TRADIE SMALL BUSINESS WEBSITE DESIGN WITH SEO
I created a new tradie small business website design for Nu-Trend Plumber and Bathroom Renovations. Working closely with the owner Rick, we agreed to challenge the current industry norms with the typical fake discounts and little differentiation. Rick had previously used an agency to develop his website & had spent thousands on Google Ads for little result.
I performed a deep analysis of their business, services and competitors to create a revised website design but also a number of other changes to their marketing strategies. Our changes delivered over $100,00 in new jobs booked within a few weeks with higher quality leads and better conversions than ever before.
THE MARKETING BRIEF
As a tradie, how could Nu-Trend get more leads and jobs?
Nu-Trend operates in the highly competitive tradie segments of plumbing and bathroom renovations. Rick had spent over \$5,000 on other agencies to try and improve his business and was nervous about trying again. Although, he was referred to us by one of our other clients and he had read our Case Studies.
More than $5,000 had been spent on website development & seo optimisation.
Rick had already spent thousands of dollars in website development and didn’t have the proof or knowledge to work out if it was working or not. He felt that the website looked professional and presented everything about his brand really well. Our marketing audit showed him why this wasn’t the case and he needed a new tradie small business website.
Our marketing audit uncovered the real story – poor quality traffic.
We were given access to all the critical elements of the business to conduct an in depth marketing audit to review;
- Website performance with Google Analytics & Search Console data analysis.
- Looked at all Nu-Trend’s online profiles & social media usage.
- Communication practices.
- Where and how they were generating leads.
We uncovered a number of areas for improvement, most significantly that the existing tradie small business website hadn’t delivered any quality leads in over 12 months.
WHAT MY MARKETING AUDIT DISCOVER?
NO QUALITY LEADS IN 12 MONTHS
Even after their new website design was launched the quality of leads didn't change. In Rick's own words 'It feels like every customer that is calling isn't the type we are looking to service'. We looked into the data and the site had been set up for search words like 'Cheap Bathroom Renovation' as one example where the business was attracting the wrong type of visitor.
THE WEBSITE WAS DIFFICULT TO READ
Even though Rick had contracted a website design agency, the quality of their work was questionable. You couldn't read the text easily on many of the pages as they used colours that didn't contrast well or backgrounds that were too busy that the text was lost.
THE WEBSITE SITEMAP WASN'T SUBMITTED TO GOOGLE
While this isn't 100% critical as Google will crawl your site regardless, by submitting a sitemap you can quickly see what and how your site is being viewed by Google as well as get Consumer insights into their behaviour prior to visiting your site. This provides valuable information about keywords and phrases being used by people looking for a business' services.
CONTENT ON THE SITE WASN'T OPTIMISED FOR SEARCH
Even after they had paid for the new site to be created by an agency there were a number of pages that didn't have suitable metadata, page titles or wording on the pages to deliver the right search results.
NO CONSISTENCY WITH ONLINE PROFILES
We also looked at how Nu-Trend was presented across all their online profiles like Instagram, Facebook, Service Seeking, Hi Pages etc and found there wasn't a consistent, clear story being presented about the brand or their services.
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS PROFILE WASN'T OPTIMISED
The Nu-Trend Google My Business profile wasn't optimised. This is critical for tradies to enable being found quickly on Google as it helps local search and aids seo for the website as well.
INCONSISTENT QUOTING AND COMMUNICATION PRACTICES
Nu-Trend used a number of job sites to generate leads as many tradies do. Although their communication didn't celebrate their expertise, history, reviews or quality of work.
SAMPLES OF WORK WERE HARD TO FIND
Nu-Trend have been doing bathroom renovations for over ten years although they didn't have a wide variety of examples of their work to showcase online.
WHAT WAS MY SCOPE OF WORK?
We presented our findings to Nu-Trend and Rick was amazed at how much we had uncovered, we were than tasked to implement the suggested changes.
- Transition the website from Wix to a WordPress CMS system.
- Redesign the website to present Nu-Trend better.
- Review all page wording, titles and content to improve SEO performance.
- Set up lead conversion tracking & reporting.
- Create a gallery of bathroom renovation samples.
- Competitor keyword analysis and comparisons.
- Google My Business profile optimisation.
- Update & optimise all online profiles.
- Create quoting templates for job sites.
- Analysis of Google Analytics & Google Search Console data to identify further opportunities.
- Clean up & optimise social media profiles.
- Create new content like 'The Ultimate Guide to Renovation Costs'
WHAT MARKETING RESULTS WERE DELIVERED?
He gave us a brand new website design, new brand profile and even helped with things like how we quote clients, how to invest money and plan the steps to grow our business.
We got results within the first few weeks with phone calls, quote requests and jobs we won that we didn't get last year when we used an agency. The difference has been huge
Best of all he shows us proof of the results and pushes us to get more results."
INSTANT BUSINESS RESULTS.
This project ran over a period of three months with our initial work focussed on transitioning the website from Wix to WordPress while created revised market positioning for the Nu-Trend brand. At the same time we began helping with other marketing operational changes behind the scenes that began delivering results immediately. Most visible of course was their new website that represented a premium service and brought the business to life.
OVER $100,000 IN NEW JOBS BOOKED WITHIN WEEKS
Within the first few weeks of the new site going live Nu-Trend were quoting on bathroom renovation and plumbing jobs more than ever before. The quality of leads improved over night "The people coming through are really different" Rick, Director Nu-Trend.
57% INCREASE IN WEBSITE VIEWING TIME
Visitors average time on the site increased to over 2 minutes per session indicating that navigation, content and information had been improved greatly compared to the old website.
BOUNCE RATE DECLINED BY NEARLY 20%
The new website design was not only attracting the right people but they weren't leaving immediately, there was a 16% decline in people arriving and leaving immediately vs the old site.
KEYWORD & PHRASE SEARCH IMPROVEMENTS
The brand was now starting to be found for Bathroom Renovations and Plumber services from a range of more than 100 different keywords and phrases with over 24,000 bathroom renovation searchers in April.
CONSISTENT ONLINE PROFILES
Each online profile was updated to be clear and consistent across Facebook, Instagram, Service Seeking, OneFlare and other online directories.
BETTER WEBSITE RESULTS VS THE OLD SITE
Our initial results in just 12 weeks were delivering better results than the old site had achieved in 44 weeks. Nearly as many pageviews, more visitors per day, lower bounce rate, higher viewing time and more pages being looked at per visit. This has lead to more leads.
By early May the new website after just 4 months had generated more than half the search clicks vs the old site had done in the previous 16 months.
In just a short time the average position dropped below 70 with terms like 'Bathroom Renovation Cost' reaching below 30 indicating all the changes were having positive search position results.
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS OPTIMISATION
We completed a top to bottom optimisation of Nu-Trend's Google My Business profile leading to more than 2,000 interactions and over 160 conversions via website visits and phone calls. Best of all the brand was being found for relevant keyword phrases like Bathroom Renovations and Plumbing.
LINKEDIN, FACEOOK & INSTAGRAM UPDATES
We provided social media management across LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and Google My Business to create examples for the Nu-Trend team to follow. The focus was presenting good quality imagery with the appropriate descriptions that would be relevant for SEO while maintaining a consistent brand image and presentation.
IMPROVED BRAND PRESENTATION
We updated various templates and communication tools that Nu-Trend used to lift the quality of their Customer engagement.
DEVELOPING CLEAR POINTS OF DIFFERENCE
We spent quite a bit of time developing the points of difference that weren't price or discount related for Nu-Trend. This led to a number of content pieces being created for the website including their "Satisfaction Guarantee" and "Guide on How to Avoid Plumber Sales Gimmicks"
TRADIE SMALL BUSINESS MARKETING ADVICE
What should every small business website have?
Every tradie small business website should have some absolute basic fundamentals in place and the owner should understand what it is or isn’t delivering. Typing your own name into Google does not mean you rank #1. Instead type in the services you offer or things people would search for that doesn’t include your name, do you show up? Here are three basic items every small business owner should know about.
WEBSITE REPORTING FOR SMALL BUSINESS
The most basic website reporting should show you how many visitors you are getting per month, what City they are coming from and how this compares to previous months. This gives you a basic understanding to work from.
KNOW WHAT PEOPLE ARE SEARCHING FOR
An agency might guarantee you will be on the first page for 'Plumber in Sydney' although there might only be 100 people searching for that compared to 10,000 people searching for 'Plumber Service'. Don't be fooled by gimmicks and ask the question about what people are searching for or have this information provided to you.
GOOGLE MY BUSINESS OPTIMISATION
The other absolute fundamental that is needed to help a small business website is to make sure your Google My Business profile is optimised. This will help generate search traffic for your brand and to your website. An empty profile with just your name and phone number isn't enough.
