3 Simple Steps to Double your Website Conversions Joe Burnich 268

3 simple steps to double your website conversions today I have Joe Burnich with us and you're going to love him. He is a contractor or was a contractor and grew his business. Became a web designer and now he does web designing and SEO and pay for click for contractors only.

So, this is one of the cool things and this is the reason that I brought Joe on today is that he knows how you think, he knows what you're going through and he's been through pretty much everything that you've been through the different stages of growing your business.

And I thought he would be fun to talk with. And today we're going to talk about three-key maybe four-key elements that will help you get more conversions right now today or tomorrow or the next day. But I just want it. Let's welcome Joe.

Hey, Joe I just want thank you for being with us today and giving us great tips on web design and how to get better conversions. So, I'm going to let this go with you. I'm just I love to hear about the cool stuff that you're doing. And so, thanks for being with us today.

Well, thank you, Dave. So that's my first time on your show. I just want to say thank you for contacting me and asking me to come on that I feel very honored. And yes, today I mean I don't know where we want to start. I've got three simple tips that people can implement today that can easily double the conversions on a Web site. So, if you're getting traffic to your Web site and you're getting let's say three calls a day implementing these simple tips that are going explain right now could get you double that. That's kind of what I want to talk to you about.

You say and most time they can probably do a lot of that themselves. Some of you getting yourself some of it you'll probably have to have your web designer do it depends on what you know what your abilities are. Some people do their own Web site so they have full access it can do stuff like that. So yeah.

And I'm going to say, guys, if you don't have a Web site, then we’re going to give you Joe’s contact information at the end. Nice. So, what's number one what's the number one first simple step? Real quick before we get into that could I share a quick story. Absolutely. OK.

So, I just want to let everybody know where I come from and went into this whole Internet Marketing Google game because I know that guys like me get a bad rap kind of that used car salesman type vibe. Cause there's a lot of just scamming stuff out there. But my story is I moved from Kansas City to my original hometown of Missoula Montana where I live right now in 2009 and I didn't have a job but I had a 10-month-old baby and a new wife and I had to feed them out of desperation. I a family friend talked me into starting a cleaning business because easy startup you know don't need a lot of training don't need a lot of capital to start up. And so, I never thought I'd be in that. But I just ran with it. Took a couple thousand dollars that I had left and run with it.

And basically, what I did was I taught myself how to get a website ranked up on Google not knowing if it would be you know profitable or whatever. But I mean I spent hours a day for months on end. I’ll bet. And yeah, I mean up at 4:00 in the morning if I wasn't working I was on the computer trying to figure this out because I had a friend that was doing it and he was selling like cell phones or something on the on the Internet and everything was done by Google rankings. By SEO. Oh wow. And so, he showed me some tips and then I studied. And it was tough because I was you know I had a Web site. And the calls were not coming in I didn't know really anything about marketing.

I was out there handing out flyers and business cards and doing all that just struggling not knowing if I was going to ever make it. And so, but the cool part was that once it took about four months but once I did pop up into like the top three on google, my phone started ringing. And that's when I kind of decided OK this is something I can do. And this is something is really going to feed my family. It was all about taking care of my family and a lot of guys can probably relate to that especially the guys that are getting just getting started or if they're going through a slow season or whatever. There's just that fear of this business going to make it. And for me it was Google. And I know other people have other things that they use to get business and get calls coming in.

Maybe it's Facebook maybe it's just having an awesome network that they've built up over the years whatever it is. And so, I'm not here to say that Google is the only way an Internet marketing is the only way to do this. I'm just saying to me it saved my family so I got a soft spot for Google.

It makes sense to me. But it's just another tool. Really. It really is. And so, and that was in 2009. And so, I got into just helping a few other people doing it here and there. And now you know in 2018 in three days at least we know I've got four employees. We've got we've done over 850 Websites in the service contractor niche and industry. And so in over the years talking to people and just testing over and over I've figured out some simple things that most people are not doing with their websites. That really can blow the phone up that can really get the phone calls coming in which is what we really all want. It's nice to have a pretty web site that makes impresses people. But if it's not bringing in the phone calls then who cares right? Absolutely.

So, I believe in having beautiful professional websites but to me, that has to go hand in hand with the conversion. So that's what I want to talk about is conversion. How to get people to pick up the phone and call you once they do hit your Web site.

Tip number one that I like to give people is something that is very simple but I still see more than half of the people out there in the especially in the service industry construction industry. They're still not doing this. And what that is having a big bold phone number at the top of every single page of your website. I still go out there and look at websites that have the phone number like down in the text, down in the middle somewhere or it's down in the footer or even you have to click on the Contact Us page to even find the phone number. Right.

 

And so, it's so huge so, so important and so easy such an easy tweak to just put it nice and big at the top of every page and then in addition to that put a simple called action something like Call now for a free estimate or you know 24-hour service if it's an emergency type service you can do 24-hour service call. Now something very simple. There have been multiple studies that say if you have the words Call now next to your phone number it'll actually double the double the people that actually pick up the phone call.

 

Well, people like to be told Do they really. Yeah, I've talked to people they're like No I got my phone number on their people know what to do. And if they don't it's a subconscious thing it's not it's not like they're you know it's not like they're thinking this through. But having that and then another little another little tidbit to go along with this tip is if you can if you stand 10 feet back from your computer if that phone number isn't something that jumps out then it's not big enough it's not bold enough.

 

So, you can do things like kind of change the color to contrast with the rest of the Websites if you've got a lot of blues and greens and your Web site. Make the phone number Orange. Stuff like that. It really, really works. I mean after working with 850 plus clients I can tell you that people that have those big phone numbers like that are the ones that are getting more calls.

 

It's just it's amazing you got down to a science now. Yeah. Yes. Exactly, exactly. And a lot of web designers out there that are amazing award-winning web designers will make that mistake over and over and over because they're looking to impress people with the visuals and not the conversions. So that's two different aspects you're looking at it from the contractor point of view because you were one and they're looking at a designer’s. That this has got to be pretty.

 

Yes. Yes. And if you can nail pretty and convert then yeah, I mean you're going to be way ahead of the competition because nine out of ten guys out there don't have both of those nailed. So that's tip number one.

 

So, anybody who's listening to this if you can get a hold of your web designer or if you built your Web site on Wix or whatever you did, however, you got your Web site set up do everything you can to get a big bold phone number at the top of every page with a call to action that would be my number one tip that I can give today.

 

And then number two. OK. And this is something you and I were talking about before the podcast started here Dave is so, we all know that smartphones are here to stay you know they're not going anywhere. Everybody uses them all the time especially in this type of business.

 

So, it and what we're all accustomed to is you know hitting little buttons on our phone. So, my suggestion is that when you're somebody looking at your website on a smartphone, is you don't just have the phone number but you have the phone number on a button. So that and then you can even add a call to action to that as well like on all the websites that we do. We have a phone number in a button that says tap to call. OK. And they have that at the very top. Don't make people look for the phone number don't make them scroll down to find the phone number. Don't put the phone number in tiny little text somewhere make it into a button because they're already addicted to hitting buttons all day long or on their phone. That's all they do.

 

And your two icons are really good. Exactly. They need to tap this and the video and how it goes straight to a phone call. OK. Because like we said the beginning, we want to get phone calls. We don't want to just impress people we want to get that phone ringing. So, we can close the deal. So, the number two now Dave you brought up an amazing point. That you know most of the clients out there most of it most of the decision maker, comes to server benefactor's whatever it may be in this type of industry. It's the woman that makes the decision.

 

She is the decision maker in these types of transactions. She's going to give the go ahead. She's going to pick who they who they are going to work with. Who's going to do the work for them? And so that's going to go right into my next step. But you brought up a really interesting point is why not have in addition to a call now button, have a like a tap to text button.

 

So, you got my wheels turn and now I'm going to go out there and grab my web developer here. Leah and I are going to get we're going to figure this out. We're going to we're going to make a text button and start implementing it and web designs and start doing some major testing. Because as you brought up Dave. Females tend to text more than more than call. They would rather text a potential vendor or potential company than pick up the phone and have a drawn-out conversation. Right. I mean wouldn't you agree.

 

I would yeah, I would agree. And as we talked earlier and you know my daughter and your wife they've got kids. The phone rings. They're not coming they're not going to pick it up. If its text and they see it then they'll take the time or you know to text back. But it's just it's not part of the world.

 

And you know there's a lot of times where women are at work and they're on their phone and they can't call because of what they may be in an area where they can't call but they can text. You know there are so many variables that you know you're getting too loud. Let's say you're looking at an ad on an on your phone in a waiting room or something like that.

 

You're not going you're not going to wait forever to travel. You're just going Oh if I can text the phone let me do this. I can. Can I get an appointment or like what we were talking about somebody with this other night? Well like 7 o'clock at night you know nobody's going to answer the phone. But what if they got a text. You know that they would answer first thing in the morning.

 

Yeah. And I always I always tell people it's good to have like a little forum that people can fill out for that exact reason because they don't want to call it you know 8:00 o'clock at night or whatever. But you got me thinking why not add a text button that could place the form pretty easily so we're going to be doing some major testing here in 2018. Based on your that little that little seed that you planted in my mind so I appreciate that.

 

I want you to track in about six months after you run your test. Give us the stats on that. I'd love to do that. That’d be great.

 

So that kind of that kind of goes right but it is a good segue right into the third tip that I want to talk about which it goes right along with we are marketing to females primarily. OK. And so, what I see a lot of people do on their Web sites is they'll have a lot of pictures of you know their equipment, their trucks a lot of a lot of the wording on the Websites is very technical. And that doesn't speak to the average the average female out there that's going to make the decision the one that's going to basically fork over the money. Right.

 

She wants to know what her house is going to look like when it's finished. She wants to see smiling kids. She wants to see you know whatever the service is she wants to see the end result so that the even other women on your web page. Exactly. And testimonials other women that are in that are like them are ages and some more family situations whatever it may be.

 

So, I would highly recommend that if you've got you or if your website is dominated by stuff that appeals to you or to other competitors or men that you know friends whatever then you really need to rethink that and start adding some more. Make it a little bit softer. It's kind of what you need to do to make it happier and the end result as opposed to technical logical. You know just the man the male mind and the female mind respond differently to different things.

 

We all know that. Here is an interesting thing for you guys that are thinking well that's really not going to make a difference. I'm going to tell you that if you're in a cell situation and you're there with the woman and the guy and you sell to the guy, that guy likes you and a woman don't you've lost. You are not going to get the job no matter how it goes. Yes, yes, yes. She's going to say no, no, no. And you know me I've been married for 40, 41 years. My father has been a happy wife happy life.

 

That goes for your marriage and it goes for the clients as well. So, it does. I'm just laughing because I just I'm thinking back to when I had my business. And there are several times when I just thought I nailed it. I nailed that job. The guy loved me this and that. And I guarantee I lost it because the wife was like no for whatever reason.

 

You talk to them because you know the guy you didn't need to get the attention. I had this one year ago it was hilarious. I had a client. We were we did a lot of painting and he won. He called me, he called me over and look at the house to do stuff and the old school. I mean really old school. This was like this was a guy with his wife. It was one-word answers with me. That whole conversation. He was very Lithuanian very old school. OK, I go. So, Tony so his wife goes Tony I want to get next time we paint the house. Can we paint the outside just a little tinge of green?

 

No. So I go, Tony. Don't you understand how long have you been married it, Tony? How long. Many, many, many years. That's OK. Do you not know this? Does he go know what Dave? OK. Happy wife a happy life.

Her eyes got as big as saucers I mean it got huge. I mean and Tony goes wow ok. So, we go inside and we're just talking. You know and she goes Tony I would like this house has painted in 15 years. I want to paint this house the inside for your birthday his response.

 

No. I said, Tony, I need to learn anything outside of that we talked about. And he goes, OK. She got the house painted the house with the exact tinge of green that she wanted to add one. Yeah. Everything you wanted.

 

But you know it's so important to come to that realization. Who are we selling to? And you know it's kind of funny. It really is. Yeah. And what's crazy is I'm not noticed too. Like if you take that Web site and show your wife a lot of times she won't be thinking in terms of a client she'll be thinking in terms of you know I'm one of the business owners. So, it's kind of dangerous actually to ask the wife I've found in many cases of them in many cases. The wife having somebody close to you give you feedback on the website is not always the best way. You need to have a third party that doesn't really have much connection to you or you what they think of the website. That's another thing.

 

Yeah because I mean just the other day we have a roofer who was like well I don't want to put the phone number at the top of the website when I only have it in like tiny little text down in the footer of the website because my wife thinks it looks tacky at the top.

 

And she wasn't thinking from the point of view of like what if I was actually you know a female out here looking to hire a roofer. I want to get a hold of this guy. You know if they don't find the phone number on your Web site. The seconds are gone. Yeah exactly. So, it's a big deal. OK.

 

And so that's it. That's my top three tips. I mean I've got other things too as far as like you know getting online reviews how important that is and how that can boost your conversions. And there are lots of lots of little things beyond that but that's at the top three. It's definitely three things that you or you a web designer can implement like now. Especially for the New Year wrap. Get going for 2018. That new Web site gets the Web site revamped, freshened up and to convert not just be pretty and rank but also to convert.

 

And so, and so that's what I got. And I don't know if we going to talk about this right now but I wanted to make sure that you're just audience gets a special prize. If they ever wanted to do anything with us let's do that now do it again later on.

 

You know I always like promote or guess what they have to offer and how they can help our community. You know this is all about helping other guys become more profitable. Be better or what they do so that they can spend more time with their families.

 

Yeah. And so, I want to make sure. So, for the next couple of weeks, I would love to give all of your only listeners only the listeners, $300 off any web design packages that we have. And but they just need a dimension that they need to mention that this podcast and then we'll make sure that that $300 is taken off. So, this is not an issue for a couple of weeks I want to make this isn't forever.

 

And so, we can either we can get a link set up or people just want to go to generalcontractorwebsites.net they can find us there or just give me a call at 4 0 6 4 9 3 1 8 8 1. Okay great, and we'll put on a show notice when we get on we get everything up and at that point and what we'll do is we'll put off end of show notes will put off cut-off date let's say two weeks or three weeks however you want to do it. It will just put on the cutoff date. And from that point, so everyone knows that.

 

I'd like to talk about Google reviews a lot because I think that's important. I mean I know you do too. From a standpoint that's probably would be number for one or one of the numbers high numbers. Absolutely. And it may even bump in their effort in some cases anyway bump into the top three.

 

Just because of the fact and the way that I look at Google reviews and other reviews you know Angie's List and everything but Google still the big one unless you're on the west coast and I know you can overtake Google a lot of times when it comes to the review game. But the way that I look at online reviews is they literally are the new world of the mouth of mouth advertising. Yeah

 

I mean the whole the whole idea of you know tell all your friends and then haven't called me all that stuff that still exists. But there's a whole another online version of that and that's basically, it's just reviewed. I mean how many people bought into this have read an Amazon review before actually clicking the buy now button. Right.

 

You know what I mean. Oh yeah and a lot of times you don't think that it applies to your business the same way but I'm going to tell you right now I've got a guy up in Portland. He's got a five-truck operation does a lot of like water damage restoration stuff like that. And he so he used to have like eight or nine reviews on his competitors all had they all were right around there like five to 10 reviews something like that.

 

Well, he got busy. Did you know I'm going to make reviews big in 2017 and so now he's got like 89 reviews and you're still acting like 9 or 10? And he says he literally doesn't have to do any more staying over the phone. It's not about right. You know my prices deserve prices any more. It's about you had the most reviews online. And these are all genuine reviews. Doesn't do any. These guys above board he doesn't know. No fake reviews of again. It's really easy to get reviews.

 

It's kind of funny. I just did a podcast not too long ago about a contractor in South Carolina and he grew his business basically by google reviews. It's kind of an interesting way for business. It was mostly referrals. He'd get like 75% referrals and 25% would be you know from reviews and stuff like that. He went out of his way to do the different ways and he started with the google reviews and now he's got. Last, I checked he had 55 reviews and he said that the numbers have turned. He said 75% of my business comes from the google reviews and 25% comes from referrals it's amazing.

 

You got to do. You got to really do is ask. Now I have an I have another tip based on that because a lot of times people say well I don't feel like one out of 10 people will actually you know say they're going to actually follow through and do it. But you got to do more than ask. Yeah. And so, I like that call but you know to push the call. Yes yeah.

 

Make it easy to make it Brain-Dead easy for them and so the best way that I've found to do that is to once again we go back to text thing is to basically give them a heads up say Hey you mind if I send you a text to get some feedback on how we did it and most times I say yes like 95% of you say oh yeah, no problem.

 

So, what you can do is get on your phone. This won't work on your computer. You got to get on your phone and search your business and find your Google page. OK. once you're on the Google page you click on reviews and then it'll take and then and then they'll let you choose the number of stars. Right. OK. So, you click on Star number five and that's it. You don't. All you do on your own business. on your smartphone has to be on a smartphone. And so all five stars are gold at that point. All right.

 

Now you do is you tap up into we're like the Web site addresses and you do and you click copy highlighted and then you click copy. All right. Now you go and send a text and you paste in that exact address. It's a big long obnoxious website address but that will take them directly when they click on that when they get the text and they click on that. It'll take them directly to the Google page with the five stars filled out. Now they can change it and put fewer stars if they want but it's one less step that they have to take.

 

And so, then they're just at the point where they're just typing in you know the actual experience they had. But that little chip right there texting over the actual google link that takes them already just right to the place where they can start typing is going to increase the amount of you know reviews you get so if you get one out of ten by asking right now. Now you to get like nine out of 10 because you're doing it for them in a sense. Yes exactly

 

And that's the that's the key thing is you know. We all want more business but we think that it's going to be easy. Sometimes it's easy but we have to work at it. Yes. Yes. I was reading some stats not too long ago. And the funny part was that 90% of the people who go to the internet to check reviews but only like 40-50% will actually write a review. Yeah. So, you know so you've got to work a lot harder to get what you want. That's all that's really what it boils down to. Which is nice. And yet the reviews are just awesome and I just you know it's kind of cool on how easy it is to just you know send it and they will do it. And if they don't do it right away then you do it one more time.

 

Yeah. Yeah but maybe you just do. You know I know you've been busy and we've talked about this. I just wanted to send this to you again. If you have time please do it. If you don't that's ok.

 

Yeah and the key time to do it is right when you have that conversation with them at the very end of the job. And they've got that those good warm feelings about you. Those are feeling quick like a week later. You know they're still happy with us that they dislike you but you don't have that. I want to help this person. Because people do want to help especially if you do an amazing job form they want. They want to but they don't want to have to go find your Web site or go find your Google pager your pager. They don't want to have to do all that. Most people anyway. So, the easier you can make it for them, then the better chance you're going to get. And it's all about just getting into a routine getting it in and out. Oh, the guy in Portland said what he does is it makes sure that all of his technicians are the ones that actually initiate that text. And then he gives them like a $25 bonus for every five-star review that comes in the day the day that they requested.

 

So yeah that makes it a lot nicer for him. Yes, I mean yeah, I mean one review is 20 it was worth you know is gold. One five-star is gold so $25 dollars. He looks at it. I'm paying $25 to get a review and that review is easily going to make me ten times that over the next year. Oh, easy. So, this is the place to place some golds in the pot is what he's doing. Yeah. Yeah. That is so cool.

 

Yeah, I know of a carpet cleaner that was doing Facebook reviews. He would actually give them if they would do while they were still there and he would give them a Starbucks coffee. Yeah, be careful with bribes like Yelp will shut down your account if they find out about that. But yeah Google and Facebook they, you know Google says not to do it but I've never heard of them cracking down on it yet. Well, how Facebook's pretty open now. Yeah, I mean people on Yelp people are suffering. I've heard of people getting shut down in Yelp. So, they Yelp figures it out somehow.

 

I mean they get so many and stuff like that depending on the trade. Yeah. And they've even gotten to the point Yelp's even gotten to the point where they've said you're not even allowed to ask for a review. So, Yelp is a different animal. It's not cool. Yeah, there's a lot a lot of angry people out there on YELP right now. So yeah, I think yes, I was listening to somebody tell me that you know it's tied pretty much to being three views from me you know. Is that true? Oh, I've never heard that I heard though. Yeah, that's why they post your reviews and stuff like that.

 

Now, something I did hear this morning that was kind of interesting. I don’t know if you knew this was home adviser bought Angie’s List.  I did not know that. Wow. That just went through like two weeks ago. I wonder how that's going to play out. Interesting. It’s alright if they don’t change their name.

An interesting change the name but nobody like Angie’s List and nobody likes Home Advisers so I don't think they've got some enemies that's for sure.

You know. Yeah, they do because they just don't do things right. Neither here or there and we're not going to go there. All right. Hey you know this is really been awesome. Is there anything that you've been burning there in the back of your mind that you say you need to get this out. You want anything you want, additionally, you want to share before we close out this thing?

 

You know the only other thing is I do have a book that has 150 pages of all of this kind of stuff. It's basically where I just did a mine dump and put everything I know into book format. So, if people want to get that they can get it on Amazon it's like 17 something. If you want to get it for free and just pay the shipping and handling giving it away right now. Just go to a servicebusinessmoneymachine.com that's the name of the book service business money machine. How to turn your Web site into a virtual money machine. Cool.

 

Yeah, I've got, the matter of fact I've got my book on the way. So, guys, I ordered his books so we're in good shape. Nice. And so, we will put them on and show notes like he said. And then one more time let's run your special again since we're at the end. So, we'll have that at the very end again.

 

Yeah so, we've been talking about Website stuff today. So, what I want to do is if you're looking to get a new Web site or revamp your current website, we're going to take $300 off for the next couple of weeks we'll set the exact date on the show. Now it's like you were saying yeah but this is only for people that are listening to this.

 

You have to mention that you listened to the podcast and that's the only way you're going to get that $300 special. So, if you're looking to get a new Web site for the new year then we'd love to talk to you about it. And if we if we decide that we're not a good fit for each other then that's fine. I'll still give you a free consultation with you know lots of tips and little things you can do to improve your website anyway. So, that would be awesome. So, give us your contact information again. OK so you can go to a generalcontractorwebsites.net OK or you can just call 4 0 6 4 9 3 1 8 8 1.

 

Awesome. Joe thanks so much. This has really been great having you on the show. Little tips and tricks on how to get everyone more business. And I thank you for making that offer to our listeners. And guys listen, I really, take advantage of it if you if you need to know or call Joe and see what you need to do. But you know one of the things that I was impressed with overall is that Joe was a contractor and he thinks like contractors, he knows you know how you guys think, he knows what you're going through and he's been in your shoes.

 

And he only deals with contractors. He's not trying to make one everything fit. So, we're in good shape. Joe again thanks so much for being with us today. I love it Dave, and I hope to come back in six months and we'll talk about that text button. Yeah, that'll be a blast. Yeah. Yeah. OK. All right. Dave, you have a good one. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Thanks.

 

 

You may go to this website to know more details about Joe Burnich:

www.generalcontractorwebsites.net

Contact: 406-493-1881

To get your $300.00 discount from Joe you can go to his website offer is good only until midnight February 7th 2018

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