Category: Contractor Marketing

A contractor website has one job: turn someone who’s looking for help into a call, a text or a quote request. Most of what gets sold as “web design” has nothing to do with that. Here’s what does.

1. Your phone number, big, at the top

On a phone, that number should be one tap away without scrolling. Put it in the header and repeat it in a bar that stays on screen.

2. What you do and where you do it

List your services in plain words and name the towns you serve. It helps customers know they’re in the right place, and it helps Google show you to the right people.

3. Proof

Real reviews, real photos of your work, your license and insurance if your trade requires them. Stock photos of smiling models don’t convince anyone. A photo of a job you finished last month does.

4. A quote form that reaches you

If form submissions go to an email inbox you check twice a week, the form is costing you jobs. Route them to your phone as a text so you can reply the same day.

5. Speed on a phone

Most homeowners will look you up on their phone, often in a hurry. A page that takes forever to load gets closed. Keep images light and the layout simple.

6. The same details everywhere

Your business name, phone number and address should match across your site, your Google Business Profile and any directories. Mismatches confuse customers and search engines alike.

What you can skip

Sliders, auto-playing videos, pages of company history, a blog you’ll never update. None of it is bad on its own, but none of it makes the phone ring. Get the six things above right first.

Every call that doesn’t turn into a booked estimate is a call you paid for and didn’t collect on. Most of those calls aren’t lost because of price. They’re lost because whoever answered the phone didn’t guide the conversation anywhere. A simple script fixes that, not a rigid one you read word for word, but a shape you follow every time.

Answer like you want the job

The first five seconds set the tone. A flat “yeah” or a rushed “what” tells the caller they’ve reached someone busy and bothered. A clear greeting with your business name tells them they’ve reached a business that has its act together.

“Thanks for calling [Business Name], this is [Name], how can I help you today?”

Say it the same way every time until it’s automatic. It takes the same three seconds as a mumbled hello and it starts every call better.

Qualify before you diagnose

Callers want to describe the problem, and you should let them, but don’t jump straight to solving it over the phone. Ask enough to know if this is a job you actually want and how urgent it is.

• What’s going on, in their own words.
• How long it’s been a problem.
• Is anyone home right now, or is this for later.
• Rough address or area, so you know if it’s in your service zone.

This is also where you catch the jobs that aren’t a fit before you drive out for nothing.

Book the time before you hang up

“I’ll call you back to set something up” is where estimates go to die. Once you know it’s a real job, offer two specific times right on the call.

“I can get someone out Thursday morning or Friday afternoon, which works better for you?”

Two options is easier for a caller to answer than an open-ended “when works for you.” Get a day, a time window, and a callback number before you say goodbye, and repeat it back so there’s no confusion later.

Handle “how much” without guessing

Almost every caller asks for a number before you’ve seen the job. Don’t dodge the question and don’t make one up. Give them an honest range if your trade allows it, then explain why the estimate still matters.

“Jobs like this usually run somewhere between [range], but it depends on what we find once we’re out there. The estimate is free, and that’s when we’ll give you an exact number.”

That answer respects their question without boxing you into a price you haven’t earned yet.

Close the same way every time

Confirm the appointment, tell them what to expect, and thank them for calling. A caller who knows what happens next is a caller who shows up for the appointment instead of forgetting about it or booking someone else in the meantime.

Write this down, tape it near the phone, and use it on every call for a month. It will stop feeling like a script and start feeling like how you talk. If you’re missing calls entirely because you’re on a ladder, a missed-call text back gets a conversation started until you can call back and run through this yourself.

Texting has become the easiest way to reach a customer, easier than a phone call they have to stop and take, easier than an email they’ll open in three days. Contractors use it for reminders, updates, and review requests. Used well, it makes you look organized. Used carelessly, it annoys people and can get your number blocked or reported.

The texts customers actually want

A few kinds of texts earn their place in anyone’s inbox because they answer a question the customer already has.

• An appointment reminder the day before, so they don’t forget and you don’t show up to an empty driveway.
• An “on my way” text with a rough arrival time, so they’re not staring out the window for two hours.
• A follow-up after an estimate, checking if they have questions before they decide.
• A review request once the job is done and they’re happy with it.

Each one is short, tied to something real that’s happening, and easy to ignore if they’re busy. That’s what makes it welcome instead of annoying.

Say who you are, every time

People get texts from all kinds of numbers they don’t recognize. Start with your business name so there’s no confusion about who’s reaching out and why. “This is [Business Name], your appointment is tomorrow at 10am” takes two extra words and removes all the guesswork.

Get permission before you send anything beyond the job at hand

A reminder about the appointment someone just booked is part of doing the job. A text three months later about a seasonal promotion is a different kind of message, and it needs the customer’s okay first. Ask once, plainly, when you have them on the phone or in person: is it alright to text you about deals and reminders down the road. If they say yes, you’re on solid ground. If you’re not sure they said yes, don’t send it.

Honor “stop” instantly

If a customer replies “stop,” or asks not to be texted, that’s the end of it for anything beyond the immediate job. Don’t text again to confirm they meant it. Don’t switch to email instead. Just stop. It costs you nothing to respect it, and it protects the relationship with everyone else who didn’t ask to be removed.

What never to send

Skip anything that isn’t clearly useful to the person receiving it. No repeated follow-ups after someone’s gone quiet. No texts late at night or early morning. No walls of text when three sentences will do. And never buy a list of numbers to text cold. Every text should go to someone who already has a reason to hear from you: a booked job, a past customer, or someone who said yes to hearing from you again.

Keep it factual, keep it short, and keep the customer in control of whether they hear from you again. That’s the whole rulebook. A system that sends the reminder and the on-my-way text automatically, and stops the moment someone opts out, makes this easy to get right every single time.

You don’t need a camera crew or a script to make video work for your business. You need your phone, a few minutes at the end of a job, and a habit of hitting record before you clean up and leave. Short, rough, real footage of actual work beats a polished ad almost every time, because homeowners can tell the difference between a real job and a commercial.

Film what you’re already doing

You don’t need to stage anything. The best clips come from work you’re already doing: pulling old shingles off a roof, sweating a new pipe joint, walking through a finished basement. If you’re already there and already working, the extra step is just remembering to hit record for fifteen seconds before or after.

Keep it short and shot straight

Nobody’s watching a five-minute video from a contractor they’ve never met. Fifteen to forty five seconds is plenty. Hold the phone steady, shoot in good light if you can, open the garage door, step outside, whatever gets more light on the work, and don’t worry about a script. A few words on what you’re doing, said plainly, is all the narration you need.

What to actually point the camera at

A few kinds of shots do most of the work:

• The before, showing the actual problem: the cracked slab, the rusted unit, the yard that needs work.
• A quick middle shot of the work happening, hands on tools, not posed.
• The after, the same angle as the before shot if you can manage it, so the difference is obvious.
• A short walk-through once the job is done, pointing out a couple of details.

You don’t need all four on every job. Even one good before-and-after pair, posted consistently, builds up into something that shows exactly what you do.

Where to post it and what to write underneath

Post it where homeowners in your area actually look: your Google Business Profile, Instagram, Facebook. The caption doesn’t need to sell anything hard. Say what the job was, name the town or neighborhood, and let the video do the convincing. A line like “replaced a failing water heater in town this morning, customer’s back to hot water same day” tells people exactly what you do and where you do it.

Answer what the video brings in

A short video that gets any real attention will bring comments and messages, someone asking how much a similar job runs, someone asking if you cover their street. Answer those quickly. A video that sits there with an unanswered question under it looks worse than no video at all, because it shows a homeowner exactly what happens if they reach out: nothing. Reply in the comments where others can see it, and move the real conversation to a text or a call as soon as you can.

Do this for a month, even just once or twice a week, and you’ll have a real library of proof sitting on your phone. That’s worth more to a homeowner deciding whether to call you than almost anything you could write about yourself.

You’re on a roof, under a sink, or running a saw. The phone buzzes in your pocket and you let it go. You’ll call back at lunch.

By lunch, a lot of those callers have already talked to someone else. Not because they didn’t like you. They had a problem, they had a list of names from Google, and they kept going down the list until somebody picked up.

Why a voicemail isn’t enough

Plenty of people don’t leave voicemails anymore, and plenty of the ones who do never hear back fast enough. A voicemail puts the next step on you. The caller is left waiting, and while they wait they keep calling.

Why a text works

A text back within a few seconds changes the situation. The homeowner knows a real business saw their call. They can reply when it suits them, even if they’re at work themselves. And the conversation has started with you, not with the next contractor on the list.

A good missed-call text is short and useful:

• Say who you are, by business name.
• Say you’re on a job, so the missed call makes sense.
• Ask one question: what do they need help with?

When they answer, you know the job before you call back. That makes your callback faster and more useful too.

Make it automatic

You can’t remember to text every missed caller by hand, especially on a busy day, which is exactly when it matters most. A missed-call text back does it for you: the call goes unanswered, the text goes out, and the reply lands in the same inbox as the rest of your leads.

It’s one of the cheapest fixes in any trade business. You’re already paying for the calls with your ads, your truck lettering and your reputation. The text-back just makes sure you get a fair shot at every one of them.

Most contractors think Instagram is for people who sell candles or coffee, not for someone who fixes roofs or runs pipe. That’s backwards. You already have the best content in your trade sitting on your phone: real jobs, real before and afters, real trucks pulling up to real houses. You just have to post it.

Post the work you already do

Every job has a before shot and an after shot. Take both, every time, on every job. It costs you nothing and takes ten seconds. Side by side, a rotted deck and a rebuilt one says more than any paragraph of copy could. You don’t need good lighting or a nice camera. A clean photo taken on a work phone beats a polished stock image every time, because it’s real and homeowners can tell the difference.

Use stories for the boring stuff

The daily feed is for your best shots. Stories are for everything else: loading the truck, digging a trench, a crew member measuring a room. It feels like nothing is happening, but that’s exactly what builds trust. People want to see how a job actually gets done before they let a stranger into their house. A few seconds of a normal work day, posted a few times a week, does more for your reputation than a highlight reel ever will.

Tag your town, not just your trade

Hashtags for your trade get buried under thousands of other posts from every city in the country. A tag with your town or your neighborhood name puts you in front of the people who can actually hire you. Mention the town in your caption too, not just the tag. If you worked in three neighborhoods this month, say so across three different posts instead of naming the same one every time.

Make your bio do the work

Someone lands on your profile, likes what they see, and then has about three seconds to decide what to do next. If your bio doesn’t say what you do, where you work, and how to reach you, you lose them. One line on your trade, one line on your service area, and a link that goes straight to a way to contact you, not to a homepage where they have to hunt for a phone number. Update it whenever your service area changes, because a bio that still lists a town you stopped covering last year is quietly turning away people who could have called you.

Turn DMs into booked jobs

Someone messaging you a photo of their leaky pipe is a warmer lead than almost anything else you’ll get. Answer fast, ask one or two questions to understand the job, and then move the conversation to a phone number as soon as you can. A direct message thread is easy to lose in a pile of notifications. A text puts the conversation somewhere you’ll actually see it and can follow up on later.

The same goes for comments under your posts. A “how much would this cost” left under a before-and-after photo is someone raising their hand. Reply in the comments so others see you answering, then ask them to send you a message or a text with their address so you can give them a real number.

None of this takes a marketing budget. It takes a habit: shoot the before and after, post the boring middle, tag where you actually work, and answer messages like they’re real customers, because they are.

At some point every contractor gets pitched on buying leads: a form gets filled out online, and your phone number is one of several sent the same information. It’s a real option and it can work. It’s also worth understanding exactly what you’re buying, so you can decide how much of your growth should depend on it.

What a shared lead actually is

When a homeowner fills out a form on a lead site, that same request usually gets sent to more than one contractor at the same time. You’re not the only one calling. You’re racing whoever else got the same lead, and the homeowner is going to talk to whoever reaches them first and sounds the most put together. That’s a real cost beyond the dollars you paid for the lead: your time, and the odds that you’re the third or fourth call they’ve already taken. Some of those requests were never that serious in the first place, someone comparing prices out of curiosity rather than someone ready to hire, and you often can’t tell the difference until you’ve already spent time chasing it down.

Speed to lead matters more than where the lead came from

Whether a lead is shared or came straight to your own website, the contractor who calls back first usually wins the job, all else being equal. If you’re going to buy leads, the return on that spend depends heavily on how fast you can respond, not just on the lead itself. The same is true for leads that come in through your own site or your own phone number. Speed is the multiplier either way.

What you own when the lead comes from you

A lead that comes through your own website, your own Google Business Profile, or a referral from a past customer is different in one important way: it’s yours. Nobody else is getting that same request at the same time. And every job you do well adds to something that keeps working for you afterward, your reviews, your photos, your list of past customers who might call again or send a friend. A purchased lead is a one-time transaction. A customer you win yourself becomes part of something that keeps paying off.

A blended approach that actually works

Most contractors don’t need to pick one lane forever. Purchased leads can fill gaps when work is slow or when you’re trying to grow fast in a new area. Meanwhile, the slower work of building your own flow, keeping your website current, asking every happy customer for a review, staying active on your Google Business Profile, and following up with past customers, pays off for years instead of just this month.

The mistake is treating purchased leads as the whole strategy and never building anything of your own. If every lead you get next year is still one you have to pay for and race other contractors to win, you haven’t actually grown a business. You’ve just kept renting the same traffic. Put some of what you make from bought leads back into the things you own, and the balance shifts more in your favor every month. A steady stream of finished jobs, gathered reviews, and past customers you can call for the next slow month is worth more over time than any single purchased lead.

A Google Business Profile that hasn’t been touched in six months looks abandoned, even if your business is busy and doing fine. It doesn’t take much to keep it looking active. Fifteen minutes a week, done the same way every time, is enough.

Post a photo, every week

Pick one photo from the week’s jobs, a finished project, a crew at work, a before and after, and post it. It doesn’t need a caption longer than a sentence. The point isn’t to write marketing copy. It’s to show that someone is actually running this business right now, this week, not two years ago. Do this on the same day each week and it stops being a task you forget about. Rotate what you show: a finished kitchen one week, a crew loading the truck the next, a close-up of clean work on a smaller repair after that. Variety makes the profile feel like an active business instead of the same three photos on repeat.

Post an offer or an update when you have one

If you’re running a seasonal special, or you’ve added a new service, or your hours are changing for a holiday, that belongs on your profile as its own post, not buried in a photo caption. Keep it short and specific: what it is, and how someone acts on it. An offer that’s easy to find gets used more than one that’s technically posted somewhere but hard to spot.

Answer the questions, don’t wait for them

The Q&A section on a Google Business Profile often sits empty, or worse, has a question sitting there unanswered for months, sometimes answered wrong by a stranger who has no idea how your business works. Go in and add the questions people actually ask you on the phone, things like whether you offer free estimates or what areas you service, and answer them yourself. It’s a quiet way to answer objections before someone even calls.

Keep hours and services honest

Nothing kills trust faster than a listing that says you’re open when you’re not, or lists a service you stopped offering two years ago. Once a month, actually look at your profile like a stranger would: are the hours right, is every service you currently offer listed, is your phone number the one that’s actually staffed. It takes five minutes and it’s the difference between someone finding you accurate and someone showing up to a locked door. If you’ve added a new service, like gutter work alongside roofing, add it to the list right away so it shows up for the searches that go with it.

Make it a habit, not a project

None of this works as a one-time cleanup. A profile that gets a fresh photo weekly, an occasional offer, current answers, and accurate hours reads as a business that’s alive and paying attention. That’s worth more than any single perfect post. Set a day, put it on your calendar the same way you’d put a job on the schedule, and treat it like part of running the business instead of an extra chore that gets skipped when things get busy.

Every contractor gets a difficult customer eventually. Most bad reviews don’t come from bad work. They come from a misunderstanding that never got cleared up, a surprise on the invoice, or a customer who felt ignored once something went sideways. Most of that is preventable if you handle it at the right point, before the job, not after the review is already posted.

Get expectations in writing before you start

A verbal agreement about scope, price, and timeline feels fine in the moment and turns into a dispute the second something doesn’t match what one person remembers. A simple written estimate, even a short one, that spells out what’s included, what it costs, and roughly when it’ll happen, removes most of the arguments before they can start. Get a signature or a clear yes over text. It protects the customer as much as it protects you.

Put every change order in writing too

Jobs change once the walls come open or the ground gets dug up. That’s normal. What causes trouble is a change that shows up on the final bill with no warning attached to it. The moment the scope shifts, say so, put a number on it, and get an okay before you keep going. A quick text with the new cost and a thumbs up in reply takes thirty seconds and prevents almost every “nobody told me” argument that turns into a one-star review.

Stay calm when things go sideways

An upset customer wants to feel heard before they want anything fixed. Let them finish talking before you explain anything. Don’t get defensive, even when you know you’re right about the facts. “I understand why that’s frustrating, here’s what we’re going to do” gets you further than any amount of arguing about who said what. Most people calm down once they believe you’re actually going to make it right. Putting the resolution in a follow-up text after the call gives both sides something to point back to later, instead of two different memories of what was agreed to.

Know when to walk away

Not every job is worth finishing. If a customer keeps changing the deal after you’ve agreed to it, refuses to pay for legitimate work, or is abusive to you or your crew, it’s fair to end the relationship. Do it in writing, calmly, stating what’s owed and what’s been completed. Walking away from a bad situation early is almost always cheaper than finishing a job for someone who was never going to be happy no matter what you did.

Replying to a bad review that already happened

Sometimes a bad review shows up anyway. Don’t argue with it in public and don’t ignore it. Reply calmly, acknowledge their specific concern, and state plainly what you did or are willing to do about it. Keep it short. Future customers reading that review are watching how you handled it more than they’re judging the original complaint. A calm, professional reply to one bad review can do more for your reputation than a dozen good ones sitting quietly with no response at all. It also shows every future customer reading it that you take a complaint seriously instead of disappearing when things get uncomfortable.

Most contractors know reviews matter. Homeowners read them before they call, and Google leans on them when it decides whose listing to show. The hard part isn’t knowing. It’s asking, every time, without it feeling awkward.

Ask while the job is fresh

The best moment is right after the work is done and the customer is happy with it: the leak is fixed, the yard looks sharp, the new panel is humming. A week later they’ve moved on. Build the ask into how you close out a job.

Make it one tap

“Look us up on Google and leave a review” is homework. A text with a direct link to your review form is a favor they can do in thirty seconds. The fewer steps, the more reviews you’ll get.

Say it like a person

Something like this works:

Thanks again for having us out today, Dana. If you have a minute, a quick Google review helps a small business like ours a lot. Here’s the link.

Use their name, mention the job, keep it short.

Follow up, but not forever

People forget, so a reminder or two is fine. Space them out and then stop. If someone doesn’t want to leave a review, a third reminder won’t change their mind.

Ask everyone, and answer every review

Make the ask part of every job, not just the ones that felt great. Then reply to every review you get. Thank the good ones by name. Answer the rare bad one calmly, with what you did or will do to fix it. Future customers read your replies as closely as the reviews.

Put it on autopilot

A routine only works if it happens every time. An automated review request (one tap to send, reminders that stop on their own) turns a good habit into something you don’t have to remember.