for medium and large companies, they are much more likely to get what they want from hitting thousands of small companies with no security measures in place.

What does this mean for your painting business? You are much more likely to be in their cross hairs. The good news is that by implementing basic security measures and by practicing caution you can greatly reduce the chances that a cyber attack will be effective.

Avoid these cyber security lapses to protect your painting business and your finances:

1. Using weak passwords

Don’t use the same password for everything. In fact, you should never use the same password twice. Don’t pick a password that someone could easily guess. Create passwords that include capital letters, lowercase letters, numbers and special characters. Please change any passwords that currently violate these recommendations right now, or at least tonight.

2. Storing passwords where they can be found

Be careful about storing your passwords in your web browser or on a personal device. If you do store passwords that way, be sure that you lock your device (computers and phones) when you are not actively using it. You should lock your device (or devices) every time you walk away. Do not write passwords down and leave them in plain view.

A much better plan is to use a password manager. Bitwarden, Dashlane, Zoho Vault and NordPass all offer free versions that are recommended. The paid versions include features that are even more important for business owners.

3. Posting answers to any “About Me” threads on Facebook

These types of posts are a gold mine for cyber attackers. They can use them to try to figure out your passwords and impersonate you online. Think about it, what security check questions does your bank ask you to be sure it’s you…high school mascot, first pet name, mother’s maiden name…

4. Leaving your computer unlocked when you step away from it

This was also mentioned in #2 and it’s worth repeating. It may not apply to you if your business computer is at home and stays there. But, if you use a laptop or a tablet that you travel with, it would be pretty easy for somebody to pull all of the data they need to ruin your business off of that device.

You go to a coffee shop. Place your order. Grab a table while waiting and open up your laptop. Hear your order called. Walk over to get your order. Get distracted by somebody who talks to you. When you start walking back to your table you realize that your laptop is gone…and access to all of your business accounts are on there. Lock your computer every time you step away from it.

5. Clicking on links in suspicious emails

If you get an email that looks suspicious, don’t click on any links in it. If it claims to be from somebody you know or a potential customer, call them to verify. Think before you click!

6. Opening attachments in suspicious emails

Tell me if you’ve heard this before… if you get an email that looks suspicious, don’t click on any attachments. Many file types can hold malware, including PDFs and Microsoft Office documents.

7. Fulfilling requests from suspicious emails

We can all now laugh about the emails that we used to get from the Prince of Nigeria who needed our bank account info so he could wire us a million dollars. But there are similar modern schemes that are going around that are much trickier.

What would you do if you got an email from a subcontractor that says that their billing information has changed and you should now send that $10,000 check to this new address or use this new bank account info for ACH? If you know the sender, call them to verify the request. If you don’t know the sender, you should probably just delete the email. If something seems too good to be true it almost definitely is.

8. Not educating your team about these important security measures

While it’s very important for you to know these things as a business owner, your cyber security is only as strong as your weakest link. Be sure to share all these security measures with your employees. Make sure they understand the key points and how important they are. Tell them that if they see something they think might be suspicious they need to report it as soon as possible. This won’t only help protect your business, it can help protect their personal finances.

I encourage you to treat all eight of these security measures as if your business depends on them…because it does.

Friday, March 31, 2023

I had the great opportunity to facilitate Brain Meld sessions on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) at the PCA Expo in February. One of the key topics that kept coming up during the discussion with painting contractors was local links.

As I emphasized the importance of local links, I got several questions. They really boiled down to two questions. #1 – What are local links? #2 – How can they be obtained?

I briefly covered local links in the recent What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? blog. But I’ll take a deeper dive into their value and how painting contractors can get local links in this blog.

What are local links?

The three core pieces of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are Architecture, Backlinks and Content. The acronym is ABC, making it pretty easy to remember. Backlinks are links to your website from other websites. Sometimes these are also referred to as inbound links. Going forward for this blog I’m just going to refer to them as links.

Google uses links to assess the credibility and focus of a website. That is what makes them so important. To simplify it further, Google sees links as endorsements for your website. The more inbound links your website gets from other websites that have proven to be credible, the higher the credibility ranking Google gives to your website.

Local links can come from the websites of local businesses, organizations, associations, events, media and more. Really any legitimate website that is based in your area and focused on your area can be a good source of a local link.

Local links are especially important for service area businesses like painting contractors. That’s because local links prove to Google that you have credibility in your service area. If you are doing business in Orlando, Florida you aren’t trying to get homeowners in Montana to find your website. Depending on which area of Orlando you are based in, you want homeowners in Kissimmee, Celebration, Winter Park and Oviedo to find your website.

How can painting contractors get local links?

To help you show up in the search results for the local towns and cities that your painting business serves, here are great sources of local links:

• Chamber of Commerce in your town or city
• Local organizations (community or nonprofit)
• Youth sports teams
• Community events
• Local media
• Other local businesses

Most Chambers of Commerce automatically include a link to their members’ websites on their website. These hold a lot of credibility for Google. If you haven’t already, you can join your local Chamber of Commerce. If it will work in your budget, you may want to consider joining the Chambers of Commerce for all of your key service cities.

If you support local organizations or are a member of a local association, ask them to put a link up on their website to your website. Make the same ask if you are sponsoring a community event. Many of these groups are happy to include the link but you may have to ask them for it or make sure that they have your web address.

If you sponsor a youth sports team or dance team ask them to put a link to your website on their website.

If you partner with another business in town, you should each put a link on your website to the other business’s website. These could be from realtors, general contractors, restoration companies, etc.

If you are a member of a church or do charity work for a church, ask them to put a link on their website to your website. These types of links won’t help big national businesses. But for painting contractors, they can be the key to your website being found when local homeowners search for your services. Don’t stop with my list. Seek out any additional local entities that could be helpful.

Even if you are using a provider like ProPainter Websites to optimize and manage your website, you should take the initiative to seek out local links to help ensure it searches well. You don’t need hundreds of local links. If you can get a dozen, or a couple dozen, you can quickly surpass your competitors, and it will absolutely help your search results.

If you have questions about anything I covered here, please feel free to reach out to me at martin.morgan@propainterwebsites.com or 919-600-5166. If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your business with a fully-optimized website and other web services, please schedule a meeting with us at a time that’s convenient for you!

Monday, January 23, 2023

A great way to define SEO for painting contractors is – all of the actions taken to get your website to show up at the top of Google search results when somebody searches for the services you provide in your service area.

Building on that definition – some things will be done when building the website while others will be done afterword. Some things are done once and others need to be a continuous effort.

And to continue to stay at the top of the search results you have to stay tuned in to changes that Google makes in what they want to see. And I’m going to stay focused on Google because they carry such a massive amount of search volume. Google’s changes often will make things more difficult for you, but sometimes they do work in your favor if you’ve worked to give them what they want.

The ABC’s of SEO

A great way to think about the foundation of SEO is to use the acronym ABC. A stands for Architecture – the structure and technical aspects of the website. B represents Backlinks or Links as they are more commonly thought of now. The focus here is on the links coming into your website. C is for Content. You may have heard the term “Content is King.” This is the words and information you have on your website.

In this blog I’m going to break down each element of ABC without getting too technical. I’m also going to include action items where possible to help you in your efforts.

But first, a note – no human knows exactly how Google’s algorithms work anymore. They have turned the final results over to AI. It is also a moving target as they make adjustments consistently. However, if you want the most recent thoughts from SEO experts on what matters most, check out our blog from last year – Top 10 Organic Search Ranking Factors for Painting Contractor Websites in 2022.

Architecture
Backlinks
Content

Architecture

Here’s the good news – almost every system, provider or platform you will use for your website is built to achieve the success factors for architecture. If you decide to use WordPress, Wix, Squarespace or another similar platform, you will have everything you need to achieve almost all of the architecture best practices built right in. They are almost, but not completely, failproof.

You will want to look for plugins that could give you an additional boost. You’ll also want to be aware of changes Google makes.

In the early days of SEO, Architecture was a big differentiator. Before Google built up the ability of the algorithm to use content as a top factor, Architecture was nearly everything. That enabled some SEO experts of the time to completely game the system and dominate the search rankings. That is no longer the case.

Things to Consider

Menu navigation

Plan out every page on your website. Where should they be placed in the menu navigation of your website? Is your navigation easy to follow for people who get to your website? Will they know right where to go if they are looking to see what services you provide? Will the Google spiders that crawl your site understand how to categorize your business and your services?

URLs

URLs are the web addresses for the pages on your website. You should be able to adjust them to be what you want them to be. For example, you want a web page about “House Painting” to include “house-painting” in the URL. You will also want to be sure your location or serving area are included, for example, “memphis-house-painting.”

Backlinks

Depending on which experts you listen to or read, links are either the most important element of SEO or the second most important element, right behind content. Think of it this way, Google wants to understand the credibility of your website. The more inbound links that exist to your website, the more credible your website appears. It those backlinks come from websites that have already proven to be credible, the more credible your website appears. The more inbound links the website has from other websites in the local area, the stronger the credibility your website has in the local area.

Google sees links as endorsements for the website. They are like actionable reviews. So your goal is to get as many quality inbound links as you can for your website.

Things to Consider

Quality industry links

You want to get inbound links from other websites that have proven authority and credibility in the painting industry. That might vary slightly depending on your specific mix of services. But for most painting contractors that means organizations and associations, paint providers, painting media and other painting-related sources. The PCA (Painting Contractors Association) is a great link to have to your website. If you have a profile on platforms like Porch, Angi or other sources, you’ll want to be sure it has a link to your website. Industry publication websites like American Painting Contractor and inPAINT are a great source of quality links.

Local links

Local search is more significant to you because of the nature of your business. You don’t want a homeowner five states away to find your website, you want homeowners in your service area to find your website. Local search works differently from basic search because it is tuned much more for local signals. A national website will get very little juice from a link from the website of a small church in a small town, but a painting contractor who does work in that town can get a solid lift from a link from that church website. Great local links include chambers of commerce, not-for-profits, other businesses, community events, local media. If you do work for a local business, asking them to include a link to your website on their website can pay off in a big way. It’s important to note that even if you are using a provider to manage and optimize your website, this is one of your action items that is necessary to make it search well.

Content

 

Content is King! Google has continued to fine tune it’s algorithm to understand content and be able to rank it’s value. While it’s not perfect, it has come a long way. Having rich descriptive content throughout your website will significantly help you in SEO. You especially want to focus on content that shows expertise, authority and trust.

How do you do that? It’s pretty similar to links – the more quality content you have, the more credibility you will have in Google’s eyes. Showcase your expertise in the field. Include a significant amount of detail about the services you offer. Demonstrate authority by writing about your years in the business. Highlight any accolades or recognition you’ve received, and don’t forget to mention your contributions to the community. You can prove trust by featuring customer testimonials and reviews – the more specific the better.

Things to Consider

Home page

In most cases this will be the page that Google considers for most searches that occur in your immediate area for services you provide. Be sure to include details about your services. Tell the story of your business. Highlight your accolades and community organizations and events you’ve been a part of. Showcase reviews. Review the page to ensure you are focusing on expertise, authority and trust.

Service pages

You should have a separate web page for every service that you offer. Be detailed and specific about the service. If you can, cover your process, what the customer can expect, how long it usually takes and any other details that will demonstrate your expertise.

Areas served pages

In Google’s eyes, painting contractors are considered service area businesses. That basically means that you work in a broad area instead of having a brick and mortar location where customers go to get work done. Because of the wide coverage area, it can be difficult for painting contractor websites to show up in more than two or three towns or cities that they serve. By creating specific pages for each town or city you serve you can give yourself the best chance to search well in that town or city. Include some highlights of your services on those pages. Of course, the more specific details you can include about the town or city the more likely that page will search well there. If you can, include photos of work you’ve done there, as well as reviews from customers.

With this solid understanding of the foundation of SEO and what you can do to help your website perform well, I hope you’ve taken some action items that can help you dominate search in your area. Like with nearly everything, there is more you can do but it all starts with a strong foundation.

It is important to note that when it comes to the overall success of your website you also need to factor in design, user experience and calls to action. Even a website with stellar SEO will be a failure if a visitor clicks away every time they get there.

If you have questions about anything I covered here, please feel free to reach out to me at martin.morgan@propainterwebsites.com or 919-600-5166. If you’d like to learn more about how we can support your business with a fully-optimized website and other web services, please schedule a meeting with us at a time that’s convenient for you!