Websites for local builders – Beat the big guys and how to use their biggest weapon against them
30. May, 2009 
2 Comments
I have a friend who I’ve known for a long time that has been looking to build a house. Like a lot of young people, she spends a lot of time on the internet doing research.
She looks at all the different floor plans.
She looks at lots of pictures. The colours, the inclusions, the facades… everything.
She spends lots of time looking at all different aspects of the houses.
While observing her, I noticed a few interesting things
- The more complicated the buying decision, the more information your website should have
- Local builders are just not even in the ballpark when it comes to their website.
- Your online reputation, ie. recommendations and 3rd party reviews are really important.
National builders blow local builders away
National builders have so much useful information on their website. Nobody expects a local builder to have 4 different ranges of homes with 16 options from each range, but still, there is a huuge difference between the websites. (When I say national builders, I don’t mean the company, I mean builders that build all over Australia)
The national builders have websites that look nice. When you go to them, you think, “yeah, these people look like they could build a nice house”. The colours look good, the images are all really nice, some have a bit of flash, and they just make a good impression.
You go to a local builders website and they’re just terrible. The designs look shoddy and you begin to wonder if their website represents their level of quality or service. The colours are terrible, the pictures aren’t highlighted and the website doesn’t have any specific information on what they can do for you. Worst of all, the local builder’s aren’t leveraging the one thing that makes them better than a national builder. Their “localness”.
As a small business owner, I am a firm believer in supporting local business. I will happily pay more for things from a local business.
But for some reason, this industry doesn’t get it.
Local builders should be leveraging their local knowledge. I mean, they should be able to tell people where is the best place to buy land, which direction houses should be facing, customise buildings for the local climate or conditions, etc. Also, they should be able to offer personalised and local service that everyone loves.
We all know the benefits of a local small business over a large chain, but more and more people are doing research on the internet. Here are my thoughts on how local builders can get the power back. These tips don’t just apply for builders, but really for anyone selling complex products. It’s simple really, find out what you’re customers want, and then give it to them.
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Have lots of information
- There should be lots of information on houses. Each house should have an overview, photo gallery, floor plans, inclusions and options. Most importantly, there should be some indication of the price range. Everyone knows building materials change all the time, but still, customers need a baseline to compare options against… and a ballpark price does exactly that. If there are display homes, there should be information about them. There should also be a quick way to contact the right person.
- Lots of information about the local area. What estates are going up, where land can be bought, etc etc.
- Lots of content that will help your target market. If you build homes for first home buyers, put some information there about the first home buyers grant. If you have specific packages for first home buyers, draw attention to them and educate your visitors.
- Get reviews and testimonials, and don’t edit them. Customer’s aren’t fooled by fake testimonials. Post real testimonials, with real pictures. Put dates on them and keep adding new ones.
- I understand there’s never going to be the resources that the bigger companies have. But the information I’m talking about here, is information that builders go through with customers in the normal sales process anyway. All good builders educate their clients. Why not do it in a way that makes it easy for them, while they’re in a place that’s convenient for them.
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Look good
I can’t emphasise this enough. If you want people to trust you, you have to stun them with a great looking website. You have to stand out. You can’t just slap the information together haphazardly. Templates aren’t going to do the job. The amount of dodgy “Joomla website developers” that think a template design counts as a website is amazing. Customers aren’t fooled. If you want to stand out, your site has to be your site, it has to reflect what you do, and to do that, it has to look great.
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Optimise for search engines
It’s easy to beat the big guys in local search results. A website dedicated to a local area is always going to show up higher (provided it’s optimised properly. See my articles on getting on the google map and my 3 part series – optimising for local search).
I have seen a lot of builders advertising lately. They are trying to keep themselves going in this recession. The craziest thing is that to implement a great website is a fraction of the cost of all of this other advertising. Some builders are making huge offers, like Metricon is offering $13k in extras for free, and advertising it on radio, tv, newspaper, and probably other places. That’s all great, but people always do their research. And more and more people are researching online. For a fraction of the cost that Metricon is spending, a hell of a lot of information and education can be given to customers that are looking for it.
Summary
When you go out and buy staples, you just go to the shop and buy staples. You don’t care what brand, you just care if it fits and that it works. You don’t research the decision, and you don’t care about it much because even if you’re wrong it only costs you $3.
When you’re going to buy a house, or a car, or build a website, or make an investment, you want to know everything about it before forking over the cash.
Just from my experience helping my friend look at houses, I can see there’s a huge gaping hole when it comes to websites for builders.
About the author
Luke van de Paverd is the founder and manager of VDP Websites, a firm in shepparton offering web design and internet marketing services. More info about Luke or visit VDP Websites.
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Having built a new home about 4 years ago, had a friend also just go through the same ordeal this month, as well as actually having recently built a website for a local(ish) builder, I could not agree with you more. I see the main problem being with the mindset of the builders themselves.
Many of them are very traditional in their sales techniques, and do not believe in the power of a good website. They only want to offer the bare minimum online (they’re scared of publishing their floor plans online where they can be “stolen” and taken to another bulder) and would much rather have the prospective buyer contact them directly to discuss their requirements face-to-face (where they can work their sales pitch) than let them do their own research. Its a shame really, because from a customer’s point-of-view, you get a much better experience from the nationals.
I also find some builders (maybe it’s just local businesses in general) to be very reluctant to spend much money on a website, which I find strange, knowing how lucrative their industry is.
Mikey I like your point about some companies wanting to offer the bare minimum online to “give them a reason to contact me”, and how silly that is. I’ve heard that line now from a few different places. Like you say, the reverse is true – People will call you if they like you best after doing their research. And people aren’t always rational, their research might have been flawed. My friend ended up going with Dennis Family to build their house. Coincidentally they have the best website by far, but who knows how good their offerings are compared to the other builders.
Yeah, they definitely don’t get the leverage of national builders. A national buider builds a website and gets viewed by people all around Australia. A local builder gets it viewed by people within 100km radius. The resources will never be on par, but still, if they make just one extra sale from it, they’ve made their money back.