Things to Consider Before Building Your Website with Brad Leavitt
I recently had the pleasure of chatting about web design principles with Brad Leavitt of the AFT Construction Podcast. As the owner of a high-end custom home building company, Brad had his own questions and concerns about website strategy, email marketing, getting feedback from clients, and more.
In this post, I’ll be recapping some of the high points and going over 5 things to consider BEFORE you get started building (or rebuilding) your website.
Building a Construction Website: 5 Things to Consider Before You Get Started
Show Recap
(0:51) How can contractors know if their website is converting?
(2:50) Website platforms — which ones are best for the construction industry?
(10:25) Building trust and prequalifying leads with free downloads
(15:15) The valuable asset of an email list
(19:15) Utilizing case studies to book more jobs
(23:20) Getting curious about Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools and lead tracking
(31:08) What are users looking for on a website? What should be prioritized when building your website?
(36:35) Does mobile optimization really matter?
(37:35) An intro to Hotjar and heatmaps - the strategy behind web design
(44:18) How to ask clients for feedback (and why this is beneficial data for your business)
(46:56) What is it like to work with you? What does the process look like?
(52:40) How Katlyn got into web design
Ready to give it a listen? You can find the episode on:
1 - Platform
This is where it all starts. Where the heck do you build your website?
While platform has a minor impact in the sales aspect of your website, the platform does determine what kinds of things you can do with your general contractor website, so it’s worth taking a little time to think about it.
Wordpress remains a popular option in the construction industry because of the full customization through plugins and extensions. It’s a great platform…but it has its downsides. Wordpress websites require quite a bit of upkeep to keep your website functioning and the need to add 3rd party plugins to do more with your website can add to the monthly cost.
What I’m trying to say is…
Wordpress is not your only option!
Increasing in popularity because of their ease of use are platforms like Squarespace and Wix.
Squarespace is what I use to design custom websites and the platform I recommend to my clients in the construction industry. It really is a good fit for a lot of people though, since it’s largely drag and drop, but still customizable. And all the plugins you need to add on or pay for separately on Wordpress are built right into the platform, so you don’t have to worry about going out and finding them or keeping them updated.
For businesses that want to sell products directly through your website — for example, if you have an interior design shop, and you’re going to be selling loads of products — then you might want to check out Shopify instead. It’s easy to use, and specifically designed for sites that need to function more like stores.
2 - Optimization
The days of slow-loading, hand-coded websites are long gone. It is essential that your website loads quickly anywhere your clients open it.
Did you know?
Today (May 2023), 55% of website traffic is coming from a mobile device. If your website isn’t currently optimized for mobile, you are missing out on over half of the potential business you could be getting — a HUGE missed opportunity!
When designing a website, you need to make sure mobile optimization is a priority. This means making sure your site works just as well on a phone or tablet as it does on a desktop or laptop computer.
One of the most common reasons I see sites loading slowly is because they’ve uploaded a bunch of huge, super high-resolution pictures on them. These photos are beautiful and make for great portfolio images throughout the site — but make sure you (or your web designer) pay attention to sizing and rendering images properly.
Once you’ve got the basics of mobile optimization taken care of, it’s also important to optimize your site for your customers. All business’ customers need something slightly different, so think about what kind of information people ask you for all the time and pay attention to the kinds of questions they ask in sales meetings. There might very well be something you could put on your website that could either answer those questions preemptively, or make you stand out more from the competition.
Not sure what your customers want and/or need? ASK THEM!
What questions do you have for me?
How was the process of working with us? What could we have done to make it better?
Why did you choose to work with our company over our competitors?
Whether you do it on a survey on your site, in conversations or emails with them, or some other way, ask customers what they want and need. This includes asking those who decide not to work with you. When someone turns you down, ask them (in a relaxed, no-pressure way), what contributed to that decision. It could be that you just forgot to tell them something they needed to hear, or that you didn’t realize they didn’t know you help out with certain types of projects. It’s a great way to gather data that you can then use to further optimize your site.
3 - Design and copy
Design primes. Copy sells.
The visual design of a site attracts and engages people to spend more time on your website and guide them to where you want them to go. Design can instill a sense of trust and primes the user to say yes to working with you. But copy — the words you use on your website — closes the deal.
That’s why it’s important to have a solid design and copy on your home builder website. (Even if you’re DIY-ing your website!)
Not only does it build trust, because it shows people that you’ve taken the time to really put some thought into it, it also helps people feel more comfortable working with you, because great design meets site visitors where they’re at and makes them feel comfortable.
When preparing for a website design or redesign in your business, plan to invest in professional copywriting. The written content is just as important as the design and should be written in such a way that really brings your message home to your site visitors. (Which might not be exactly the way you’d talk to them!)
For example, when someone lands on a general contractor site, what they’re really interested in knowing is whether they can trust you, and you can solve their problems. But a headline that says, “You can trust us! We’ll solve your problems” isn’t going to be all that attractive. Whereas something like, “ACME Roofers: Keeping Families Safe and Dry for 25 Years” speaks more to the core of what your clients are thinking and feeling.
To learn more about copy that sells, I highly recommend reading Building a Storybrand by Donald Miller.
4 - Content marketing
People often think about websites purely in terms of design and copy, but the content marketing you put on your site is just as important.
Content marketing is the creation and sharing of online materials and includes things like videos, blogs, social media posts, free downloads, and more!
The purpose of content marketing is to generate interest in your services and is a touch point of warming up prospective clients for a sale.
Blogs help potential clients understand what you do and how you’re different.
A newsletter opt-in that gives them information they actually want, a general pricing calculator, or a helpful guide.
Free downloads like checklists and how-tos can be incredibly powerful in building trust through offering free advice, tips, and tools.
Start thinking of ways that you can incorporate something like this on your website!
For instance, could you create a guide that walks people through the home-building process, all the way from initial consultation through the whole construction process to follow up? That kind of thing might seem obvious to you, but it’s usually a huge process with a bunch of unknowns to your customers. The more helpful information you can provide them with, the easier it’ll be for them to say yes to working with you down the road.
5 - Conversion tracking
Finally — build your website with strategy in mind.
Your website isn’t serving you unless it’s doing what you want it to do.
For every business, this looks a little different. Do you want to…
Increase the number of inquiries you get through your site?
Improve the quality of the leads that come through your site?
Build your email list?
Rank higher in Google searches by optimizing your website for SEO?
Attract a specific type of client?
Streamline your processes and/or systems?
These are just a few of the possible website objectives a company might have. What you want to achieve is different from what another business wants to achieve from their website.
Get clear about what your goals are and then track them!
Track your conversion rates (aka how many times people take the action you want them to take on your website.) There’s lots of ways you can do this, Google Analytics will give you some great insights, and Squarespace has some great analytics tools built right into the platform.
The main things you want to be looking for are the amount of time people spend on the site, the number of people who visit vs the number of people who call for a quote or end up hiring you, and where people drop off.
And how can you know all this? Well, you can track the number of leads you get coming in from the site, but you can also use this great tool called Hotjar, which lets you track exactly where people go and what they do once they’re on your site. This makes it easy to see where they’re spending a lot of time, and where they drop off, and you can then use that info to further optimize your site. For instance, if people go to your site and immediately look for a pricing page, then you can make that page even more prominent. Or, if they get halfway down a sales page and drop off, then you know you need to revise something there.
Convert more website visitors to paying customers with a custom home builder website.
I’ve built my business on helping construction industry professionals reach their business and website objectives through strategic websites on Squarespace. I’d love to serve you and help you achieve the same. Learn more about custom website design by booking a free 30-minute consultation today!
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TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS POST
Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller
Hotjar website inspector tool
Squarespace website building platform
