The world has become digital, and there’s no doubt about it. This is why contracting businesses need to go online and have a contracting website with important features.
Wondering what might happen if you don’t have an online presence?
Let me break it down for you. Even if you’re not digital yet, your competitors are. And with more and more people searching for contractors online, you miss out on important clientele and opportunities to grow your business.
That’s because local search intent SEO is growing at a faster rate than you can imagine. This means that more people are searching for localized services now, impacting their buying patterns.
Don’t believe us? Take a look at this infographic by Search Engine Land to see the growing percentage of local searches and purchasing behavior.
And that’s not it.
With the general trend of social reviews and online presence, your target market will likely trust you to have a social proof and an amazing website. By doing so, you’ll be making things easier and accessible which is what customers want.
So today, we will discuss the 5 important features a contracting website must-have. Let’s dive right into it!
1. Website Loading Speed
You probably weren’t expecting this to be one of the most important features, but it is. That’s because website loading speed has a great impact on the user journey. In fact, most users close the tab or bounce if the loading speed is slow.
This can also impact your website’s SEO ranking and overall site health. But most importantly, a slower loading speed means less customer retention.
So your number one priority should be to maintain the optimum website loading speed. This can be influenced by various factors that include:
- Hosting
- Your Web Design
- How you handle the images and video on the site
Make sure that you review these to resolve any existing issues and speed up your website to get more customers.
2. Clear CTAs and Inquiry Forms
As a contracting business, your primary and obvious goal is to get more customers and leads. That is why the second feature on our list is the clear inquiry form.
Keep the following things in mind while designing your Call to Actions (CTAs) and inquiry forms:
- Make sure that your form is easy to fill out. Keep the number of fields as few as possible. A long or lengthy form might not be the best way to get your customers to sign-up.
- It’s always a great idea to keep a field where the customer can compose a message. This would allow them to communicate specific requirements and make the follow-up easier for you.
- You should also include a privacy statement at the end. The last thing anyone wants is a company leaking their private information or selling it to third parties. So, make sure you mention that to reassure the customer.
- In an instance where the form isn’t working, make sure you make the error message visible, so there’s no issue.
3. User-Interactive and Responsive Design
You might have read or heard this term many times before – user-interactive. But what does it really mean for your contracting website?
Easy – the answer is to make your website as friendly and easy to follow as possible. User interactive website basically prioritizes features from a user viewpoint. This includes making it more mobile-friendly and highlighting the important features to make the journey easier.
Here are a few important features to keep in mind if you want to make the website more responsive:
- Simple and easy to follow navigation. You can either pick horizontal or vertical navigation, but stick to one to avoid confusing the user.
- Use hierarchy in texts and general images used throughout the website.
- Make use of white space to balance elements.
- Make sure that the website and images are optimized for mobile screens.
- Keep the CTAs clear and simple so users can fill in easily.
4. Elements of Credibility and Social Proof
Next up, we have the features to win over your customer’s trust and support.
If you’re in the contracting business, you’d know that social proof and positive word of mouth is one of the most important steps to success. That’s because everyone has a horror story when it comes to construction. Sometimes, there’s an issue with overrunning budget or poor quality, or even unethical practices.
So to ensure that you earn your customers’ support digitally, you need reviews and testimonials of your existing and past customers. This helps new people to trust you more easily.
Here are some of the ways you can build up that trust:
Customer Testimonials
It would help if you had reviews from your previous satisfied customers to attract more. Believe me; nothing works better than the magic of social proof for new customers. Whether it was a commercial or a residential project, put up your customer testimonials.
In fact, I’d advise you to create a separate page for it on your website. You can look at them as case studies instead of a one-line testimonial. If you explain how you tackled a specific problem and helped a customer, it will allow similar search queries to pour in too.
More importantly, this would give your potential customers a key insight into your process.
Blog & Articles
The second way you can build trust and your brand authority is through a blog.
Create a blog section on your website where you regularly publish industry-related news and content pieces. This helps with your SEO score, but more importantly, valuable information attracts more customers and allows them to trust you more easily.
If they can see that you truly are an industry expert, they’re more likely to hire your services.
5. High-Quality Videos and Photography
And finally, make sure that you use HD quality videos and photography.
Your work is a testimony of your customer service. And if you’re in the contracting business, a significant part of your work is based on on-site images.
Creating before/after images of projects acts as strong credibility elements and conveys your capabilities far more than words.
However, if these images are of poor quality, they would reflect badly on your business. Make sure that the images and videos you put up on the website are of premium quality and go in line with your color combinations for the website.
If you do so, the images and color palette complement one another and make the website look more attractive.
