Effective SEO and Content Marketing for Home Builders

Hi Everyone. This is Ranmay here on your show, eCoffee with Experts. Today, we have Scott Piper, who is the VP of Power Marketing with us. Welcome, Scott, to our show tonight.

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Great. Scott, before we move forward and talk about digital marketing and SEO at large, I request you to introduce yourself and power marketing to our audiences.

My name is Scott Piper. I’m Vice President of Marketing for Power Marketing which is kind of an inside joke here because all of our core players, I call them vice presidents. I do run the show here, but that’s an inside joke. We are a marketing firm that specializes in digital marketing for home builders and the homebuilder industry. Anything from HVAC to roofing, but primarily the majority of our business is homebuilders. When we do have segments that focus on logistics and industrials, but that is the primary focus of what we do.

Perfect. In the realm of digital marketing for homebuilders, Scott, what are some of the most effective strategies you have seen for generating leads through SEO? How can home builders optimize their websites and content to rank that bit higher on different search engine results that appear?

One of the things we deal with is companies that are $500 million in annual value down to companies that sell one home a month. That’s a big continuum. But when you look at the SEO components, so technical, onsite, and off-site, our industry is so heavily weighted in imagery, and you will find almost universally back in technical SEO is a huge part. I know on-site, and off-site, it’s very common, but I think this industry has left out how important technical SEO is, removing toxic links. With all these images and Google’s Core Vital update, these websites have to be faster. So there’s a huge focus on our side of it to get these websites faster, downloading quicker. And that has been our focus a lot since the Core Vital’s update. So now there’s more attention paid there. But of course, the other sides of that are onsite SEO, which I think directory management, we do. That’s a fantastic resource. Monitoring on-site and making changes. Usually, we plan annually and adjust quarterly. And then it’s interesting, off-site, when you talk about blogs and items like that for off-site, sometimes not as…

If you look at the traffic and you look at the downloads, there’s not a lot of traffic to the blogs. It does have a purpose, but we find there’s more value in almost descriptive area pages, location pages, and process pages, especially when you talk about home builders. People don’t know when you buy a new construction home, how does it work? In a high-level view, the first thing we do and we get a really good return for is just speeding up the websites because they’re so image heavy, setting them up correctly, and then finding the right off-site, which is not necessarily blogging or articles from that aspect as much as some of the features that we’ll get into, hopefully here in a little bit.

Yeah, absolutely. The industry is such that images are the need. If you’re buying a home. From industry to industry, so much depends on how you’re going to strategize your way through.

Yeah. And again, the other thing about our industry, which I’m not necessarily sure how it compares to others, we’re still about two-thirds mobile. Again, that goes back to our technical SEO. For our clients, some as high as 75 %, the low is around 55, but two-thirds of that audience going to mobile. Because when you want to look at home, you want to look at what people build. When you want to look at areas, you flip through that phone. And again, that has helped us just maximize technical SEO value by getting those websites in that mobile framework to increase that traffic.

You did mention about image. When it comes to content marketing for home builders, what types of content have you found to be particularly successful in engaging those potential clients and driving conversion?

When you look at home building in the home building industry, people want to see when they go to a website, they want to see virtual tours, they want to see floor plans, and they want to see galleries. And what are all three of those things? Images. And that’s where I think the value of building articles, which is necessary for content and is important, but that’s what people want to see. And there are so many variations of that and so many ways to highlight that. And on top of that, as we mentioned earlier, location pages and process pages. Those are the five things you want to focus on. And there are varying expenses. You go to a website, people want to see what you have, they want to see where you’re building, and they want to see the floor plans. Then they also want to see galleries. Let’s see stuff you built, let’s see what it looks like. Again, those are items that need to be maximized for mobile, but that’s how we differentiate our clients. We focus on those elements.

In that case, professional photography becomes so critical in the overall process. What is your take on that? How do you approach clients regarding that aspect?

That’s what we recommend. I know you have professional photography packages that run $10,000. You have them that run… But just beg people, to invest in professional photography. You’ll hear me mention a client I have in Denver called Caliber Construction. Fantastic client. Seo has gone through the roof, but he invested in putting high-end photography on a 20-page website. It’s not a big website, but he has a huge gallery. You go there and you see, Wow, these are the type of homes he built. They’re professional. Again, your website is your showroom. The first impression people are going to have of you is your website. Did you take iPhone shots and put them in a gallery? How do those pictures work? The big thing we tell people is just to invest that money in photography. The images are so much more important as we may have discussed that people process images 60,000 times faster than words. They look at a website and they go, Oh, this guy builds two million dollar homes. Boom. You don’t need 100 pages of text to tell that, although the text is important. But absolutely, professional photography makes all the difference in getting people to stay on your website.

Absolutely. Those are very engaging as well. Given the niche that we are speaking about today, and today’s digital landscape has become so competitive, Scott, how can home builders differentiate themselves from their competition if we talk about their online presence? Because as you mentioned about pictures, all of the major players can hire professional photographers and put good pictures there. How do you find them differentiating themselves from their competition in that space?

One of the ways, again, there are so many tools out there. One of my favorites is they have… People will stick on the site also when you’re talking about new construction, which, let’s make it clear, new construction is way different than buying a home that’s already existing. And we’ll get into that buyer journey, too. It’s way different than what people see as the buyer journey, but elements on the website that people can interact with. So things like interactive floor plans, where you have a floor plan for a custom home builder and you say, I want a wall here and I want a two-yard garage, and you can go in and move the garage here, make the kitchen smaller. Now, they do save that. And again, it’s an opportunity because it is gated material, typically. But you can keep going back and keep messing with them. Show it to your husband, your wife, and your kids. This is what I want to do. And you’ve collected that information. And those people keep coming back, and then they’re in your system. Same thing with similar of visualizers, which is a random, not a random, vague term, but people that can go into a design center, and build their kitchen.

Hey, here’s what it looks like with a tile. Here’s what it looks like with these types of cabinets. Again, also an opportunity to let them save it, and capture their information. One of the really interesting things that we found is that, especially for upper-end builders, people are attracted to descriptions of the communities. So again, going back to our friend in Denver, Caliber Construction, they have individual pages for each community they build in. Oh, here’s what’s in the community. Here’s what the average income is. Here’s what the average price is. Here’s the school. So it’s a little more toned up than just a listing. It’s more of a story. But people want to see the communities in which these homes are going to be built. So it goes back to our initial discussion about content and blogging and articles. I find that the content is better served by describing the community, especially for upper-end homes. That’s one of the important things. And the other thing is video has become not as expensive to create. We do have smaller home builders that will have an $1100 description video on the front. This is what we do.

We build houses in Tampa. We represent home buyers, that thing. And if I were going to give an advantage, let’s go with the video. Go with these images. Text is important, but just integrate images as much as possible into the website.

Absolutely. Then what is your take on building an effective CRM system? How crucial is it for nurturing leads and driving sales? Because like we were discussing the customer buying journey in this particular industry can go in various directions. Crm becomes all the more critical that way. How do you go about suggesting that piece to your prospective clients or your clients who are already on board?

That’s one of the things I won’t say highly recommend, I will insist on a CRM system. If we’re doing your SEO, you have to have a CRM system. And the big one in our industry that’s homebuilder focused is Lasso. I use it for most of my people HubSpot, especially for… Again, we’ll go back to Calibra Homes, the free version of HubSpot. Five, six hundred people in there, they message them, they get them in there, and they send that consistent message, and it’s not costing them anything. They’ve set up a dashboard to show where did they come from SEO? Did they come from direct traffic? All that information is already free. That said, as we talked about earlier, some people see the buyer’s journey as this line. The buyer’s journey for a home buyer or new construction buyer is usually a figure eight with a circle around it and an X and then going back in the circle.

Absolutely.

If you don’t know how new home construction works, that’s one of the things also when you talk about content creating pages that say our process because people don’t know what new construction happened. What do I do? Do I call you? How do I know what community I’m going to see? How long is it going to take to build? That’s one of the items that we also really like people to have. But CRM systems, it’s imperative to have them. When you have a buyer’s journey like that, you’ve got to constantly be hitting them with messages. Now, for those messages, you may have to be very patient because the average buyer journey is somewhere between 16 to 18 months. You can think about it, if you wanted to buy a home, how long it’s going to take you to go, Here’s my budget. Our research has shown people in the new construction market will back out and start looking at existing and go back to new construction. And it’s the circle. So you need to see if they’re visiting the website, which again, with free versions, or if hitting the most specific information. But one of the things that…

Crms are CRMs. You can, from Salesforce to HubSpot, you can make them do just amazing things. But one of the things we do teach or at least aid in is sales enablement. We work with people and as somebody calls in and says, I’m interested in a new construction home in this neighborhood, do not wait 24 hours. You have to get on them immediately. And on them is a bad term. That’s very salesy. After the first seven minutes, our rule around here is the first seven minutes. After an hour, your chances drop 50 %. But people are typically the first person they come in contact with not only has an advantage, but they become their guy. That first person, if you don’t know how new home construction works, you’re going to have this person explain it to you, and that’s the framework. So the next person that’s going to call you, you set the framework for how it works. This is person number two. Crms are just imperative. It depends on how much you want to use them and how deep you want to get. But then on the other side of that, as I did work with a client that was paying for enterprise level, I believe Salesforce, and just sending out emails.

I want to say it was $2,400 a month or something like that. It was crazy. I’m like, What are you doing? It tells us when emails and we could send emails out. Excuse me, this does so much more. People overbuying CRMs. Right now, depending on where you are, we have people paying larger sums. We have people free. Somewhere in the middle, just depending on what you want to use for a CRM system, you have to have one. You’re going to miss so much in the information that’s out there. And again, that’s the beauty of the internet and that’s the beauty of our business. Google Analytics takes a lot of the ambiguity out. Crm takes a lot of the ambiguity out. Hey, here’s where this person came in. This is how long they’re on the website. And then on top of that, you can tweak your website based on the CRM information. But it is imperative. If you’re going to succeed, you’re going to need a CRM.

Absolutely. In such a customer buying lifecycle like you mentioned, it becomes all the more crucial just that you have to use it to the optimum to get the most out of it. Then you got to know how to use it as well because it’s a very potent tool. Just actually should be aware in terms of how we’re going to use it. You did also mention that tad of reaching out to your customers being as quick as possible versus waiting for the entire day. That also creates a lot of impact, like you mentioned, if you’re the first guy to reach out and explain the process, educate the customer. What about the post-selling experience? What about reviews? Because it plays an important role in such a high ticket-size market. How do you educate your customers about the importance of reviews and how do you ensure that the reviews are there for you on different forums?

Yeah. What we do, local SEO is essential. We do, again, we have $500 million companies. The majority are homebuilders that build in regional areas. One of the big things we do preach is citation and directory management. That’s part of our offering. That helps out with local SEO. But on top of that reviews, that help solidify your local SEO. If you can get in that map pack, again, that’s the focus where it almost circumvents some of the SEO, where if you can get in that top three map pack for custom homebuilders, Louisville, Kentucky, that’s an example of the client we have. If you can get that map pack, your SEO, you get a step up and maybe you don’t have to spend as much money, but reviews are a huge part. Now, with that said, some of the research I’ve seen is that you need a lot of reviews, not just, as we discussed 5 or 10. But also people sometimes give more treatment to somebody who has a 4.6, 4.7 rating as compared to people who have straight fives. It is average. Sometimes people see straight fives and they’re like, That doesn’t seem real.

But if you do have a negative review in there, it gives you more validity. But one of the other things we preach to people is, if you do get a negative review, please respond. Please respond.

And should not be the generic ones, thank you for leaving a review and stuff like that.

Yeah, absolutely. I hope you wound up in the negative. But yeah. When you leave a positive review, thank you. But a negative review allows you not only to show that you’re a tenant, but you can fix a problem. If they say, My paperwork didn’t get here on time, and the closing was late by two hours, it is a chance for you to review and then show people that when you go in there, when you’re working with it, they will fix the problem. But the responsiveness to reviews is important. But then also everybody needs to get an email. Everybody needs a follow-up. Especially after somebody buys a home, that’s a high. They’re excited. And if you hit them right then now, we want it to be legitimate, but they’re most likely going to write that review the next day. And then, of course, they can follow up with other reviews. In some of the places we work with, a new trend is there are a lot of communities that have HOAs. That’s another opportunity for you to also follow up on the issues, but also to increase your local search value.

Now, as we discussed earlier, some people are chronic complainers. That can become an issue. I know as we’re getting we’re talking copyright laws, and I don’t want to misquote this study because it was 40 years ago when I was a wee lad, actually not a wee lad. But yeah, it was either universal, one of the picture companies back in the 80s, or huge blockbuster movies would come out. And that first week, they’d spend all this advertising money, and if it did $20 million, they didn’t pay attention. It was the second week. If it went below a certain threshold, like one or two million dollars, they knew they had a problem and they would pull the movie because back then, word of mouth was so important to any type of advertising, any type of business. But it reveals a fact about human nature a little bit in that when people liked the movie back then, and this is just random quoting because I can’t remember the exact, they would tell 8 to 10 people. If they didn’t like the movie, they would tell 22 to 24 people. So when people don’t like something, they want to talk about it.

They want to tell everybody. And if you want to get too far down the rabbit hole, that goes in the direction of negative advertising. But it’s a whole different podcast.

People that want to complain, but they want to be validated. I do have a problem and you did fix it. And people want to see that. So reviews and building local searches, are enormous. That’s what those are, especially when you have clients that are regionalized like that. Those are huge opportunities.

Yeah, absolutely. Lastly, regarding the storm that we are all in, AI, ChatGPT, and Bard coming up, what is your take on it? Exciting times are ahead. How do you think it’s going to change the game in the next five years, let’s say? I would do a long, long time. Five years.

I’d go 18 months.

I was about to say that. Too long a time to think about these things.

It’s already been a money saver. We’ve already cut some of our vendor costs. It’s helped speed up our coding times. Our developers can get answers quicker. Our content team can put out more content more effectively. A gain, when I say that, I don’t mean we’re using chat GPT. I see the future. It could be wrong about this. Creating individual text stacks. Here’s our content text stack. We’re going to use Jasper, we’re going to use a content vendor, we’re going to use chat GPT, and then we’re going to originate the content. Over here, you’re going to have a CRM stack, you’re going to have HubSpot, you’re going to have ChatSpot, and then you’re going to have your originator and maybe a vendor overlooking them. Your coders, I believe Ghostwriter, everything is Olly from Hotspot this way. Everything is going to be like individualizing tech stacks. Now, the question is, I’ve heard everywhere between 30 % of knowledge workers to 10 % of knowledge workers. It’s already saving us money. And I see it changing. Maybe 10 % of our knowledge work base may have to reconfigure themselves. But the key is it’s not going to replace us.

It’s going to be a different system to where we still are going to create the content. They’re just going to refine it. I’ve heard somewhere it’s like having an army of interns that are specialized in different fields. But I think that the Marketing AI Institute said that. I see it as just an enormous change. I think in the next year, as this thing progresses and they keep releasing more data and more versions, it’s going to be… It’s a game-changer. I just wonder who’s going to survive in that. Are we going to survive? Who’s the player going to be? The people that are the middleman who could manage it or the people that are far down the rabbit hole? I know our coders are terrified that our coders, junior developers are terrified that they’re just going to get wiped out and nobody’s going to need them. But I just wonder what that balance is. But I do see these little tech stacks in the next year to help improve productivity. So that’s my take. I’m excited about it. I love working with it. I use it daily for everything from analysis to content ideas to helping the development team.

I’m excited about it.

That’s great. I’m excited because uncertain, a bit yes, but exciting times ahead for sure. What I say to my team is don’t be scared about your jobs because we have built the machines. We just have to be smart enough to a bit more take savvy versus what we were and use it to our benefit versus just thinking about it.

Yeah, you’re exactly right. We are guiding it. It just depends on how we see that. Everybody, every industry, you’re always going to have people freaking out about changes that have to replace. I get it. I’ve been replaced before, so I get how it works.

Great. Thank you so much, Scott. But before we let you go, we’re going to play a quick rapid-fire with you. I hope you’re the game owner.

Okay, I’ll do my best.

Great. What was your last Google search?

Oh, my gosh. Google search?

You can check your system. It’s an open-book one.

Oh, it’s an open book? My last Google search was… My last Google search was How big was Andre the Giant? It was a busy evening. I was bored and I was like, I wonder how tall that guy was. All right.

What is your favorite book?

My favorite book, if you haven’t read Dan Arielli, and this is a novel but predictably irrational, I just love that book, How Humans Are Not… We’re not rational people. They use the example of the black diamond or the black pearl when it first debuted. I think in the 60s, nobody bought it. Then suddenly it caught wind that there was value to it. Just how humans attach value to things is just fascinating to me. But Predictably Irrational is a fantastic book.

Are you a morning person or a night one?

My wife and everybody I work with absolutely hates that I’m a morning person.

This morning I got up around four, walked the dog, came to work, and got here two hours before everybody else, which to me is the time to get things done. I was right around eight, nine o’clock, it’s just continual. But I am more. Now, I fall asleep at eight, but I have no idea what goes on after eight o’clock.

Okay. Let’s say we have to make a movie about you. What genre would it be?

It would be a comedy. It’d be comedy just because.

To figure that out.

Oh, my gosh. My life has been so strange. I grew up in small-town West Virginia. I found a way to get in-state tuition at the University of Tennessee through some flaws in their system. Whoa, I probably shouldn’t bring that up. But it was 30 years ago. Anyway, it’s just really strange how I got to this point. It’s just to me, I’m just this little kid from a town of 5,000 people that likes talking to people. Somehow or another, here I am.

Great. Super. We’ll not run you any further. Thank you so much, Scott. It was a brilliant session. I hope that our audience is going to benefit a lot from listening to those insights shared by you tonight. A big thank you for taking the time for this. I appreciate it, man.

Thank you. That was great.

Thank you. Take care.