By Martin Morgan
The many options for digital marketing are enough to make a marketing professional feel like they are running around in circles. How can a business owner who has to worry about every aspect of the business possibly stay on top of all of the developments?
The short answer is you shouldn’t. As a painting contractor, the best thing for you to do is to pick two to three specific things to invest your time and/or money into and focus on maximizing those initiatives. Your best options will depend on your target audience. Where do they spend time online and how do they find providers of home-based services?
For most painting contractors, investments of time and/or money in a website, Facebook and completing your profile in review platforms are likely to provide a good return on investment. For others, investments in web-based lead providers, pay-per-click advertising and alternative social media like Pinterest and Instagram, can be money well spent.
However, there is one thing that all painting contractors should make sure to invest their time into maximizing, and that is your Google My Business (GMB) profile. If that is the one thing that you spent time on from a digital marketing standpoint, it would provide you the biggest bang for your buck. That’s because whenever somebody searches for painting contractors or house painters or your specialty online, they almost always conduct a Google Search and one of the key factors Google uses when it returns the results to the searcher is GMB listings.
Try it now. Search for painting contractors on your mobile device or computer. Those listings you see directly underneath the map are GMB listings. The group of three, or maybe four or five if somebody in your area is paying for advertising, is called the Local Pack. While the number one factor for appearing in the Local Pack is proximity to the search, there are things that you can do to increase the likelihood you appear in the Local Pack and improve your chances that a potential customer will contact you.
Here’s a step-by-step approach, with the understanding that these things change rather quickly, so depending on when you read this, some things may be different than described.
Your GMB profile is the foundation of your online presence. By optimizing it, keeping it updated, and interacting with customers and potential customers who post on your profile you will increase the likelihood that additional potential customers find you and that you make a strong positive impression on them when they do. Your GMB will also help to improve your results from any other online investments you make of time and/or money, including your website, review platforms and social media. And of course, one of the best things about GMB is that it is totally free.
Martin Morgan is marketing director for ProPainter Websites.
This article originally appeared on the ProPainter Websites blog. To see additional informational articles, visit www.propainterwebsites.com/resource-center.