How to Promote a Construction Company Online
Everyone is looking to promote their construction company online these days, but doing so properly can be difficult. Promoting yourself online requires some computer skills, but the good news is you can do so cost-effectively and sometimes for free. The good news is, you’re in luck. We’ve put together a list of our recommendations to promote a construction business online. Our years of experience online means we’ve tried everything and had a lot of success, but in some cases failed. You can learn from our mistakes and save yourself some hard-earned cash!
Social Media Promotion
Free Social Media Promotion
The name of the game here is to create social media accounts for your business and then post content to it that appeals to new customers. If you’re a deck-builder for example, you may be posting images of the beatiful decks you’ve created to inspire those who are planning to build soon. The top social media networks for free promotion are:
- Facebook – You can post any type of content. It’s good for essentially any type of business targeting those who are 40+
- Instagram – It’s primarily an image sharing site but you can now post videos as well. This is more geared towards those under 35.
- Twitter – You can post text under 140 characters, or images. This can be a difficult one to acquire new clients with but it’s good to grow your brand’s presence.
- Pinterest – This is an image sharing site with a predominantly middle to older age female audience. It’s good for home renovation and other businesses with beautiful images of their work.
- Linkedin – Linkedin doesn’t work for a consumer audience, but if you’re targeting the business market then it may be a valuable social media channel for you.
Paid Social Media Advertising
If you’re looking to jump-start your social media efforts, or drive traffic to a website with an inquiry form, then paid social media ads may be right for you. These use the same free platforms mentioned above, but allow you to pay for placements. All networks allow you to target ads based on your location and target audience (i.e. gender, age, etc.). Some networks also allow targeting based on keywords, interests or more. The top choices for social media advertising are:
- Facebook – You can run video or image ads and have them click through to your website, or even have a form show directly on facebook which will gather people’s information. A nice side-benefit is that you also end up naturally getting likes on your page. Once someone likes your page, you can show content to those ‘likers’ down the road free of charge by posting on your page. Facebook ads are relatively inexpensive compared to search ads on Google or Bing, but are the most expensive social ads out there.
- Instagram – Instagram ads run through the Facebook platform (they’re both owned by Facebook) and offer the same targeting and acquisition options.
- Twitter – You can run ads on twitter, but honestly we just don’t recommend it.
- Pinterest – If your audience is middle aged females then pinterest ads may work. We found them to be surprisingly expensive however and found the targeting to be simple and lacking when compared with facebook.
- Linkedin – If you’re targeting specific people in a business setting such as property managers, then instagram may work well. They are the most expensive social advertising option though and clicks usually run more than $2.
Search Ads (or PPC) Promotion
Tracking
You can add tracking codes to your website so that you know when an inquiry comes from an ad. You will also know what keyword and ad caused the inquiry to happen. All of this information allows you to optimize results and improve performance.
Costs
The costs of search advertising is usually higher than other online promotion methods, but again you’re only reaching those who are looking for exactly what you offer. With search ads, you are charged based on a cost per click. That means you can have ads show and if no one clicks them, you don’t pay. Costs vary from one niche to the next, and even from one keyword to the next, but typically you’re looking at paying anywhere from $0.80 to $3 per click for construction-related terms.
Free Advertising
Both Google and Bing always offer free advertising credits to new advertisers. Be sure to do a search looking for them and you’ll usually get between $50 and $150 free to start.
SEO or Search Engine Optimization
On-Page SEO Activities
This includes changes on your website to rank better in the eyes of Google, Bing, etc. Activities can include things such as:
- Blogging – Adding more content to your website will give you more pages to rank for on search engines. Each blog post can focus on specific keywords you would like to rank for such as “backhoes for rent“. Search engines like to have pages to show that are relevant for certain pages and blog posts can help your website have that page.
- Website Speed – Google is putting more emphasis on fast websites these days since it improves user experience. You can improve your website’s speed by saving images with smaller file sizes and by choosing a fast website host.
- Image Optimization – Searches by images are becoming more important these days and are driving more traffic. You can optimize images for certain keywords by using keywords in their file names, and including an “alt” tag for the image which has descriptive text.
Off-Site SEO Activities
Traditionally Google relied on links from other sites back to your own website in order to tell how to rank websites. These links are viewed as a vote of confidence that the website is relevant and authoritative. Over time, people abused this knowledge and created thousands of spammy links to artificially improve ranks. Because of this, Google and other search engines now have complicated ranking methods which look at how relevant the website is that’s linking to you. It also looks at the text used in the link and the types of sites that are linking to you. This can be tricky business and if done incorrectly, you can actually hurt your ranks by including low-quality links. If you’re going to go about SEO in this way then we recommend you hire an agency, or do a lot of research first.
Classified Ads
- craigslist.org
- classifieds.usatoday.com
- classifiedads.com
- gumtree.com
- adpost.com
Forum Posting
Most types of construction have forums that are dedicated to them. This includes everything from home renovations to building construction. You can find these appropriate forums and leak your own website’s links into content, driving people back to it. Please remember however that these are tight-knit communities so don’t simply get on there and spam people. Become a helpful member of their society by answering questions and providing useful insights. One great way to be useful is to look at questions being asked on a forum, then write a blog post answering it on your own website. You can then post the link as a response to their question and drive people to your own website. You also become known as an authority for that type of work.
Construction Company Promotion Conclusions
There are a lot of ways to promote your construction company, but these days online marketing is usually the most cost-effective way to do so. If you’re looking to promote yourselves you may want to reach out to an online marketing agency. Or, if you have the time to learn and put in some work it’s entirely possible to generate some interest yourself. If you have any tips or tricks for promoting your business, please share them below and help others grow too!