Spruce Up Your Flooring Business Website With These Tips

November 3, 2021 9:30am Robyn Rivera

From personal recommendations to Google searches, there are a lot of ways that someone might learn about your flooring business. But, no matter how someone finds you, before they book an appointment or schedule an estimate, they’ll visit your website.

Flooring is incredibly important, not just from a functional standpoint but from a design standpoint. People want to know that they’ve found a flooring contractor they can trust to get the job done right the first time.

Your flooring website can either build trust with prospective leads and guide them toward becoming a customer or send them running the other way.

Here are a few updates you can make to your flooring website to make the right first impression with your visitors and reach your goals.

7 tips to spruce up your flooring website

#1. Declutter your website design

Effective, modern websites are simple, straightforward and to the point. What they definitely aren’t is cluttered.

Many flooring contractors have a lot that they want to communicate with prospective customers, from the flooring types they install to their rates. But, it’s a mistake to cram it all in one place.

The more information you try to throw at prospective customers at once, the more confused your message will be — and the more likely you are to lose the lead.

Focus on one thing at a time above the fold (the visible part of the screen without scrolling) on your website. And, use plenty of white space around your message to make it stand out.

#2. Make sure it’s fast and mobile-friendly

It used to be that most of the people visiting your flooring website were using a desktop computer or maybe a laptop. But these days, you can expect the majority of your visitors to be using a smartphone.

To provide the best experience for all of your website visitors, you need a responsive, mobile-friendly website design.

Mobile users expect to have the same kind of experience and aesthetic, no matter what device they’re using. Responsive website design ensures they get it.

Another thing mobile users (and desktop users for that matter) expect is speed. The longer your site takes to load, the more likely visitors are to jump ship.

PageSpeed Insights, Google’s site speed test, will tell you if your website is up to par speed-wise, and give you suggestions to improve your site speed if it’s not.

#3. Have a brand video

Every effective flooring website needs effective website content. But, it’s a mistake to limit your website content to just text or images.

Video has become a powerful form of content for small business websites. It helps you establish your brand’s personality, builds trust with visitors, boosts your visibility on search engines, widens your reach, effectively communicates your message and drives conversions.

Create a brief brand video for your flooring business that explains who you are and what you do, and add it to your homepage.

#4. Embed a reviews widget

Like I said, flooring is a big deal, and no one wants to hire just anyone to install new flooring in their home or business (or refurbish existing flooring).

People come to your website to determine whether or not your flooring business is a good fit for their needs. A big part of that determination lies in whether or not they can trust you.

Establishing trust is important for any business, but for a flooring contractor who works inside people’s homes and businesses, it’s huge.

Telling visitors that you are the best in the business can help. But, what you say about yourself is nothing compared to what your customers say about you.

Embed a reviews widget on your website so that your visitors can easily read your latest reviews. As a bonus, this will also make it easier for customers to write reviews.

#5. Replace cheesy stock photos

An effective flooring contractor website won’t just look like everyone else’s. And, a big part of what makes your website unique and stand out is the images.

While stock photos will do in a pinch, you shouldn’t rely on them too much for your flooring website. As much as you can, use your own professional images on your website.

Let prospective customers see your team’s smiling faces. Take photos of your branded truck, or if you have a brick-and-mortar location, of your business itself. Show off your great work with before and after photos.

#6. Offer online booking

Not only do modern websites look sleek and simple, load quickly and work smoothly on smartphones, but they also allow leads and customers to do more.

One great way to modernize your flooring website is to offer online booking.

More and more, people prefer to book appointments and estimates for themselves online rather than over the phone. With online booking, you can give them the option to do so.

In addition to giving leads and customers the option to book appointments and estimates on their own, online booking also helps to free up more of your time, so you can spend less of it on the phone and more time on the job.

#7. Simplify your website forms

Website forms can help you get email addresses for your monthly newsletter, schedule more estimates, gather more information about your customers and, ultimately, close more deals.

However, not all website forms are made equal. If you want yours to be effective, they need to be simple, short and sweet.

Just like with your flooring website, the more complicated your website forms, the less effective they’ll be.

Don’t get greedy. Only ask for the information you really need. And, limit the number of fields you require leads to fill out.

Every flooring website needs sprucing up now and then. Keep these tips in mind when updating yours.

Originally published on Marketing 360®