HomeAdvisor Review: Is it Worth it for Contractors?

HomeAdvisor.com is a popular home service market place, where general contractors, handymen, plumbers, and service providers can easily connect with homeowners that seek them out. It’s one of the most prominent players in the online home improvement marketplace. For many contractors, finding viable leads and connecting with future customers can be a challenge. That’s why businesses, whether in landscaping, electrical or plumbing services sign up with HomeAdvisor who in turn get leads for them.

HomeAdvisor: How Does it Work?

HomeAdvisor has a simple setup process. A contractor or service professional is only required to complete an online profile, and in no time, they can have their listing ready to go. When a homeowner comes looking for a contractor, HomeAdvisor uses its ProFinder technology to find the best match for contractors based on availability, service type and geographic preferences. The service then sends the lead to relevant contractors in their database. Any contractor that wants the lead pays a fee, and receives the customer’s contact information. From this point, the whole process of setting up an estimate and closing the sale will rest on you as the business owner.

While it should not be a determining factor on whether HomeAdvisor is used, you should always check out their Better Business Bureau (BBB) profile to see both positive reviews and negative reviews from other contractors similar to you are saying.

Lead Generation with HomeAdvisor

HomeAdvisor has a simple setup process. A contractor or service professional is only required to complete an online profile including a background check along with their credit card info, and in no time, they can have their listing ready to go. When a homeowner comes looking for a contractor, HomeAdvisor uses its ProFinder technology to find the best match for contractors based on availability, service type and geographic preferences. The service then sends the lead to relevant contractors in their database. Any contractor that wants the lead pays a fee, and receives the customer’s contact information. From this point, the whole process of setting up an estimate and closing the sale will rest on you as the business owner.

The lead-bid approach can unknowingly spike costs without any promise of actual work coming from your efforts. This means that you could end up spending a lot of money and time on potentially bad leads for just a few actionable jobs.

Consequently, since the services sends each lead to multiple contractors in the designated area, you’ll need to constantly monitor your account and call consumers immediately just in case a competitor snatches up the lead before you do.

If you are just starting out and need to establish a loyal client base, the HomeAdvisor can be an effective tool for bringing business. This is considering new companies haven’t been around for long enough to get repeat business nor do they have the sales volume to live off referrals. It’s also quite helpful for contractors who are going through a slow season and need to get some additional business. More so, if your company is profitable and have the capacity to work on more projects, there’s nothing wrong with signing up to get leads from HomeAdvisor. The most important thing is to make sure you do your homework, balance the costs and exercise caution with whatever action you choose to take.

So What Now?

It’s evident that HomeAdvisor can be both a blessing and a burden. As much as the website provides you with the phone numbers and contact information to connect you with new clients, one might wonder if the cost, time and effort that is required is worth it to grow their business. Or could these resources be directed elsewhere to increase the business bottom line?

The answer to whether your business will find success with HomeAdvisor is a resounding MAYBE. The service may certainly be worth the investment but only if used in conjunction with other marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), social media or email marketing. Just view it as a small part of your company’s broader marketing plan.

HomeAdvisor Alternatives

While HomeAdvisor is a legitimate company that can bring some decent ROI, there are many different ways to go about when marketing your company online. After all, most homeowners don’t necessarily rely on HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, Servicemagic, or other similar services to find contractors. They simply use an internet search engine to find a home improvement service provider. So you want to ensure your website stands out in an ever-competitive online market place.

The critical point to take home here is to dedicate a significant portion of your budget to creating lead generation systems that you “own”.

Market and SEO Your Website

Invest money in your own website’s SEO and manage your Google Reviews to boost your company’s visibility. Search Engine Optimization is a great way to naturally get business. While gaining online traction isn’t going to be instant, if you are patient, you could make your company double up on new qualified leads.

With Organic SEO, you don’t have to pay for every single lead that comes through. You’ll also not need to pay for dead-end jobs or have to depend on another company to boost your online reviews. This surely is priceless.

Having a website optimized for your services, name, and local area will ensure you are showing up whenever a potential client is looking for you. For example if you specialize in remodels, a customer will likely Google “remodeling services near me” and you want to be found. Many key components come into play when working to optimize your website for leads. Among them include:

• Custom content
• Incoming links to your website/landing page
• Site architecture
• Metadata/keyword-rich title tags
• Local search

PPL (Pay Per Lead)

Another way to generate more leads is to engage a pay per lead company, also known as a lead generation company. With this, you get to choose how aggressive you want your strategy to be. That means you’ll be working with professionals who help to bring in the volume and type of leads you want. Depending on your needs, your marketing campaign can be altered to bring in the flow of leads you are looking for. An extra advantage with this is you don’t get to pay for a lead that has been given to another competitor as most leads are exclusive. So no paying for a lead you have no chance of signing.

Social Media Services

Every contracting business can benefit from building an effective social media marketing campaign. Contrary to what some business owners believe, social media efforts can generate a significant number of leads and referrals to your site. Research has established that 54 percent of consumers rely on social media when making purchasing decisions. So, whatever social media channel you choose to leverage, whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, LinkedIn or Google+, with the right approach, you can make a significant difference.

A social media marketing strategy will obviously be tailored for your specific industry and audience. You’ll get to engage your audience and share information leading to increased awareness of your brand’s products or services. While at it, you can use the built-in analytics tools to track and monitor your results to determine if your strategy is working.

With so many online tools available to contractors today, there is no reason why you shouldn’t optimize your website with honest reviews from real customers for lead generation. Incorporating all of these strategies will work for you 24 hours a day, reinforcing your word-of-mouth referrals while making it easier for people to contact you and win their business.

Let Us Help You Unlock Your Full Potential

Are you ready to let us help you grow your business? At HigherVisibility, we’ve made it our mission to help professional home service companies grow their businesses, increase online job leads, and make the most out of their marketing efforts through effective SEO, PPC and social media services. Contact us today!