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Digital Marketing for Roofers: A Step-by-Step Guide
Two things that reliably create business for roofers:
- A once-in-a-generation storm that knocks the tiles from half the town’s roofs
- A solid digital marketing strategy.
One of these is unpredictable, can change direction at a moment’s notice and comes together only once in a while. The other is a weather phenomenon…
Jokes aside, creating and implementing a digital marketing strategy for a roofing business can be a daunting affair. What are the options? Where should you start? How do you know if it’s working?
At Advance Online, we’ve devised and implemented digital marketing strategies for dozens of roofing businesses. We know what works and what doesn’t.
From SEO to social media, we share our knowledge of digital marketing for roofers.
How Roofers Can Get More Leads
When marketing a roofing business, there are three options: traditional, digital or a combination of the two. But what does each entail?
Traditional Marketing for Roofers: Brand Building and Advertising
Traditional marketing covers all marketing efforts carried out offline. This includes:
- Branding, including name, logo, slogan and branding guidelines
- Appearing in local advertising, such as in newspapers and on billboards
- Sending direct mail
- Telephone campaigns
- Engaging with the local community by sponsoring organisations or events
- Customer referral programmes
- Partnering with local trade organisations, such as home associations
Digital Marketing for Roofers: SEO, PPC and beyond
Digital marketing encompasses everything that occurs online. But that doesn’t just mean building a website and letting the roofing customers come. It also includes:
- Search engine optimisation (SEO)
- Pay-per-click advertising (PPC)
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
A multi-pronged approach for digital marketing is highly advisable, but of course, it takes time, effort and budget. More on that later.
Traditional Marketing vs. Digital Marketing for Roofers
Do you prefer the idea of hands-on traditional marketing? Or are you excited by the prospects of reaching a broader digital audience? There are pros and cons to both.
Traditional Marketing
Pros:
- Direct exposure to your local clientele
- Builds personal relationships
- Trustworthy – it’s tangible to the customer
- Works well with an older demographic
Cons:
- Potentially high costs, for instance, when paying for advertising space
- Limited reach
- Difficult to measure and quantify success
- Relatively inflexible
Digital Marketing
Pros:
- Relatively low cost to set up and maintain
- Fast and measurable results
- Broad reach
- It can be targeted geographically as well as demographically and by keyword too
- Digital media is increasingly used to find businesses: 98% of customers check out businesses online
Cons:
- Extra effort required to build trust by, for instance, soliciting online reviews
- Occasionally lacks the personal touch
In reality, a hybrid approach is suitable for a roofing business active in a local area. There’s also a great deal of overlap between traditional and digital marketing. For example, the logo you choose when determining your traditional marketing strategy will appear across digital platforms and your brand guidelines should be used to design your website.
Digital Marketing Options for a Roofing Business
The digital space is hotly contested for roofers and roofing businesses. To rise to the top, you need to understand the various digital marketing options and choose what suits you and your business.
Web Design for Roofers
Web design is the practice of designing and building a website to advertise your business. As well as containing the necessary contact details, it needs to be eye-catching and appealing – it should sell your business.
The average time spent on a webpage is only 52 seconds, so you haven’t got long. Use large, bold statements and images showing exactly what you do. Where possible, avoid stock images, as users often have a sixth sense for inauthenticity. Before and after photos of roof repairs are a sure-fire way to impress visitors, just remember to take them first.
SEO for Roofers
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is the practice of optimising a website in order to appear at the top of search results for certain search terms, also known as ‘keywords’.
The driving force behind this discipline is the fact that the 1st, 2nd and 3rd search results attract the vast majority of the traffic (40%, 19% and 10%, respectively).
Search engines rank results based on differing criteria, but broadly it comes down to the ‘relevance’ and ‘authority’ of the webpage.
‘Relevance’ is determined by whether the web page addresses the keywords included in the search term. For instance, if someone searches ‘roofer’, the webpage should feature the words ‘roofer’ in the page title and copy.
‘Authority’ is determined by the depth and expertise of the content on the website, as well as the perceived authority that other websites ‘give’ to yours. If, for instance, you write a roofing blog about leaking chimneys and a home improvement website links to it, this will increase the authority of this page and your website.
Search Engines also assess the technical standing of the website to ensure it’s easy to read for both it and its users. Factors such as page speed are important here.
There’s much more to SEO than this summary. For more information, see our blog post ‘SEO for Local Businesses’ or talk to an SEO specialist.
Email Marketing for Roofers
By gathering the email addresses of a list of engaged customers and sending emails that contain useful information or offers, roofing businesses can generate significant leads.
Each email should have a specific purpose and be part of a targeted campaign. For instance, if you anticipate a downturn in business over the summer, share offers over email to entice customers to fill up your schedule.
Use software to track data, such as opens, click-throughs and unsubscribes, so you can understand where your email campaigns are and aren’t working.
Pay-per-click (PPC) Advertising for a Roofing Business
If you Google ‘roofer in London’, the first thing you will see is the ‘sponsored’ placements at the top of the search results.
These are one example of ‘pay-per-click’ advertising.
Pay-per-click advertising does exactly what it says on the tin. In return for a premium position in the search results or on a webpage, a company pays for each click it receives
The pictured example is more specifically ‘search engine advertising’. In this case, the companies have bid in an auction to appear in the paid places for the keyword ‘roofer in London’. Every time someone clicks on the sponsored link, the company pays their bid price. Competitive keywords command high bid prices and less competitive keywords typically require low bid prices.
Other types of pay-per-click advertising include ‘display’ advertising, whereby a clickable image or gif appears in the advertising space on a website, and ‘paid social media’, where companies pay to have their posts appear in users’ feeds.
Social Media for Roofing Contractors
Social media is a great place to share your work and your business’s personality.
Upload inspiring images of the roofing jobs you’ve completed or ‘how to’ videos on, for example, patching simple leaks to demonstrate your expertise.
You can also use social media to promote offers and collect customer opinions.
As ever, use the data – views, likes, follows and bookmarks – to better understand which of your efforts are most effective.
Roofing Content Marketing
Sharing content on your website helps your digital marketing efforts in several ways:
- It targets additional keywords, capturing extra traffic
- It improves the ‘topical’ authority of your website, enhancing SEO
- It demonstrates your roofing expertise, building trust
Content marketing covers a wide range of media. While blogging is often the first port of call, videos, infographics, quizzes and ‘white papers’ (expert in-depth papers) also exist within the content marketing sphere.
Digital Marketing for Roofers: A Step-by-Step Guide
Finding it difficult to know where to start with your digital marketing campaign? Our step-by-step guide, ordered in terms of ease and importance, will help you get off to the right start.
1. Create and Optimise a Google Business Profile
The simplest way to build a searchable online presence is to populate a Google Business Profile. Google Business Profiles contain the most important information a customer would need about your business – this information will also appear in search results and on Google Maps.
Much like websites, Google Business Profiles are subject to a ranking system. Ranking is based on three criteria: ‘relevance’ (the relevance of your business’s offerings to the search term), ‘prominence’ (in brief, the number of positive Google reviews you have) and ‘distance’ (the proximity of your business address to the searcher’s location).
You can optimise for these criteria by carrying out the following:
- Populate the profile with accurate information, including details like accessibility and opening times
- Include pictures and posts
- Write a compelling and concise description of your business, including your business’s keywords
- Populate the ‘services’ section, also with concise descriptions containing the keywords
- Obtain reviews from (satisfied) customers
To encourage reviews, provide customers with a ‘review card’ displaying a QR code that links to the review box of your Google Business Profile.
2. Manage Online Reviews
In a digital world where success can be so easily imitated, authenticated review sites offer consumers an unbiased view of a business’s reputation.
Visibility on a review website is particularly important for roofing businesses, where a ‘cowboy’ approach from an improperly qualified roofer can cause a disaster in the home. Roofing customers are especially careful and will scour numerous reviews before getting in touch.
Google Business is the first port of call for many, but other trusted sites with review functionality include TrustPilot, Which? and Facebook. Make sure you’re present on all three.
Bad reviews are inevitable. Make sure you reply to each one. It might be a simple apology and a promise to do better in the future, or you might have counter-arguments disputing the facts if a customer is being unreasonable. Whatever the case, remain polite and professional.
3. Select Your Roofing Keywords
Keywords are search terms for which you want your website to rank highly. They can be short, such as ‘roofer in Basingstoke’ or long, such as ‘how to tell if your chimney needs repairing’.
Choosing the right keywords for a roofing business is essential to your digital marketing strategy.
First, list all the services you offer. Include everything from broad terms, such as ‘roofing’, to more niche services, such as ‘EPDM rubber roofing repairs’.
Next, note down the areas in which you operate at a town and county level. Combine each service with each area to make a keyword master list, from which you will select the keywords you want to target.
Finally, you need to assess the data underlying each keyword, namely the ‘search volume’ (the number of times per month the term is searched) and the ‘keyword difficulty’ (a score which assesses the stiffness of the competition, indicating how difficult it will be to rank for this term).
It’s important to find a balance between search volume and keyword difficulty. Opt for a keyword with a high volume but high difficulty and you might not make the front page and will receive little traffic. Choose a keyword with little volume and it won’t generate the traffic you need, even if you rank highly.
In our experience with roofing websites, changing the target areas is the best way to alter the volume and difficulty. In general, larger areas come with high volumes and high difficulties, and vice versa. Start off targeting your local town and grow from there.
For more information, see our blog posts on how to choose keywords for a local business.
4. Build a Website Around Your Roofing Keywords
Before diving into the images, colours and copy of the website, you need to map out the structure of the website – this will be dictated by the target keywords.
As a rule of thumb, each service keyword should be targeted on a separate page, along with the main one or two areas. Additional areas should also be targeted on a separate page.
If you are targeting ‘roofer’, ‘roof repairs’ and ‘chimney repairs’ in three areas: Weybridge, Woking and Leatherhead, the page layout would look something like the below.
- Home page targeting ‘roofers in Weybridge’ and ‘roofers in Woking’.
- A service page targeting ‘roof repairs in Weybridge’ and ‘roof repairs in Weybridge’.
- A service page targeting ‘chimney repairs in Weybridge’ and ‘chimney repairs in Woking’.
- An area page targeting ‘roofers in Leatherhead’, ‘roof repairs in Leatherhead’ and ‘chimney repairs in Leatherhead’.
Once you’ve mapped the keywords correctly, you can start thinking about how to design and build the website. Use your branding guidelines to inform the design, making sure you include the following:
- Contact information in the header
- Testimonials embedded from trusted resources
- Clear descriptions of the services you offer
- Non-stock images
- A call to action. Ask your customers to get in touch and make it easy to do so
Needless to say, the website should be responsive and easy to use, otherwise, customers might get impatient and look elsewhere. A slow loading speed is bad for SEO too.
5. Optimise Your Roofing Website
While for the uninitiated, SEO can be a bewildering prospect, there are certain steps you can take to optimise your website:
- Include the keywords in the metadata (page titles and meta descriptions)
- Include the keywords in the page headings
- Mention the keyword and its synonyms in the copy
- Use unique images and add alt tags
- Hyperlink the pages to each other (also known as internal linking)
More complex (or at least complex-sounding) is the ‘technical SEO’. The website should be easy to crawl and index for the search engines. Uploading sitemaps to Google Search Console helps in this regard. The website should also load quickly (less than two seconds) and be usable on mobile devices.
Find more SEO tips for local businesses in our Help & Advice pages, or contact an SEO specialist for a helping hand.
6. Build Citations from Reputable, Relevant Websites
A ‘citation’ is the mention of your company and its details on another webpage. Citations help boost your website’s ‘authority’, which is a key ranking factor. The more citations you have from reputable and relevant websites, the higher your website’s authority and the higher it will rank in search results.
Citations come in two forms:
- Structured Citations: Business information contained within an organised profile, such as a directory entry.
- Unstructured Citations: Passing references to your business in, for example, blog posts.
Structured citations are particularly powerful as they contain all of your business’s information, making it easy for search engines to track the citation back to your website. Build these citations by entering your information into directories. Make sure the information is complete and consistent – conflicting information is bad for customers and SEO.
For a list of directories applicable for all local businesses, see our blog post ‘The 20 Best Directories for SEO in the UK’. Some more roofing-specific directories include:
7. Try Different Methods of Building Backlinks
While citations are the mention of your business information, a backlink is an actual link to your website. It’s a more powerful way to determine your website’s authority.
Backlinks from high-authority websites count for more in this regard, e.g. a roofing federation lends more authority to your site than an unmanaged blog post.
Backlink-building for local businesses takes time and results aren’t always guaranteed, though several methods can give reliable results. These include:
- Directory entries: Many citation entries also include a link to your site.
- Guest blogging: Post content on roofing blogging sites and receive a backlink in return – this may require paying a fee to the hosting site.
- Online roofing magazines: Get quoted in a roofing magazine, such as https://roofingtoday.co.uk/. This appearance could be for an expert opinion or to announce a large and prestigious job.
- Online local newspapers: Build contacts at a local newspaper so they reach out to you for roofing or business matters – they’ll usually link back to your website in the story.
- Sponsorship: Sponsor a local event or organisation, such as a sports team, and receive a backlink in return. While the sites may not have the highest authority, the locality of these backlinks makes them worthwhile.
Another way to attract backlinks is by writing content that other sites naturally link to. Informative blog posts help in this regard (more on that later).
A word of warning: Anyone who offers to build thousands of backlinks on the cheap is likely using spammy SEO tactics that could attract a search engine penalty in the future. Avoid backlinking offers that seem too good to be true.
8. Implement Effective Pay-per-click Advertising
Pay-per-click is an excellent way to generate quick results. If poorly implemented, however, it can quickly erode the budget and generate little in return.
Explore the effectiveness of PPC by using a PPC ROI calculator and implementing several limited campaigns. Keyword data will help here too, with keyword research tools providing an estimated ‘cost per click’, so you can judge for yourself whether targeting a particular keyword is worth it.
Start, for instance, by targeting ‘roofer’ in your local area and measuring the results. You can always grow your PPC campaign if it’s successful.
When implementing a PPC campaign, you also need to create an engaging landing page that converts visitors into customers, otherwise it’s money down the drain.
9. Post Expert Content
‘Long tail’ keywords are those with lower search volumes (technically speaking, they appear in the ‘long tail’ of the statistical distribution, but if statistics isn’t your thing, that’s not important).
In roofing terms, long tail keywords typically come in the form of niche services, such as ‘EPDM rubber roofing disposal’ or questions or statements, such as ‘how to tell if your EPDM roofing needs replacing’.
Long tail keywords form the basis of content marketing.
While these long tail keywords might not have the pulling power of the likes of ‘roofer’, they can be easier to rank for, and, by targeting enough of them, can generate significant traffic.
They also capture customers at different stages of the sales funnel, for instance, when they’ve identified a problem in their home before they’ve even realised they need a roofer.
Good content also improves your site’s topical authority and can attract backlinks, both of which are great for SEO.
Use your expertise to write blog posts and create videos and images that help customers and post them regularly to your site. It might take a while to see the positive effect, but it will come.
10. Create Engaging and Relevant Social Media Accounts
If your business isn’t already on social media, it’s about time you joined. Social media offers a great avenue to engage with customers near and far.
Don’t just post for the sake of it. Try to have an overarching strategy and ask yourself whether each post achieves at least one of the following.
- Does it develop your brand? An example would be a short video introducing the company and your employees. You might want to include personal stories, images and videos too
- Does it demonstrate your expertise and experience? An example would be images, videos and explanations of a job you’ve recently completed
- Does it help users? An example would be a post explaining simple roofing fixes users can perform in the home (this can also be seen as developing your brand and demonstrating your expertise)
For inspiration, some well-curated roofing social media accounts are:
- Noah Roofing & Construction – Personal, inspirational
- Professional Roofers – Professional, impressive
- All About Roofing – Helpful, informative
11. Build an Email List and Send Targeted Email Campaigns
Capture past and prospective customers’ emails by:
- Gathering email addresses through your website’s contact form
- Offering incentives for signing up to your mailing list
- Using e-invoices (make sure people opt in for the mailing list in this case)
- Creating a free tool that requires sign-up, for example, a roofing cost calculator
Once collected, use the list wisely. Make sure email campaigns offer something genuinely useful to the user, such as information on new roofing regulations or discounted offers on roof surveys. Otherwise, that carefully collected list might quickly shrink.
Agency, Freelancer or DIY?
When implementing a digital marketing strategy for your roofing business, one of the most important decisions you’ll make is how to do it.
Do you want to lean on the broad expertise and economies of scale of a digital agency? Or do you want to work closely with one or two freelancers? How about learning the ropes and devising and implementing the whole strategy yourself?
All options are possible, it’s just a matter of preference. To help you decide, see our blog posts ‘SEO through Freelance or an Agency’ and ‘Can I do SEO Myself?’
Digital Marketing for Roofers on a Budget
Every business is different and requires its own digital marketing strategy. To help you understand what a digital marketing strategy might look like for a roofing business on various budgets, we’ve detailed some typical solutions below.
£ Basic £ (budget = £300-£600 per month)
A small website targeting two to three service keywords, such as ‘roofing’ and ‘roof repairs’, and two to three small areas. Activities include fundamental SEO, such as SEO setup, citation building and tool maintenance.
££ Intermediate ££ (budget = £600-£1,500 per month)
Five to six service keywords targeting broad and niche services, including the likes of ‘chimney repairs’ or ‘roof surveys’, and more and/or broader target areas; intensive SEO efforts including regular audits and backlink building; quarterly or monthly content marketing; PPC campaigns; some social media posts.
£££ Advanced £££ (budget = £1,500 – £5,000 per month)
Ten-plus competitive service keywords and broad target areas such as major cities; advanced SEO and link-building tactics including guest posting, PR and link insertion; long-form content; significant PPC budget targeting a range of keywords; social media strategy planning and posting; email campaigns.
Needless to say, it’s possible to increase your budget and your marketing efforts as your business grows. In fact, it’s advisable.
Roofing Marketing: Final Thoughts
Digital marketing is an excellent way to generate leads for your roofing business.
Here at Advance Online, we’ve devised and implemented marketing strategies for various roofing businesses, big and small.
If you’re interested in finding out more, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via the contact page.
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