It should be your goal to have one of the best roofing websites in your industry as a service provider. An online presence is essential to the success of almost every business in this day and age. However, fewer than 64% of small businesses have a website.
Your potential customers are going to take to Google to find a roofing contractor in their area to work on their roof when they have a problem.
They will probably check out a few of the top results, and go with the company that provides them the information they’re looking for in the most professional manner.
You’re going to set your business apart and attract more customers if you have one of the best roofing websites and web design.
How do you go about creating one of the best roofing websites that’s better than your competitors?
It’s not that hard when you understand the framework that goes into building a website. It’s not too dissimilar to constructing a roof or any other physical structure– it’s just in the digital form.
There are four core elements to look for in website design services.
Technical Aspects
This includes elements such as functionality and mobile responsiveness. Additionally, there are various other elements that go into the backend of a custom website to ensure it’s operating at its best across all platforms.
User Experience
Let’s be honest, typical website visitors are not concerned with the technical stuff. They just want a good experience. This means different things to different people. But essentially, it means a site is easy to navigate, visually pleasing, and delivers a smooth experience.
Things like a hero image, which is an oversized banner at the top of a site, helps a user identify what the site is about immediately. You should have your contact details, such as phone number, email, and address in the top right corner.
Content
There is no such thing as having too much good content. The more varied and in-depth it is, the better. Ideally, you’ll include images, videos, other rich media, and of course detailed step-by-step tutorials and helpful information.
You also have to include all the mandatory and legal requirements; such as privacy and disclaimer pages, an informative “about us” page, contact page, and so on. But remember, the best roofing websites go beyond these pages with informational and helpful articles.
SEO
Search engine optimization is critical to the long-term success of a website. It’s not noticeable to website visitors, but everything you do while building a site should have SEO best practices behind it.
Over time, the better optimized your site is the more organic presence – and traffic you’ll get via search engines. You’ll also be able to cut your ad spend and not rely heavily on marketing services.
Here’s a closer look at why some of these elements are particularly important when creating a roofing business site:
Great Content = More Traffic and Higher Conversions
Great content is important for all sites, but with a roofing company website, in particular, you can use content to gain trust and bring in more business.
Some content web designs for roofing to consider include:
Visual Case Studies
With construction in general, customers like to see work a company has previously completed. It helps them better visualize what they can expect when working with a company. Furthermore, it demonstrates they’ve completed similar jobs.
Publish a portfolio of work on your site. Include pictures (your best shots), and describe how you completed the job.
Social Proof
With social media being so active, having social proof has become a standard for businesses online.
Work on building up your social media accounts and link them all to your site. What will also help is, publishing testimonials from satisfied customers and including links to any press releases or positive reviews.
Actively Blog
The most neglected area of any site, particularly for small businesses, is their blog.
Blogging, which essentially means adding articles to your site, has loads of upsides. You’ll increase your presence in the search results, and give visitors more content to learn about you and your business.
It takes up time and is challenging if you don’t have anyone interested in writing. But it’s one of the areas where you can gain a competitive edge over your competitors that are not blogging.
Use Rich Media
Rich media, also called interactive media, are forms of media like video, audio, and elements on a site that do something when the user mouses over them.
It’s a way you can present information in a more engaging way than just plain text and images. It’s another way you can go that extra mile to add elements to your site that your competitors are not doing to give you an edge.
Including video content for your case studies would be a nice touch. It helps bring to life the work you’ve done, as does adding image carousels.
The Importance of Optimizing for Mobile Devices
While on the topic of content, it’s important to cover how important it is that a website is optimized for mobile devices.
Not only optimized for mobiles but designed with mobile-first in mind. It’s been a couple of years now since mobile search and internet browsing passed desktop.
You can almost be certain that the majority of your visitors will be browsing your site on a mobile device. With all the work being done on a site on desktop, it’s important to test how it looks on mobile.
Modern themes are mobile responsive. So, you shouldn’t have to do anything special to ensure your site is working on mobile. What you will need to do is check the UX (user experience) by testing your site.
This also means, when you’re creating content you need to think about how it’ll look and perform on mobile. Be sure to keep sentences short (such as in this article). Blocks of text are hard on the eyes on small devices.
Be sure to size your images, video, and other media appropriately. Make sure the buttons are visible and easy to click. We’ve all been on sites where buttons get covered by pop-ups or social sharing icons; it’s very frustrating.
How to Create a Homepage That Converts
I mentioned user experience is one of the key elements that separates a good website from a great website – and after all, you want one of the best roofing websites.
Your home page is going to be the most important page on your site. This is where most of your visitors will form their first impressions of your business, and it’s also where your main navigation and call-to-actions are.
Here’s how to create an awesome home page that flows and guides visitors to where they need to go on your site:
Start With a Hero Image, Contact Details, and Navigation Bar
You may notice that well-optimized sites have a navigation bar somewhere along the top. This is because helping visitors get to where they need to go as quickly and easily as possible is important.
The basic pages on a site include the following:
- Home – For navigating back to the home page from anywhere on the site.
- About – This is where you talk about what your business is, what you do, etc.
- Privacy – Privacy pages are a legal requirement for every site.
- Contact – Providing a contact form makes it easy for visitors to drop you an email.
- Services – If you have a number of different services you can break them down into separate pages.
You can add any number of additional pages, these are just examples of the basics.
Users will also be greeted by a hero image. Images are aesthetically pleasing, and they also tell a story visually about the site you’re on.
Roofing companies, for example, would have a large image of someone working on a roof, or something along those lines.
Finally, you should make your phone number and contact details very visible in the top right corner. This is where internet users have become conditioned to see contact details, so it’s the best place to put them.
Flow Into Descriptive Statements and a Call-to-Action
As the user scrolls down, they should see some content describing what services you offer and a call-to-action.
Some descriptive headers like the following will catch their attention:
- “All kinds of roofing jobs at affordable prices,” or
- “From repairing to replacing and everything in between”.
Add a form to fill out or a button to click if you offer free estimates or calls. This will allow the visitor to conveniently take action and make contact with you.
The key here is to touch on the pain point that brought the visitor to your site. For example, letting them know you can repair or replace roofs, and you offer free no-obligation estimates.
This should be enough to make them take action. If it’s not, this is where the social proof and blog content I touched on above comes in.
Social Proof and Informational Content
If the user scrolls past the call-to-action, it means they need further reassurance that you’re the right fit for them.
You should include your social proof, case studies, and links to your best blog posts on the bottom section of your home page.
Reading testimonials from satisfied customers is important to visitors debating whether or not your business is the right fit for them. As is reading blog content that describes the problem they have, and how you can provide a solution.
Wrapping Up
Hopefully, after reading through this post you will recognize how the best roofing websites are presented and then follow the outline I’ve detailed above.
The best roofing websites, in particular, follow this outline.
You will yield the most conversions by creating a UX experience that takes a visitor through the steps from first landing on your site. Also, you must help them understand how you can help them and how they can easily contact you.