11 Simple Contractor Marketing Ideas For 2024

Do Contractors Need Marketing?

Contractors need marketing to build an online presence, attract potential clients, and grow their business. Without online marketing, contractors might find it difficult to sustain their business in the long term.

What Are The 4 Ps of Marketing For Construction Companies?

The 4 P’s of marketing for contractors are:

1. Product. What contracting services do you offer, what is the quality, and what sets you apart from your competitors?

2. Price. What is your pricing strategy? Do you offer payment plans? How do you keep your business profitable?

3. Place. Where is your business located? How can potential clients visit you to get a quote?

4. Promotion. How do you promote or advertise your contracting business to attract new clients? Is it through traditional marketing (word-of-mouth, referrals) or online marketing?

Now that we’re through the basics let’s look at some contractor marketing ideas to get more organic traffic and build a pipeline of high quality leads.

1. Build a Professional Contractor Website

A website is essential for creating an online presence for your contractor business. You need to ensure that you pick a professional website design that makes it easy for users to learn about your company and reach out to you for inquiries. 

To successfully create a website that engages potential clients, it needs to have:

• Clear messaging. Write strong but short headlines on what your contracting business offers. 

• Simple but attractive design. Opt for a minimalist design when it comes to your logo and color scheme to keep your site easy on the eyes and free from visual clutter.
• User-friendly interface. Ensure that your website layout makes it easy for website visitors to navigate.
• Clear call-to-action (CTA). Include one CTA that tells people what you want them to do after viewing your site.
• Clear contact information. Your phone number should be highly visible so potential clients can easily find it.
• Keywords. Your website’s content should include relevant keywords that people might use to find your business using search engines like Google.
• Mobile-friendliness. Your site should be optimized to look and work great on mobile devices.

To make sure you get the best website for your business, you can hire a web design company that has worked with contractors in the past.

2. Revamp Your SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy that involves improving the content of your website and other online platforms so they show up on search engine results pages (SERPs) and reach your target audience.

On-page SEO

On-page SEO is a branch of SEO that focuses on optimizing web pages like the homepage so they rank higher in SERPs. To do this, you need to:

• Write high-quality content
• Incorporate relevant keywords into headlines, subheadings, body text, and meta tags
• Use descriptive URLs
• Use target keywords in image filenames and alt-texts
• Link webpages to each other within your website

Off-page SEO

Off-page SEO refers to the practice of improving SEO performance without having to tweak your website or other digital platforms. This includes link building, which is the process of acquiring links from other related websites (called backlinks). 

You can get quality backlinks by publishing content that other publications would want to link to or share in their own content. You can also conduct a link-building outreach where you reach out to other website owners and pitch a way to exchange links.

Local SEO

Local SEO focuses on optimizing a business’s online visibility in local search. Some ways to improve local search visibility is by listing your business on Google, Yelp, and other industry-specific directories, making sure your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) are consistent throughout all listings.

Technical SEO

Technical SEO involves fixing a website’s technical aspects to improve speed and user experience. Some best practices to have better technical SEO performance are:

• Improving the website’s load speed
• Adding a security certificate (HTTPS)
• Compressing files
• Compressing codes
• Removing duplicate content

Because of its technical nature, it’s best to consult with an SEO agency to do your technical SEO for you.

3.  Claim Your Google Business Profile

If you haven’t done so yet, you’ll need to claim your Google Business Profile (GBP), formerly known as Google My Business. Having an optimized GBP helps increase your visibility in local search and might even get you on the local 3-pack, which are the top three businesses that appear in location-based searches.

When listing your contractor company, you need to make sure that you:

• Enter the correct business name, address, and phone number (NAP)
• Use the right business category
• Upload high-quality photos of your business
• Get more positive online reviews and testimonials

4. Use Content Marketing To Attract New Leads

A great way to build trust with your audience is to create valuable content about common construction problems. 

You can use a free tool like Ubersuggest or a paid one like Ahrefs to find content ideas based on a keyword. In the example below, we used “home improvement” as the keyword.

Once you’ve gathered your list of topics, you’ll need to create and follow a content calendar to ensure you are on track with your publishing schedule.

5. Connect With Your Target Audience On Social Media

Social media marketing is great for building brand awareness, boosting online presence, and engaging with your audience. Each social media post brings you closer to attracting new customers who might need your services sometime in the future. 

Pick one or two social media platforms (Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, etc.) and create a list of content ideas that you think your followers might enjoy. Not sure what to post? Here are some ideas:

How-To Guides. Teach your audience how to do basic construction projects like creating a DIY headboard.

Before and after project highlights. Feature projects you’ve done for past clients and show before and after photos.

Case studies. Demonstrate how your expertise has made a positive impact on your clients.

Company milestones. Celebrating your 15th year anniversary? Let your followers know!

Employee appreciation. Give kudos to your staff and share it on your social media pages.

As you develop your content, you’ll get more ideas along the way and should discover which ones have the most positive response. Continue to monitor your content’s performance and make improvements where you see fit.

6. Focus on Local SEO

As a local business, boosting your presence in location-based searches using local SEO makes perfect sense. Your contracting business needs to show up when people search for contractors in your service area.

Use Local Keywords

Include your location in your target keywords that you use for your website pages. For instance, instead of simply using “general contractor,” it’s better to use “general contractor in Tampa” to attract local leads to your site.

Build Local Citations

Listing your business in Google and other directories like Yelp, Bing Places, Angi, and Yellow Pages, increases your online visibility and helps people find your services. 

Make sure that your NAP details are correct across all your business listings to assure search engines and potential customers that your company is credible and trustworthy. 

7. Get More Reviews for Your Construction Company

Reviews help your business rank in local search, specifically your Google My Business profile. 

To get more reviews, you need to:

• Provide excellent customer service. Train your staff to deliver personalized, professional services to clients.
• Ask clients to leave a review using several methods (in-person, email marketing, website, SMS, etc.). Share a link where clients can leave a review.
• Respond to all reviews, including negative ones. Acknowledging all reviews shows that you value customer feedback.
• Monitor and manage your reviews. Use a reputation management tool to make sure you can track new reviews and respond to them on a timely manner. 

8. Boost Lead Generation With Pay-per-Click Ads

Pay-per-click (PPC) ads, like Google Ads, offer a cost-effective way for business owners to run targeted search ads to boost lead generation and quickly grow their client base. These ads can be configured to target people in certain demographics who are likely to click on the ad.

The first step in running PPC ads is to sign up for a Google Ads account for your construction business. Next, you need to create a campaign, set a budget, add a payment method, and publish your ad.

Here are some tips for setting up your first Google ad:

Target The Right Keywords

To ensure that your ads reach your target audience, choose relevant keywords that accurately describe your construction services (i.e., home renovation, home remodeling, kitchen builders, etc.)

It also helps to target keywords that have high search volume but low to medium competition. You’ll see this information when using keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner or paid ones like Ahrefs and SEMRush.

Write Compelling Ad Copy

Google search ads show several headlines and descriptions, but these phrases have a character limitation, so you have to write concise but descriptive content for your ads that entice your target audience to click on them.

When you’re writing your ad copy, Google provides suggestions for headlines and descriptions, along with popular keywords:

Adjectives like “trusted,” “best,” “affordable,” and “skilled” are most commonly used for contractor ads and have been known to work well for conversion. You can also increase your click-through-rate (CTR) with offers like “Get a free quote” or “Free consultation.”

Choose the Right Ad Goal

When creating ads, Google will ask you what your advertising goal is. You can select from the following:

We recommend choosing “Create a campaign without a goal’s guidance” to have access to every option available in creating ads. 

However, you can also choose Leads or Website traffic if you want to send people to a landing page in your contractor website to push a CTA like fill out a consultation form or schedule a call.

Set a Healthy Budget

When you’re just starting out, it’s best to set a budget that’s higher than what you originally planned and adjust it as you get more data from your campaigns. Google will give you recommendations for a daily budget, but you can set your own.

You can hire our contractor PPC services as well to get leads via advertising on autopilot.

9. Use Video Marketing To Stand Out

Adding videos to your content helps you engage with your audience, build trust, and increase conversion rates. You can share videos on your website, social media pages, or create a YouTube channel to post educational videos that demonstrate your expertise.

Some ideas for video content for your contracting business include:

• Client projects – A look at services that you are currently doing or have provided for your clients
• DIY tutorials – Step-by-step guides on simple home building, roofing repairs, or renovation projects
• “A Day in a Life” videos – Show a glimpse of how contractors spend a day at work
• Q&As – Answer commonly asked questions about contractor services from potential customers

10. Try Digital PR

Digital public relations (PR) is a way to build a positive image for a company and cultivate brand awareness. This can be achieved with the same marketing tactics as digital marketing like SEO, content and social media marketing, but it also employs media and influencer outreach.

Contractors can use digital PR strategies like:

• Getting interviewed by the media
• Guest posting in relevant blogs or being a guest in a podcast
• Publishing press releases
• Responding to mentions about your business on social media

11. Use Analytics To Track Results

You’ll need an efficient way to track the impact of your marketing campaigns and measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. You’d want to keep tabs on metrics like website visits, keyword rankings, bounce rate, conversion rate, and return on investment (ROI).

You can use Google Analytics for tracking your website traffic, Ahrefs for SEO performance, and TrackRight for local SEO monitoring (including phone calls). 

When you have data, you can identify the best marketing tactics, making it easier for you to revise and improve your marketing strategy.

How Much Do Contractors Spend on Marketing?

Contractors can spend anywhere between $1,000 to $10,000 a month on digital marketing services. This would depend on factors like your current SEO standing (what’s your current DR and organic traffic?), the competition in your local contractor market, and your business goals.

Get Help from Contractor Marketing Experts

Those were some battle tested construction marketing tips for you. But if you’re short of time and want to ensure your marketing plan results in a positive ROI, you can hire a digital marketing agency with a track record of successfully running contractor marketing campaigns (that’s us!)

We’ve over a decade of experience working with the most successful construction businesses—delivering business results for them via digital marketing. Contact us for a contractor marketing audit today.