When you set up your business, do you'remember signing an agreement to have only one website? I hope not because no such document exists! The reality is, not only can you (and should you) have multiple (lead generating) websit's, but you probably already have more websit's than you think.
What'savvy Contractors are Doing Right Now
For a second, stop thinking about your website as a digital representation of you and your business. Instead, think of your website as if it were a sales rep. Your website is a virtual sales rep; although, for most trades (electrical, hvac, plumbing, roofing, etc.) the "sale" made online is a qualified lead. it's going to be another decade before a website can sell a roof better than you can.
Some of the countries fastest growing and savviest contractors are in the midst of building a virtual sales force comprised of dozens of lead-generation websit's. They are doing this because the return offered by traditional marketing strategies like print yellow pages, billboards, bus kiosks, TV, and radio are going down faster than a boat with no bottom. They are also doing this because many have tracking systems and software in place that shows them that, in some cases, it's cheaper to build a new niche site than to invest more in their "main" website.
If you already have a website producing 100 qualified leads per month, would it be easier to double the leads from this site or launch another website and build it up to 100 leads per month? If you're like most business owners, you'd never even considered the question - let alone tried to answer it. The truth is, in some cases it's better to increase the investment in your primary website and in other cases it would be better to launch a separate site (or a series of separate sit's).
Every situation is unique and the purpose of this blog isn't to walk you through every variation of when to continue to invest in one site vs. build a new one. The point is - you can and (in nearly every case) should have more than one website - and other contractors are actively engaged in this strategy. If you're not, where will your business be compared to theirs in one, three, or five years?
Why You Haven't Built Multiple Sit's
The reason contractors give for why they Don't have multiple websit's is... drum roll please... you guessed it: money. If you fall into this category, you need to step back and look at things from a couple different angles. It could be that you're too close to the situation to make sense of it.
Take a look at this image:
What do you think you're looking at here?
Sometimes it's difficult to see the forest when you're down in the trees (or in some cases the weeds of running a business).
In the case of the image at left, it's difficult to tell whether it's the skin of some alien creature or a nice, juicy strawberry viewed using an electron microscope.
(of course, it's the latter)
So step back and think about your website.
First, a website doesn't have to cost you an arm and a leg. You can get a website for free or a for a few thousand dollars, but below ~$5,000, the less you pay, the more likely you'll end up with a digital brochure (vs. a virtual sales rep). For a decent, scalable, optimized website, you should expect to pay between $5,000 - $8,500 (this includes design, development, copywriting, SEO, and tracking setup).
Many highly successful contractors I know have paid 3-4 times more, and doing so can be worth it, but you can get a fantastic site for less than $10K. From my interactions on the forum of this site, I know many of you think that paying more than a few thousand dollars for a website is absolutely ludicrous. If you fall into this category, I think you're operating on less than optimal information.
The reason I think it's perfectly reasonable to pay $5-10K for a well-built website is because I've seen (time and time again) the amount of revenue and profit a well-built site can generate. I've also seen enough contrators buy a cheap website and spend hours, weeks, and months tickering with it, to end up with a site that never generates more than 2,000 visitors per month with a dismal visit-to-lead conversion rate (worse yet, many Don't even track things in a way that they'd ever really know how bad their site is!).
As an example, a local plumbing company I know and work with recently booked over 100 calls on a single day. Although they (continue to) invest in traditional advertising strategies like print yellow pages, the vast majority of their leads come from the web. On the day they booked 100+ calls, they called my office and asked us if there is any way to change the website (temporarily) to slow down the number of calls because they are currently over-capacity.
I thought, "in this economy... seriously???"
Now just think about this for a second... over 100 booked calls in a single day. Let's just say it was exactly 100 booked calls. I know from accurately tracking every aspect of their marketing that their appointment to sale conversion rate hovers around 75 percent, their average sale is $550, and their gross margin is in the 40 percent range. That means they will generate $41,250 in revenue and $16,500 in gross profit from a single day's worth of booked calls.
Do you think the owner of this company would spend more than five minutes wrestling with spending $10K on a website? Do you think he would debate me about how he shouldn't have to spend $10K on a website because it's possible to get one for less? Are you kidding me? He'd never do that! Time is money and he spends the bulk of his trying to ramp up capacity and simultaneously look for new ways to market his business and generate leads. it'shouldn't shock any of you that he has multiple websit's and is constantly thinking about how to build more.
What Types of Sit's Should You Build?
This is highly dependent on your business, but I'll give you a few examples:
HVAC Contractor Doing Commercial and Residential Work
If you have an hvac company and you do residential and commercial work, you could build a separate website for each "division." So, instead of having one site that tries to do double duty, you could create one website for the residential side of your business and one site for the commercial side of your business.
If you want, you can still maintain a "parent" website that features both or you could evolve the parent website to target whichever service is your priority (if a priority exists).
Exterior Remodeling Company Doing Decks, Siding, and Windows
Let's say you're a remodeling company and you specialize in decks, siding, and remodeling. Instead of having ABCServices.com that features all of your services (think "Jack of all trades, master of none"), you might consider launchng ABCDecks.com, ABCSiding.com, and ABCWindows.com.
Again, you can continue to maintain a "parent" website that provides summary level information about each service (which is the extent of the content on most contractor websit's today).
The (Primary) Benefits of Having Multiple Sit's
There are (at least) two benefits to multiple sit's in every scenario listed above. They are:
Increased organic search rankings and Improved visit-to-lead conversion rates Increased Relevance Improves Organic Rankings
To rank well on Google, you need to be relevant and you need to be authoritative. On Google, if authority is equal (which is virtually never the cause), the most specific thing wins the organic ranking game. So, it's harder to make a website about water and coffee delivery service seem as relevant for office coffee delivery as a website that's only about office coffee delivery service (notice - I didn't say it was impossible to get a water and coffee site to be seen as more relevant - it's just far more complex / difficult).
Hyper-Specific Content Increases Conversion Rates
Everyone online has attention deficit disorder. Need proof? Go into your Google Analytics account or whatever website tracking software you use and look at your average time on site for visitors that did not reach you via direct or using a branded search term (i.e. people that did not know you by name prior to visiting your website). Do this and you'll see that the time on site is probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-2 minutes. If the visitor viewed multiple pages, the average time on each page was, in many cases, probably less than 30 seconds!
You've got hardly any time to connect with visitors online, so the more specific you can make your website content to the visitor's interest, the more likely they will be to convert (when I say "convert" or "conversion", I'm talking about someone that comes to your website and takes some action that you deem more valuable - calling you, filling out a web contact form, etc.). If someone searches, "window companies in Maryland" and they hit a homepage and, for whatever reason, they see Decks and Siding, but fail to see Windows prominently displayed, chances are high that they will "bounce" off your site (leave without viewing another page).
The Good News
All this said, I understand that $5-10K is a lot of money if you're just starting out or you're running your business on a shoestring budget. If this is you, here's some good news for you - you already have multiple websit's. You've got your main website, a free blog on Wordpress or Blogger, a Flickr page, a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, a Twitter account, etc. And all of these "websit's" are FREE. All you have to do is "claim" your account on each of these sit's - something that is as simple as setting up a page and adding some content.
Final Takeaways
Like everything in life, the devil is in the details. There are a lot of nuances involved with executing a multi-site online marketing strategy. For example, it would be an utter disaster to take a site that ranks well and change the URLs without creating permanent redirects to the new URLs. Similarly, it would be a huge mistake to launch a bunch of niche websit's when you still have low-hanging fruit on your main website.
Even building out the sit's you already own (Facebook, etc.) requires some thought. Like, is it really a good idea to link from your main website to your FB book when your FB page is rarely updated and only has four "friends" (all of which are members of your family)? Answer... NO! As you add content to and build out each of your sit's, you should think about your overall online marketing strategy and how each piece fits into it. People on Flickr have different expectations than YouTube and Facebook. Apply the same strategy on Facebook that you don on Twitter, and you might as well not even set up an account.
As a final thought... some of you may know that the owners of this site also own DrywallTalk.com and a variety of other websit's. Why do you suppose they've built all these additional website vs. investing more in this site (after all most of their sit's could easily still fall under the "Contractor" umbrella). If I had to bet, I'd say that they are a bunch of smart guys that understand that the web, at some level, is a real estate game and they want to build and own as much as they can.
Do likewise ladies and gentlemen.
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