Blogging for Leads?
By publishing blogs that provide smart, useful content, you’re strengthening your image as a contractor insider who’s happy to be a helpful advisor. The best practice is to publish at regular intervals – whether once a week, twice a month or even once a month. The point is, your posts should come often enough that nobody sees your semiannual piece and says, “They’re still doing a blog?”
Posting blogs and sharing them through email and Social Media gives you an opportunity to provide content for your customers and prospects that helps them as it supports your overall marketing strategy. For example, if you’re marketing an end-of-season offer on equipment, your blog can tackle a related topic, such as “How do you decide when it’s time for a replacement?” Or as the weather changes, you can blog about indoor air quality and the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning – which supports the need to schedule a tune-up.
Your blog can be an important part of your SEO strategies. By using keywords common for your contractor field and the services you provide, you can improve your rankings in search engine results.
Of course, you also want leads, and you can include a call to action that starts a prospect’s journey through your funnel. For example, you can offer a free report or video for the price of an email address in a squeeze page – or end with a form for a free estimate that gets you in the home.
Whatever it is you’re selling should tie directly to the blog (or, rather, the blog should tie directly to whatever it is you’re selling). So, if you’re writing about water quality in your community, it’s a natural segue to plug a home water purification system – but not necessarily your drain-cleaning service. Or if you’ve written about the risk of electrical overload, it’d fit to mention surge protection services or added outlets, but perhaps not outdoor security lighting.