In this series, we’re taking on remodeling contractors and how their business can be found online by previous and potential customers. If you’re a contractor this marketing model works, we know because we use it. If you are not a remodeling contractor don’t tune out, this advice applies to all companies who want to be found online.

Joe: Welcome back to the Being Found show. We are your Internet marketing helpline. We’re diving in for remodeling contractors and we’re basically demystifying the Internet. We’re trying to help the contractors understand how they can make the Internet part of the buying process because it’s already become part of their customers’ buying process. We’re getting really specific. We’re actually using tools and we’re discussing the actual real keywords and queries and how we would approach it. If you’re a contractor and you’re listening, this advice works. It’s what we do, and so we hope that you’re able to put this to work in your business.

Chauncey, right before we went to break, I rudely cut you off.

Chauncey: I’ll recover.

Joe: I feel guilty.

Chauncey: That’s all right. Basically, I was saying, you were talking about providing value even if it does not answer that transitions into money. I was just making a real-world comparison for business owners in general, but contractors in this case, to better understand. Let’s say I have an office and people come into my office and they are looking for remodeling. I say, “That’s great.” Let’s say I specialize in kitchen remodeling and I don’t do bathrooms. Somebody walks in who doesn’t know that. They got to me accidentally and I say, “I only do kitchens. Get out of here.”

No, I don’t say that because I am a businessman and I believe in customer service, so I say, “I don’t do kitchens, but if you are interested in bathrooms, I’m happy to help you find what you’re looking for.”

Joe: Right.

Chauncey: The same attitude needs to be put towards your website because Google is not really looking at whether or not you’re making money. What they’re looking at is whether or not the visitor who came to your site is happy with their choice and moving on their merry way across the Internet and having a good time using Google. That’s their purpose. If we’re there for our visitors to try to help them with whatever their questions are, all the better.

Joe: Yeah, okay. That’s a good point. I got all excited and remembered that, I was taking some of your advice and I was using one of the tools called BuzzSumo for these terms. I was blown away by one of the things I found. I totally ignored you and just started clicking on the website to hurry up and get over there. That’s twice I’ve totally been rude to you.

Chauncey: I’ll recover.

Joe: Okay. Being found by more buying customers isn’t about just Google. The idea is that the Internet is what’s now come between you and your customers and it’s big. It’s a lot. I’m not going to say this is a super easy thing to do, but running a business wasn’t super easy either. You’re not a business person because it’s easy. You’re definitely not a contractor or running a construction company because it’s easy.

Chauncey: Right, oh yeah.

Joe: You’ve got it in you to put the Internet to work for you instead of against you. I bring all that up because, you know Chauncey, we talk about how you figure out what people are looking for and what kind of content is popular to answer those questions about what people are looking for, and there’s a tool that everyone can use. It’s got a free version. It’s called BuzzSumo, B-U-Z-Z-S-U-M-O. You’ll be able to see it in the video if you go to beingfound.com, you can see the screen and what we’re doing.

What BuzzSumo does is it’ll allow you to put key terms, for instance, I put in “bathroom remodeler” and you click search. What this tool does is it goes out across the Internet and it’s basically tracking content, blog posts, web pages, all that kind of stuff. It’s tracking it and it’ll tell you how many people are sharing or engaging with any of these pieces of Internet content.

Chauncey: Right.

Joe: The idea is, or at least how I use it, is this helps me to understand what kind of content is most popular. For instance, when someone’s looking for a bathroom remodel, do they want three steps to do it for under a hundred bucks? Do they want to know what mistakes to avoid? Do they want to know if they should use granite? I want to see what people are talking about and liking so that it’ll help me understand what to write.

Chauncey: Right.

Joe: That was a big long story to say there was some statistic in this that blew me away.

Chauncey: I see it.

Joe: You see it, don’t you? What do you see?

Chauncey: I see the total number of shares by four different social media platforms, and one would automatically assume that Facebook had the largest number.

Joe: That’s right. Yeah. That’s right.

Chauncey: But it doesn’t.

Joe: What we’re looking at here … I know. This is crazy. What we’re looking at here, what he’s talking about is we can see by Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest which of these articles were shared how many times in each one of those platforms. Like you said Chauncey, I think everybody assumes that Facebook is where we interact with content and share and like things the most. Theoretically, that helps on being found. You would think that you’d post stuff to Facebook, because that’s where everybody wants to see stuff about remodeling contractors and engage with it.

Chauncey: Right.

Joe: But it’s sixth. The top article has been shared 52,000 times, and six of those were on Facebook. The other 52,000 times were on Pinterest.

Chauncey: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah.

Chauncey: That just goes to show you where people are going for ideas.

Joe: Yeah.

Chauncey: Because most of these answers that we’re seeing here are master bedroom remodel for 300, bathroom remodels reveal, beautiful bathroom remodeling ideas, bathroom remodeling trends, all of these sort of fit into the concept of, “I’m ready to see how my kitchen can look better.” Bathroom, sorry. “How my bathroom can look better, and I’m ready to see if my bathroom should look better.” All of these are targeting that point in a person’s thought process and it’s all on Pinterest.

Joe: Yeah, and so, the reason that being found opens up doors and opportunities to more buying customers is that if you realize the times in the buying process that you can be found or if you recognize those, everyone is a new opportunity to be found. In this case, we’re at the early spectrum of a customer’s buying process, which is inspiration, or trying to figure out what it might look like if they did it a certain way. That’s really early on, and at the way, far other end of the spectrum would be, what are prices? Where’s a contractor near me? Every one of those stops in the road is an opportunity to go, “Where are people looking? What are they looking for? Am I being found there?”

We’ve already talked about are you being found at the end of the spectrum when they say, “Near me.” This is a chance to be found during the inspiration stage, and I wonder how many local contractors are using Pinterest or have a Pinterest strategy at all. I don’t know. I really don’t know. This is something worth investigating as a contractor.

Chauncey: Yeah, I think it’s beyond worth investigating. I mean, what’s the easiest content? Basically, we know, okay, I’m a remodeling contractor and I need to put stuff on my website and share it on Facebook and put it on Pinterest. What’s the easiest content for me to create to do that, that will take the least amount of effort?

Joe: Somebody else’s content?

Chauncey: No. To take photos of the jobs you’re already doing and put them up there. I mean, you already did all the work. All you got to do is snap a picture of it before and snap a picture of it after and throw it up there, and you got yourself some content. Ideally, you got some words on there too, but frankly, you don’t need the words.

Joe: Yeah, you know, it’s funny. In the beginning of my career in figuring out Being Found and helping companies do this and help my own company do it, I tended to dislike social. I think the reason was that everyone looks at social as a blanket term. I think I did too, way back in the beginning. I said, “Well, social is social,” but what we really have come to find out is that social isn’t a blanket term. What it really is, is it’s a group of platforms where people are engaged in doing things and they have specific reasons they’re there. If you can find that platform that’s right for you, and that has the customers there and it fits into your time and your budget to work with that platform, well now all of a sudden social matters.

If you don’t take the time to figure out what platform’s going to work for you, or if it works within your budget or what you can pull off, you can see where you might have wasted a lot of time by thinking that you’re going to do it with Twitter and Facebook because the local bike store uses Twitter successfully, but it might not work for you.

Chauncey: Right.

Joe: Right?

Chauncey: Right. Yeah. Now from here we can infer a few things. We can infer that because Pinterest is so successful at this, with Facebook being number two, we can assume that another one, that if somebody wants something quick and easy, so look at it this way. You already got pictures. Make Instagram your other one, because while this one doesn’t cover Instagram, I can confidently guess that Instagram would be a popular one for these terms.

Joe: Well, what you’re saying is since you’re already making the content and I’m typing stuff in here while I’m messing with this.

Chauncey: No, exactly, that is what I’m saying, that you already made the content that’s already perfectly catered for this other platform.

Joe: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Chauncey: Yeah.

Joe: Yeah. Now what’s interesting is as I type in “general contractor,” I find it’s more on Facebook than Pinterest. In other words, the customer’s intention becomes a little clearer on, “This is my home, I’m going to change things. I need to see what I’m going to get. I need to see what the steps are.” That’s really interesting.

Chauncey: Well also, trends are coming into play here because a lot of our results-

Joe: I’m going to be rude. I’m going to be rude. I got to stop you because we’re coming up to a break and we got all these giant-

Chauncey: That’s all right.

Joe: … advertisers.

Chauncey: You’re listening to the Being Found … Go for it.

Joe: You’re listening to the Being Found show and we’ll be right back.