The roofing industry is competitive, so it can be unnerving to find ways to grow your business. You may be feeling as though your business isn’t attracting the number of clients it deserves, or that it could be better known amongst your target market or local community.

If you’re new to online, seriously consider paying someone who lives and breathes online to help you out – it will pay dividends, and with a lot of these suggestions, trying to learn something can be time-consuming, expensive and get you next to no results.

Anyway, here are a few hacks to enable you to grow your business!

1. Have a website

It sounds simple, but you really need one. It is the easily accessible business card, giving potential clients a brief overview of what you are offering. As mentioned, pay someone to do it if you’re not sure – it will be worth it.

Got a website? Good – on to step 2!

2. Transform your website

Your website can be the deciding factor as to whether a visitor decides to purchase your services or even the difference between you and a competitor. You may have even experienced this yourself in the past.

First things first – carry out an audit of your website to see whether your current is interactive or not. Some issues this could highlight for you to iron out include lengthy loading time, inactive or broken links or compatibility with mobile devices. Your site must be clear, informative and straightforward to navigate around – and the copy you use must have no grammatical or spelling errors.

With any new website, it is advisable to get it checked out by a target audience and ask for their feedback. The bigger the sample group the better, and they should include the types of people your business is suitable for (or people who are already using your services) rather than just family and friends, who may or may not be brutally honest with you if something seems confusing.

Another suggestion for your site is to include a chatbot on your website. It is a way for customers to get in touch with you quickly without having to trawl through your whole site to find what they need. This is also especially handy on those days where you can’t get to the phone. A lot of people don’t leave voicemail messages!

3. You’ve got a gleaming website – now get people on to it

SEO is imperative and a great way to get quality leads for your business, whilst also offering valuable content to your clients. Firstly, make sure you claim your Google My Business profile for your business. Once you’re listed, you can then go into content marketing and backlinks.

Use Pay per Click (PPC) advertising – this involves your ads appearing at the top of search results, ahead of any organic results. This will enable your business to get more booked jobs and quality leads. The costs are high, but it is really one of the quickest and most effective methods of generating leads, and in time, through this, your business will rank on the first page of search engines.

To be completely honest, digital marketing is much the same as creating websites – there’s so much to it, so if you aren’t sure what you are doing, it’s best to leave it in the hands of someone who does. If you need a little bit of a leg up when it comes to digital marketing, why not consider Bowler Hat so you can focus your efforts on running your business?

4. Manage your online reputation

When it comes to most businesses, you have a great opportunity to give your business a boost online, and your online reputation is imperative for success. A great way you can get a solid reputation online is via positive reviews. Granted, you may get the occasional negative review (whether you deserve it or not), and this can be damaging – but the more positive ones you have, the more obvious it becomes that this was a one-off either from your business or that you had a particularly irate customer. Some common places reviews are left are Google, TrustPilot and Facebook, so encouraging your clients to leave reviews on there is advisable.

5. Give your brand a voice online

Speaking of Facebook…giving your brand an online presence is also a great way to set yourself apart. This can take quite some time to master, especially if you have multiple people managing your social media accounts, but it’s worth starting professionally to show you mean business.

To give more of a personal touch, you could consider writing blogs to go on your website and also to reshare across your social media accounts to show you know what you’re talking about. You could show your voice in a literal sense by creating a YouTube channel or simply post selfie videos on your social media, should you be comfortable with that sort of thing.

People will consistently be building up their impression from all the ways you appear, whether that is online, in person or on the phone, so think carefully about what you say online and it could end up working in your favour. If your posts seem friendly, knowledgeable and welcoming, potential customers will be more inclined to feel they can enquire.

6.  Grow your company by connecting with other local businesses

Getting to know other local businesses is a great organic way to grow your business. By speaking to building companies in your area, you can agree to recommend each other’s businesses to your customers. Make sure these companies are reputable with good reviews, and you will more than likely get some good leads.

By sponsoring a sports event or charity in your area, your name will get out there whilst you are doing good deeds. You could try searching for local community volunteer opportunities, and if you find anything suitable, make sure you always put on branded clothes to showcase your company.

The main piece of advice to take away from this is – with anything online, do your research. If it seems too complicated, pay someone else to do it, and make sure you get someone good to help.