Welcome to growth360 - Marketing agency made specifically for contractors.
Working with contractors every day we often hear them ask if Angi's worth it, if HomeStars worth it, or other websites like Houzz. And this is exactly what we will review today.
Proven to Scale Contractor business: How about my team and I just do your marketing for you? One client per industry & location. Check Availability today!
What is HomeStars and Other Contractor Websites?
Now, what are contractor websites? Contractor websites are online platfroms like HomeStars, Angi’s List and others. They help homeowners find and review various home service professionals. They provide a database of renovation contractors, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, waterproofers, other home service businesses and reviews.
Homeowners can use these websites to research and hire contractors.
Does HomeStars Work and Other Contractor Websites Work?
So how do these websites work? This is where you the contractor come in. Companies will register their profiles on these sites. These sites will rank contractors there and some of them will get more visibility on these sites vs others.
Depending on what they decide to prioritize in their algorithm today your listing will show up higher or lower on their website.
Obviously, companies listed at the top of the list will get more clicks and phone calls vs others.
Source: Yelp screenshot
How Does HomeStars Make Money?
These websites make money by offering contractors various paid features – memberships, advertising, and other paid features.
Some of them go as far as offering contractors to pay for showing their logo on a website. Which is odd to say the least.
Are These Leads Sent to Multiple Contractors?
Now are these leads shared? The answer is yes, in most cases, these leads are shared. This means that you won’t be the only contractor who will receive the lead.
At the same time it is fair to say that no source of leads will give you exclusivity – same goes for advertising or SEO.
Source: Sistrix - Organic Search Click Through Rate by Position
How Many People will Receive HomeStars Lead?
The question is how many people will receive the leads? Well, this varies. For example, if we look at average Click Through Rate for Google Organic Search aka SEO, you can see that the first position gets almost 10x more clicks compared to position 10.
And these are not leads, just clicks. But, this tells me that most likely within the first 3-4-5 clicks people find what they are looking for. The assumption is that the same applies to leads.
Now, it is up to you to ask or find out how many contractors will receive a lead from the contractor website you are considering.
But this is all lyrics, lets to the pros & cons, shall we?
Pros and Cons - HomeStars, Angi's, Houzz and Others
Pros:
Branding - Have to be there, it’s like a Facebook or Instagram – you have to be there
Shows off your reviews – perfect, you want your clients to see reviews
People Love it - they really do, people love the ability to read reviews and work with businesses that have a good reputation on a website like this.
Can get you some leads at leads
Now how about cons?
Shared leads – god knows how many contractors actually receive them
Ignored Calls – what do you do with calls when you already found what you need? I think, you likely ignore them
Pay to Play – in many cases, once you stop paying you stop getting leads, unlike SEO for example where your will continue to get some leads for some time after you stop working on it
The Math - Can HomeStars and Other Websites Work?
Also, let's do the math.
And I have to say that actually, mathematically, this can work. At the very least you can break even.
For an average call from Google Search we get 20%-25% closing ratio – one in four, one in five.
For example sake, let's pretend you only get 15% closing ratio from a hypothetical website with contractor leads.
This means that if you get 10 leads per month, this will still get you 1.5 Sales. Let's assume that you spend $400 per month on these leads. This means that for most contractor industries you will break even and will even probably even make some money on top of it.
And then depending on how your ranking is determined, you may be able to scale it more.
But you have to do you own math. So in case you do decide to give it a shot, make sure to do you numbers. Dip your toe in the water and write down how many leads you got and how many of them you actually closed.
What we Hear From Clients?
To be honest, I haven’t heard our clients get much success on these platforms. What we did hear is that over the last 2-3 years it became much harder to get business from there.
The Verdict - Is HomeStars & Other Contractor Websites Worth it?
Now, the final verdict.
To be frank, you should have your company listed on a couple of these websites. It’s like creating a Facebook page for your business. And if it’s free, it may be a good idea.
However, to me as a Digital Marketing expert this doesn’t seem like a scalable solution that you can rely on to scale your business to 7-figures or more.
In my experience - Google Maps Marketing and some other tactics can bring better results in many industries
So by all means, create a page on HomeStars, get reviews and if you end up closing a couple of calls, then great.
But most of all, do your own math, if it doesn’t work for you, then shift the gears to another source of leads.
And if you are serioud about growing your contractor business, reach out to growth360 – marketing agency made specifically for contractors in North America.
We can help you find the right solution for your budget and scale your contractor business into a national brand.
I hope, this post was useful and I will see you in the next one.
Comments