Are you looking to capture more high-quality new home and remodeling leads?

In today’s episode of our series called “Digital Lead Generation Secrets”, we will reveal 4 secrets every builder needs to know in order to capture high-quality leads.

These secrets are the basis of building a consistent client acquisition process that runs 24/7 for your custom home building or remodeling business.

Watch/Listen/Read on to learn valuable insights into how to create unique web content that attracts quality leads!

Builder Lead Converter ATTRACTS, CAPTURES & CONVERTS high-quality leads for builders so they can pick & choose their clients & jobs. Find out how at https://www.builderleadconverter.com

 

Transcript:

 Today on Conversations That Convert, we’ll be talking about home builder and remodeler website layouts that attract high quality leads. Can’t wait to get started for this one.

 

Welcome to Conversations That Convert. Every week, we’ll spend about 10 to 15 minutes tackling relevant lead generation marketing and sales topics for remodelers, home improvement companies and home builders conversations. That Convert is brought to you by Builder, lead Converter, your perfect sales assistant.

 

And now here’s Rick and Diana. Hi everyone. Welcome to Conversations At Convert. Hello, Diana, how are you today? Hi. Hello Rick. I’m very good, thank you. Hello everybody. Well love to see you again. What’s our topic today? Today? High quality leads and of course, how to attract them from the website layout. And this is all part of our new series called Digital Lead Generation.

 

Secrets and Diana, it’s all based on this, this is the annual report from the Association of Professional Builders and this details, I think it’s 16 different areas where a thousand home builders between United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Were well they were questions answered a survey.

 

And provided their feedback. And so the number one marketing challenge for builders, regardless of what country they’re in, was, do you remember what it was? No,

 

I, I’m gonna continue to question you outside of the, outside of our, our, this, our podcast here, number one marketing challenge was generating high quality leads. We’ve come off obviously a peak time between nine or 2020 and 2022, where we would have an overabundance of business and overabundance of leads.

 

Now we’re getting back to normal. Interest rates have gone up, demand has gone down, and so now it is more difficult again to generate that high quality lead. So in our series, digital Lead Generation Secrets, we are, we will break down what are the secrets to attracting, capturing, and converting. High quality leads.

 

So you as a builder can pick and choose your clients and jobs, and that’s what it’s all about. Making sure you take the right job and not the wrong job and the right client, and not the wrong client, and the right price point, not the wrong price point, and the right place or the right locations. You’re not driving all over and spending too much time behind the windshield.

 

So let’s go back. We, this is our second part of this series. We started last week as we will start again this week. Understanding that every single lead has three questions, whether they’re building a custom home or they’re remodeling their home. All right. Now Diana, we we practice this one again. Okay.

 

So what are those three questions that every lead has? Let’s see if now I know how to answer. So it’s price, product, and place. Absolutely. So, yay. Price. How much will it cost? Product is what will it look like? So what will my remodel space look like? What will my new home look like? And then places do you build in the area that I want to build?

 

Or will you come to my home? Do you service my neighborhood or my community to, to remodel my home? That’s the three main questions, and it’s typically design as number one. Because people don’t start to question price until they un they, they get an understanding of what they want. So everyone’s looking for design ideas first.

 

Then once they find those design ideas, they fi, they narrow in on something they want, and then they ask, okay, how much will it cost? And then the last question is can I will, will you build it here? Where can I find that lot or land or will you come to my area? That sort of thing. So we are going to look at website layout.

 

Must-have, so I’m gonna show you some examples here shortly, but I thought it’d be best I just to look at, you know, if I, if I’m looking at my website right now with a critical eye, what are those must-have things in order to attract a high quality lead, whether you’re a home builder or a remodeler. So I came up with a list of, of four.

 

They are. Really what, what it gets down to is, is we wanna make sure there’s a good user experience for for the person on, on the website or for the lead. So number one, I have to have one click to get to the information I’m looking for. So if I have, I, there is, you can’t have too much information on your website.

 

You have, can have too much of the wrong information on your website. I usually see builders really get bogged down into process and awards. And with the technical side leads aren’t, they’re not interested in that. And that can actually hinder you from attracting the high quality lead. If there’s too much technical things on your website they will bounce.

 

And a bounce is simply where they come and leave from the same page and you’ve lost them as afu as a future sale. So number two, high resolution professional photos, high resolution professional photos. I understand, you know, not everyone ta has professional photos taken of their projects. It really is an it, it’s an investment that you will get back tenfold.

 

You must in high quality, high quality, high resolution photos. And what, what does that mean? It means the photos can’t be blurry on large screens. You know, right. Right now, you know, a lot of people are using 24 30 inch monitors. They’re using almost TVs. So the, the, the photos, these large photos need to look good on all sides of screens.

 

You need to have proper lighting and angles, and if you have videos, those are a bonus. Videos are great too. The, they’re, they’re used more for the lead capturing process. And we’ll explain more as we get in further into this series. But High resolution photos are, are utmost importance. Now we have to have a mobile optimized layout.

 

So most websites today are built for desktops and then they are properly optimized for a mobile screen. Now why is that? It, your leads looking at your website, it’s probably a 50 50 breakdown. Between 50% are looking from a desktop, 50% are looking from. A mobile device like your phone or a tablet then we have to be optimized for fast loading.

 

So the user experience, the search rankings that is all going to be based on fast loading. If it takes website sits and spins, takes too long to load photos, that sort of thing. You lose your lead. Google will also penalize you from a search engine standpoint if your page speed is too slow, so they will move you lower in the, in the page rankings.

 

So those are the four items which are really must have. So one click to get the most important information, high resolution professional photos, a mobile optimized layout, and then optimize for fast loading. So now that we’ve got those out of the way, let’s take a closer look at. The home builder content layout.

 

Again, what is if you are a home builder, how should your website be, be laid out. So, Diana, before we jump into that, any thoughts from you on going through these items? No, I’m taking notes so that I’ll be prepared to answer. So one click away photos, mobile optimizations, and fast loading. You are. You are.

 

So right. So let’s start with home building. Yes. And let’s take a look at an example here of a of a website. So you can see here obviously having a high quality, high resolution professional photo, proper lighting, proper angles. And you can see this website is utilizing full screen imagery. You know, so I’m going full, full, full size.

 

It really makes a huge impression, you know, especially for those higher end homes, even if you’re not building higher end homes, it just makes a big impression. It’s, it’s an emotional attachment. And we’ll talk a little bit more about that as what percentage of the sales already completed before the lead ever, ever talks to you.

 

So in this case, we’re gonna look at some of the key things that a home building lead is, is looking for. So we talked about number one. What are those must-haves? So, one click to get to the most important information. So in this case, this builder builds Lakeshore Homes. They have custom homes, and then they have innovative homes, which is their semi-custom series.

 

So if I’m a Lakeshore buyer, I got one click, custom home buyer, one click, versus if I want a semi-custom home, I want, I have one click to, to, to go. We’re gonna open up the menu here. Now you’ll see these same three things on the top of the menu, cuz we know those are the most visited pages. Now we need to get into, okay, what else does my lead want to see?

 

Remember the first question was I want to see what can my home look like. So, as an example here, I can go in and I can look at our innovative series and here’s where I will find floor plans. So I have all my different floor plans here. You’ll see kind of what we would suggest when it comes to a floor plan is again, getting the square footage on there.

 

Total finish feed, basement finish footage. These are all call to actions. We’ll talk about those in the leak capture. Then I wanna make sure I have a photo gallery. If I built the home before, that’s ideal. And obviously the floor plans themselves. I like colorized floor plans. It’s easier for leads to understand.

 

And this is simply colorized between. Storage areas versus sleeping areas versus living areas, versus recreation areas. You know, as as simple as that, if I go into the custom side of things, custom homes don’t have floor plans, but I’ve still break broken them down. I’m gonna put a design statement on here, you know, kind of details.

 

What was this? So, 6,400 square foot home. We have a call to action here for updated pricing, but same thing. I’ve had a professional photographer go in, And take photos of this home. So now my leads can go through there. So this is really what we’re looking for is for inspiration. We’re looking for that emotional connection for that lead to say, ah, I like this.

 

Because once you get an emotional hook, the next step is you start the relationship. So floor plans two different ideas there between custom and semi-custom, where you’re showing an actual floor plan versus where you’re just showing a completed home. And a photo gallery to go to go with that. Now the third item would be locations.

 

So again, I go one click to my locations page. This particular builder is building in neighborhoods, so they actually have locations here by community, different neighborhoods. And then they break it down here some more. There’s also a map that clearly shows the different locations that they are building, where they are in relation to the larger metropolitan area.

 

So now a lead can clearly see, yes, this is the location I want to be in. This builder does build in this location, and now I can actually go and try to find land, land or a lot here. Now if you’re a custom builder and you don’t build in specific neighborhoods, This is an example here. We’ll look at locations page.

 

This is where you would just simply itemize the different locations by city and then put a map here that you build. So in this, this, this client here is, you know, building around Salt Lake City, Utah. They obviously don’t have lots of all these locations, but they do get into tear downs and shows people again where we do and do not build.

 

All right, so that’s pretty much the, the, the must have content as it relates to custom builders. The next thing we wanna take a look at would be remodeling. So I’m gonna go back here to remodeling and say, okay, what are the most imp, what’s the most important content or layout to have? To attract a high quality remodeling lead.

 

So this builder obviously does both remodeling and custom homes. I always like to separate that on your website. If you do both, make sure it’s clearly, this is the remodeling side. It’s clear this is the custom home side there. It will look for different things based on what type of lead they are. What I really wanted to point out to you here is, is that from a remodeling standpoint, your project pages are most important.

 

These are like your. Your custom home examples or your floor plan pages this is where people are going to start their, their, their journey. Now, when it comes to this open up a project page, I’ll start with kitchens. Using case studies, you can get as expansive in a case study or as, as simple as simply putting in the, the name of the client you built here.

 

So this is what, what this, what this client has done is they just put the client name this is obviously a kitchen case study, and then they did another one down here, the lungs. The callister the idea we, what we ideally we wanna show is we wanna show a really different type, different types of motifs, architectural styles.

 

So if you’re looking for something, you know, like this is a, I don’t know what, what motif you would call this, but a a white on. A white on black or a white on dark, white on, there’s some grays and things in here. Okay? If you have somebody that’s interested in this, great. You, you’ve shown that example.

 

So if they want a little bit more of a traditional, looks like this is a little bit more of a traditional way out here. So I wanna show just a real good, a, a real good mix there for your case studies or your on your project pages. Now you also for remodeling need to have a service area. We’ve already been through that here, and I’ll just go to that one more time.

 

Again, show those locations, those cities that you work from. Again, because people will look for remodelers. They want to answer the question, will you remodel in my neighborhood? So anybody that falls into these communities, they automatically know. This is the builder that will build here, remodel our custom homes, and now I can take the next step, which would be opting in Cremating, creating that permission based relationship with, with the lead.

 

One other example I wanted to show, I think over here is you know, we have pro a project photo section here, and you can see this one. So they have it broken up here by the different types of projects, and these are what we call anchor links. So it’s links on the same page. Just go take you to different parts of the page.

 

And then they actually used it by community. So again, these are all lower levels. I like doing a little design statement. Those do get read. It doesn’t have to be more than a two or three sentences, but it’s very important they do get read and then of course where people are gonna spend the majority of the time.

 

It’s just going through here and looking. At the pictures and dreaming about how their basement or their kitchen could look, just like what one of your clients turned out on your, on your website, Diana, thoughts, what do you think? What do you think of those examples? So I, I, I now see the importance of just keeping, keeping short and clear information on the website and very specific with locations and things that the client is looking, not what I’m interested in as a provider.

 

So, because we can get very technical when we share on the website because we, we know and we see so many perspectives, but just focus on what the client wants and needs when they’re looking. I think that’s, that’s very important to keep in mind. And that’s the key, you know, really good point. The layouts position, the information thereafter, like I said, so you can access it in one click.

 

And going back and reiterating too many builders get caught up with the technical side of the business. So they want to get into the process. They want to get into you know, the, the sticks and bricks part of the things. And just understand your buyers don’t care about that yet, or your leads don’t care about that.

 

They want, they’re, they’re looking to be emotionally attached to you. Before they’re willing to take the next step. So you don’t create that emotional attachment through technical or logical information. This is hard for me to understand at first because I’m very, you know, logically step by step, step one two, step two, step three.

 

And when you build or, or remodel a home, you have to follow a certain process, obviously in order to get the completed pro product. So builders like to put that same process on their website. It will, it will do more to detract leads than we’ll ever do to help you. So the key things, the key thing is, is again, just stick with the, the three questions again, what will my project look like?

 

How much will it cost and where can I, can I build it? One of the things actually that I didn’t show that I probably should is from a a cost standpoint is available homes content and available homes content. Allows you to take and do different price points, you know, of showing homes that you can build.

 

So in this case, these homes are 1.7 to about 2.1 million. They don’t even have to be homes actually spec speculative homes you built for sale. It could simply be, this is an example of different price points that we could hit, but you wanna fully show your full breadth of offering for different homes that, that, that you can build.

 

So an available homes page, even if you’re a custom builder, even if you don’t build spec homes, very, very important because that’s one of the main ways. That a lead will identify is. Do, can I build my home within a price point that’s realistic that you can provide for me? So if they find a plan they like or they see images they like, they see price point that matches what they’re looking for, that is reassuring that they found the right builder.

 

And then they will move to the next step, which once we attracted them, the next thing we have to do is capture them. So it’s all part of the process. All of it is very, very important to make sure that you’re, you’re generating that attracting that high quality lead and ultimately converting them into a sale.

 

So what percentage of the buyer’s journey is complete? Before engaging a builder. Last question, Diana. I can say 80 20, but I go with 70 90. Yes. 70, 90. Exactly. 70 to 90% of their journey is complete before they engage a builder. And by engagement, I mean before they call you, before they visit your mom home, before they email you, before they have any sort of direct interaction with you.

 

So that’s why the content that you have on your website and the way you. You, you put that content on your website. It’s so, so important. If you don’t have the right content or you don’t have the right website structure where they can’t find it, you lost, they’re gone onto the next builder and you will never have an opportunity to sell to sell that client.

 

So thank you so much for joining us here today, and if you would like to. Find out how we can help you attract, capture, and convert high quality leads so you can pick and choose your clients and jobs. Go ahead and just click that link below, schedule a strategy session with me. Be happy to learn more about your business and see if we might be able to help you.

 

And from our brothers and sisters in Christ, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with you all. Always. We will see you next time on Conversations That Convert. Bye-bye.