Top 10 Web Design Tips for Contractors and Construction Companies
Interested in the web design strategies and high converting features the top ranking and converting contractor websites use?
We’ve analyzed the best contractor and construction websites and identified the must-have elements for a successful site.
When executed correctly, your website can be a powerful marketing tool that generates a steady supply of leads and clients.
However, not just any website will do. So how can you design and build an effective site for your remodeling, home builder, roofing contractor, or general contractor business?
Follow these construction and general contractor web design best practices to set your site up for success whether you’re designing or redesigning a website in-house or using the services of a professional web design firm.
10 Tips to Build A Top Ranking and High Converting Contractor Website
1. Portray a Professional Image with Simple and Clean Web Design
The number 1 rule to follow is to keep things simple. When it comes to contractor web design, less is more. You don’t need a complicated design or fancy features to make your website stand out and leave a great impression.
A clean design portrays a professional image of your company and conveys a sense of quality, competence, and trustworthiness.
When you strip your site to include only the most important items and limit distractions, it’s easier to direct visitors to the key content and conversion points.
Here are some pointers on how to achieve a sleek modern look and feel:
- Only include the most important design elements, which will help you steer clear of a cluttered look.
- Incorporate plenty of white space to lend your site an airy feel and make the content easy to view and read.
- Utilize visual hierarchy to arrange elements in their order of importance. This is an effective design principle to get users to complete the desired action.
- User-friendly navigation reduces friction in lead generation. You can feature a simple horizontal navigation or go minimal with a hamburger menu. Make sure to include links throughout the page and in the footer section.
- Invest in UI and UX design to improve the site’s ease of use, deliver a great customer experience, and improve website rankings.
2. Create a Great First Impression with a Compelling Homepage
When a potential client lands on your website, you’ve only a few seconds to capture their attention and pique their interest so they’ll want to stick around.
As the most important landing page on your website, the homepage deserves extra attention. It’s the virtual front door to your business and it’s vitally important that it elicits a great first impression.
Include the following elements in order to create a visually appealing and effective homepage:
- Maximize the hero section with an eye catching image, images slider, or video. Add a headline to convey what your company is all about and a call to action button to drive leads.
- What do you do? Offer a brief overview of the services you offer and what kind of clients you serve. Link to the individual service pages.
- Why should the visitor hire you? Outline the selling points that set you apart from the competition. Showcase how you address typical pain points.
- Why should the visitor trust you? Share select testimonials to establish your credibility and connect with visitors looking for the kind of services you offer. Spotlight awards, impressive stats, or logos for recognizable clients you’ve worked with.
- What should the visitor do next? Use compelling call to actions and make your contact details obvious. Feature social media icons with links to your accounts.
3. Showcase What You Do with High Quality Images of Your Work
The first thing potential clients will want to see on your contractor website are your projects. This is why its important to feature compelling visuals on your site. Wow visitors with professional-quality images that attest to your capabilities as a contractor.
Here are some ideas on how to incorporate visuals into your contractor web design and create an impressive portfolio.
- For the hero section of your homepage, use a hero slideshow or video to showcase impressive projects you’ve completed.
- Before and after projects photos are especially powerful because they effectively demonstrate the quality of your work.
- It’s also a good idea to share in process photos of your team at work. It can portray your professionalism and show potential clients what to expect.
- Create a portfolio page and populate it with your completed projects. Include a variety of projects to show your diverse skills. Group the projects into categories to make it easier for people to find relevant projects.
4. Inform and Convince Potential Clients with Compelling Copy and Powerful Copywriting
As you create your contractor website content, keep in mind that people will come to your website looking for solutions to their problems. Quality content is also vital for search engine ranking.
The key to making a connection with visitors is to understand their pain paints and communicate how you can solve their issues. Keep in mind these pointers to create effective copy:
- Use simple language to communicate clearly and in a way all levels of visitors can understand
- Provide comprehensive information about the contractor services you provide. Share an overview of the services you offer on the home page and then create comprehensive pages for each of the services. What problems do you solve? What locations do you serve? This kind of content helps you reach and engage the appropriate audience and also benefits your SEO efforts.
- Share your process to give prospective clients an idea of how their project will proceed should they hire you.
- Use your about page to show your target audience that you understand their needs and wants and are qualified to solve their problems.
- Have an FAQ page with answers to frequently asked questions. This will build your credibility and improve your search engine ranking.
- Consider adding case studies to showcase how you tackle the typical challenges that come up as the project progresses.
- Incorporate a blog and create valuable blog posts that address the problems your target audience faces. Blogging will not only drive the target audience to your website. It’ll also help you generate more leads. Businesses who blog receive 67% more leads than those that don’t.
5. Stand Out from the Competition by Establishing Your Unique Selling Proposition
As a visitor explores your website, they want to know what makes your company better than your competition.
Your site should clearly establish your competitive advantage and help prospective clients understand why they should hire you instead of any other contractor.
Your contractor web design should establish your brand identity and reflect your core business values. Whether you specialize in luxury projects or focus on sustainability, your web design, images, colors, and font choices should reflect the kind of work you do.
Consistency between what you say and what you show on your website helps inspire confidence in your work.
6. Optimize Your Website Design and Content for the Search Engines
Top ranking websites don’t rely on luck to appear at the top of search engine result pages. They diligently follow search engine optimization (SEO) best practices to improve their rankings on Google and other search engines.
Search engine optimization is the key to your site receiving free traffic from the search engines. Factor the following SEO elements when designing and developing your construction website and when creating content.
- Get technical SEO right by hiring a high-quality web designer and developer to create an easy to crawl, mobile-friendly, and fast loading website.
- Optimize headlines, titles, meta descriptions, website copy, and blog posts by incorporating the keywords and phrases visitors are likely to use when searching for the services you provide.
- Make use of both internal and external linking to boost your search engine indexation and ranking.
- Implement local SEO to ensure your site shows up in local search results. Sign up for a free Google My Business listing and use local keywords to come up for “contractor near me” searches.
7. Deliver a Great Experience for Everyone with Responsive Web Design
People will access your website from a range of devices. Some will browse from smartphones and tablets while others will use laptops and desktop computers. Your website should provide a great user experience for all visitors regardless of the device they are using.
The key to ensuring your site renders well on all devices is to adopt responsive web design. This way, your website will resize and reorient itself based on the device being used.
Besides ensuring that all visitors can read and navigate your website with ease, responsive design is also essential to rank well in the search engine result pages.
8. Gain Visitors’ Trust with Credibility Indicators and Social Proof
Construction and remodeling projects are costly endeavors. Potential clients will only hire you if they are convinced of your expertise and credibility.
Instilling trust requires that you emphasize your expertise and show that other people trust and recommend you.
To build credibility and trust, use multiple trust signals including:
- Share your qualifications and accreditations to establish yourself as an expert in your field. Feature trust badges such as certifications, licenses, insurance, trade organization memberships, and safety protocols. If you’ve earned industry awards, proudly display them.
- Feature genuine and descriptive testimonials and showcase reviews from trusted third party review platforms such as Google and YELP.
- Share stats and figures that speak to your authority in the industry. For example, you can highlight the number of years in operation and the number of projects completed so far.
- Offer promises and peace of mind guarantees that address your customers’ pain points. This is a great way to overcome doubts and convince people to do business with you.
- A strong social media presence is also important. Feature links to your social media pages on your home page and embed social media posts to showcase your recent activities.
9. Make it Easy for Interested Clients to Contact You
The end goal of your contractor website is to capture leads for your business. Drive this desired action by making it as easy as possible for interested visitors to get in touch with you.
If your contact details are hard to find, visitors will hit the back button and go to your competitors. Improve your lead generation efforts by providing multiple ways to contact you:
- Feature your phone number, email address, and call to action button in the header section
- Have a simple, easy-to-fill online form to allow potential clients to quickly ask questions or request a quote.
- The contact page is one of the most important lead generation pages on your site. Share all the different ways to contact you including directions to your office and opening hours.
- Have a clickable phone number to enable visitors on mobile devices to call at the click of a button.
- Consider incorporating a live chat bot. Having one can drive up the number of people that reach out and end up hiring you.
- As for visitors that don’t get in touch right away, offer a free incentive such as a discount or DIY tutorial to entice them to sign up for your email newsletter
10. Drive Your Most Wanted Response and Generate Leads with Compelling Call to Actions
What are the actions you want visitors to your website to take? Creating compelling call to action (CTAs) is the best way to drive your most wanted responses.
Examples of call to actions for contractor sites include request a quote or schedule a consultation. Follow these tips to create effective CTAs that drive leads:
- Use clear and compelling language that persuades visitors to take the desired actions.
- Consider offering a free on-site quote. It creates perceived value and encourages more people to contact you.
- Make the CTA buttons stand out by using a contrasting background color.
It’s A Wrap!
Creating a successful contractor website isn’t rocket science. If you follow the above contractor web design tips, we can guarantee that your website will attract targeted traffic, generate leads, and convert the leads into new contracts.
Our team of web designers and developers can help you create a construction or contractor website that impresses your target audience and wins clients. Contact us today! We will design a custom mockup of your website for free!