Website Best Practices: Build a Home Page With Us

Pete: Alright everybody, welcome back to the Roofr Masterclass. I am your host, Pete McKendrick, with my co-host Nick, and we are joined today by our OG marketing person. Kate, welcome. Kate.  

Kate: Hi. Thanks guys. Excited to be here.  

Pete: I think this is what your second or third. Masterclass appearance. You've been on a few.

Kate: Yeah, there's been a couple. It's a fun, it's fun to chime in once in a while I'll not be on the other side typing or in the chat in jump away. So yeah, you've  

Nic: been on a lot in the chat, but yeah, I only seen your face. Yeah, like two or three times. So this is, this is awesome.  

Kate: Yeah.  

Pete: Well thank you. Welcome, Kate.

Excited that you're here. And, uh, a topic that's right up your alley today here with, uh, some marketing stuff [00:01:00] and website best practices. So I think we've got a little bit of housekeeping to run through here with the, you have your deck right handy there, Nick, and run through some stuff and we'll uh, do that and then we'll dive into it.

So, welcome everybody. Yeah.  

Nic: Kate, do you have that beginning of the deck? Because I don't Oh, yeah, yeah,  

Kate: I have  

Nic: it.  

Kate: I wasn't Kate  

Nic: Got it.  

Kate: Kate's good. I got the deck. Okay, let me share my screen. All righty.  

Pete: I threw it to the wrong person.  

Kate: Yeah, so, so all. Everyone who has signed up here and is here knows that we're gonna be going through building a website.

So I'm gonna have a full screen. I'm gonna swap and show you examples of a wire frame, which is essentially just like a website without any like imagery or branding or like anything fancy. It's just kind of like the bare bones of it. Um, and if you have any questions, put them in the chat or just like yell.

I don't think they can yell. Put it in the chat and we'll answer.  

Nic: If you, you should yell as well and [00:02:00] just like do both and see what, what we get through. Yeah. Sometimes you. Yeah.  

Kate: Yeah. Sometimes we yell. Um, and also, let's  

Pete: talk, let's talk quickly, Kate, about the importance of this. Right. Um, to bring up an example, yesterday or two days ago, I had a Roofr in my neighborhood pull up and ask me if he could inspect my Roofr because we had some hail while back.

There's roofs getting dirt redone everywhere in my neighborhood. He rolls up, he asks me if he can inspect my Roofr. I told him we're good to go and he hands me his business card and his business card has a Gmail email, his phone number. Mm-hmm. Nothing else on it. Mm-hmm. Uh, the name of his business, but no website, no link to find him anywhere.

Uh. As he pulls away, I noticed that both of his trucks have temporary license plates, so didn't gimme a woman's seat at the time. Uh, but I think it, it segued really well into this topic of the importance of having an online presence.  

Kate: Yeah, [00:03:00] a hundred percent. I think it's one of those things where. A website can be time consuming, it can be hard to keep up with.

It could be something that you just don't see as a huge investment if you're getting a lot of phone calls or emails directly. But I think ultimately, like having a website helps you get more discoverable. It gives, builds a lot of trust. It's somewhere that they can go back to. You can showcase a lot more about your company, your people, why you're different, what you have to offer, and ultimately like, oh, buy Pete.

But ultimately. He heard enough. Um, it allows he so  

Nic: excited.  

Kate: Yeah.  

Nic: And just had to go.  

Kate: Said, that's it. It allows you to really stand amongst your competition. And many other things that we'll get into, but it's really important to have, there's so many affordable options these days that you can build yourself or you can hire someone to do it at a pretty low cost.

So mm-hmm. It's not this expensive thing that it used to be. There's platforms like Web Flow, Wix, Squarespace, um, WordPress, all these places that aren't a huge lift. So we're gonna go through, I don't wanna use a web flow experience today, [00:04:00] um, but again, if there's any questions in the chat, we'll answer as we go.

And I'm just gonna jump, right? Yeah. Peel you back. But Nick,  

Nic: real quick. Uh oh. Pete's back. Good.  

Pete: Sorry, I had to get one, one. Good freeze in there to get going.  

Nic: Hopefully that's all. I, we thought it was a temporary license plate that just triggered you and was like, that's it. I was like, come out. That's  

Kate: it.

Nic: Yeah, it's all coming back. But, uh, real quick before we start. Again, put your info in the chat, ask questions away. We'll be doing Qs and as at the end, that's a weird way of saying that Q and a's at the end. And, uh, let us know, uh, if you have anything. We also will be giving away those socks giveaways that you guys are always looking for as well.

So keep us up to date in the chat and, uh, just a quick housekeeping as usual at the end, we are always looking for, so please, you'll.

Five outta five stars, go for five. Um, you guys are here. It's a lot of work. And uh, and then we'll be able to, uh, take that feedback and make [00:05:00] for each, each one of you guys. So thanks.  

Kate: Awesome. Thanks Nick. Okay, so just getting right into it. Why does website matter what we talked about and that 75% of consumers judge a company's credibility by its website, and that's across the industry.

That's B2C. B2B. People use this now as like a place to get information and I believe I have a statin here somewhere, but I think it's like 80% of millennials or something like that, that we learned when we did. If you haven't checked out yet, the roofing by the numbers industry report that we put out a couple months ago, that highlights a ton of really great data.

Um, about the roofing industry from real roofers, and it's, and it says like 80% of millennials, um, make a decision before they even reach out to you if they wanna go with you. So when it comes to it, having a website that allows 'em to make that decision faster by when they get to you, they're mostly just looking at price point and, and timeline.

Um, so it's really important to have that information available and like easy to read and translate. So why [00:06:00] invest the time and effort? I know you're all busy. I know you have a lot on the go. It's hard to take the time to do it. I recommend looking into it in your off season, potentially like January to March if you're super busy in the summer and the fall.

Um, but for local businesses like Groupers, it's the first impression. It builds trust. Like I said, it makes you more discoverable. It can generate leads, and it sets you apart from your competitors. So the main objectives that you wanna focus on obviously is like, like I said, improve discoverability, set yourself apart, increase professionalism, and then ultimately that helps to capture leads, build trust, and then in the end allows you to convert and build, like get that sale.

So it starts with. Being able to be found. And that comes down to SEL, that comes down to how many people visit you. It comes down to optimizing your keywords for your, for your area, you setting up Google My Business, all that kind of stuff. Super important if you wanna be found. Um, along with obviously word of mouth and creating great impression with your current customers.

Is there any questions before I go into actually the building out of the website and what that looks like? Nick, [00:07:00] Pete, anything you wanna chime in on?  

Nic: I would, I would just tag in on one of the things that you mentioned about millennials kind of starting off at the website. A, a big thing that, that Pete and I have been talking about the past a little bit is that, uh, we heard a stat that there is, millennials will pay more for experience.

So it ties with the, an estimator ties with the proposal and stuff, but it definitely a hundred percent ties to your website if you get a negative experience from a website. Just from like a basic. Version of it. That's kind of like old school board press, not new school board press. That looks like it was done by a high school student.

Mm-hmm. You might just lose a customer right off the bat there. So having these things that you're about to go through is super important because you gotta keep in mind that end buyer is going to be looking at that, making judgment calls on you and your company. Based on that, you can be doing amazing work.

If your website's not out to snuff, you might not get the chance to bid on that job. So always keep that in mind when you're building out your [00:08:00] tools, your proposals, your websites, who is going to be looking at it. And another point is that you see that the average first time home buyer right now in the United States and Canada is 36 years old.

That's smack dab in the middle of that millennial version. So when you're getting these new homeowners looking to update their home, update the value and stuff like that, these are.

Make sure that you're on top of this stuff to, to stand up apart from the crowd and separate yourself from the competition.  

Pete: Yeah, and I think one thing to, to talk about here, Kate, is the, and, and Nick touched on it right, is like building the website. And I think the idea or the, the misconception is that it's difficult, that it's expensive, right?

And that mm-hmm. Is not something that I can do myself, that I'm probably gonna have to hire a marketing firm for. And, um. I think with the way tools are set up now, it's much, much easier in today's day to build your own stuff, right? It doesn't have to be super complicated, um, but you can build [00:09:00] a nice professional website pretty much on your own.

Right? I know I've done some, like we have a lacrosse program here. I built a website for it literally in like two days over a weekend and just. Using WordPress, right? It's very plug and play now. It's very easy to use. You don't have to be super tech savvy to pull it off and uh, you know, so I think that that misconception of like, oh, I'm gonna have to hire, you know, a big marketing firm and I'm gonna have to pay tens of thousands of dollars to create this.

Mm-hmm. Super crazy in depth website, just so that people can find me is exactly that. It's a misconception, right.  

Kate: Yeah, hundred percent. I think like your biggest cost should ultimately be hosting, and you don't wanna get an expensive URL. Find something that's like close to your business if it's like, if your business name is Joe's Roofers and you have to say.

Get Joe's Reverse or hire Joe's Reverse or Joe's whatever, find what's more affordable ultimately, like that's not gonna make or break it for you. You can do this in more affordable ways and I can help go [00:10:00] through at the end if there's questions on like the best options for affordability and like how for billing yourself versus hiring.

Happy to get into those details. Um, okay, so going into, and forgive me, I'm gonna go back and forth. So if you guys get whiplash, lemme know. But building your homepage, you wanna start with the hero, which is ultimately when you go to websites, what you see. It's like, uh, you know, the title, text, some subtext, paragraph text.

Normally a call to action, like a button, uh, single field form, like you're capturing your email, um, of an image or a video. Some trust indicators are always super helpful. They're not required, but they're really helpful. And that could be something like. Rate of 4.9 on Google, um, replaced over, you know, 5,000 roofs.

Um, you also have a nav bar, assuming you have additional pages on your website, like services, team pricing, that kind of stuff. And then, um, in general, design should be like free of clutter and not too much text. You wanna have, and you can use free tools like. Chat, CBT AI tools to trim down and improve what you're saying.

I highly [00:11:00] recommend AI tools. I know they're taking over everything and it's freaky, but it allows you to sound really professional with like a really easy lift. Um, if you share just like, Hey, I want a, a hero that's like, you know, optimize for these keywords, um, less than a sentence, can you write something out for me?

That's a huge help. If maybe words aren't your strong suit, which isn't for everyone. So for. The headline, you want to be clear, compelling, and benefit driven. So it tells you, says who you are and what you serve. It could be something like top rated roofers specializing in repair and replacements in the Houston region.

The subheader is something that goes into a bit more detail. You don't have to say Houston region in the headline. That's just an example. Like you could put that in your subheader. This is what helps you optimize for SEO, so to be found. So you could say something like. Servicing homeowners and businesses with fast, affordable roofing solutions in Houston since 2008.

It adds that credibility. To add your location, Google will crawl your website, find that, and show that you do commercial and residential. Or if you just do commercial or residential, you can say that if you specialize in metal, if you specialize in asphalt or [00:12:00] whatever you do that's unique, you can add that in as well.

Um, your call to action should be a short button. You don't wanna have anything that's like. Get your free quote in under 10 minutes. It should be less than three words for maximum. It could be something like, get a free estimate or book a call. Um, get in touch. Those are great things that are like action items that allow users to like know what to do next.

A video or an image. Make sure it's high quality, high resolution. You want something that's tubing size because that can slow it on your website, but you want it to be crisp. It could be ideally like a great one would be like something actioning as well. Your team working on a Roofr, a quick like. You could have a time lapse of your team replacing a Roofr would be really cool.

The more you can have people, especially team members in it, is awesome. And then having like, again, like your services are you showing actually do the job creates that trust. Um, we went through trust indicators, so I'll go through that again. And then again, we talked about design and then the N bar. So just keep it simple.

It doesn't, you don't have to think crazy. The simpler, the better.  

Nic: Um, so a quick, quick question with that. [00:13:00] So you mentioned about having people in there, so a big misunder, like what I find is like a big misconception is a lot of people like to just show their work and it just, it kind of falls on deaf ears.

'cause like a Roofr looks like a Roofr to a Roofr. A homeowner. And is there like an algorithm or something that makes you stand out? If you're showing people doing stuff and your crew or yourself, is that something that stands out or is it more just like perception  

Kate: for imagery? It's more Google will look at like the size of the image and how it's impacting, how your low time and stuff like that.

So that's important from my understanding. And no one ever really knows the Google algorithm, but like it doesn't. It doesn't increase that, but they will look at how long someone stays on the page. They'll look at how often they'll click that button to get in touch with you in the hero, which could help you.

So having something that creates that action item or has someone stand a page or go to another page is important. So ultimately, like mm-hmm. You wanna create trust and you wanna create something that like makes someone think that you [00:14:00] are a reliable Roofr to do an action that Google will then tell.

Pete: Cool. Awesome. What do you think, Kate, about multiple calls to action on a front page?  

Kate: That's a great question. I, I think for this industry, anything that's, I would say it depends, which is tricky. You wanna have one, and here they have two. As you can see, one's darker, one one's an outline. One, uh, on our personal website, we just have texts that has an arrow.

Normally this is if there's something that's really important that you wanna have in two places, and the primary one should always do the darker one. So if you want someone to, like, for example, book a call, you want them to do that, you would put that if you want someone to get a free estimate, you have like instant estimator or from Roofr on the website.

If that's what you'd want there. I think it's important that if you do include two, you have a really clear reason behind it. And I would also look at potentially using like AB testing tools to see what performs better. Like what gets, what do people click on more if you split [00:15:00] in half the audience. So like, I think what I would recommend for roofers is to try and have one, unless you really think having like a get in touch.

Or again, an estimate is more important to also have like view materials. If you see, if people like, let me add more to that. Just to be clear. If you get a lot of people going to like your materials or services page, then it might make sense to have that. But if those aren't popular pages and you normally get a lot of people converting from just your get a free estimate or contact us, I would just stick to the one.

Pete: Sounds good.  

Kate: This is just an example of what you could do. This doesn't have any of the trust indicators. You could have something smaller. If you go to like the Roofr website, as you can see, what we have is like, oops. We have a slider. We have our H one, we have our paragraph each two. We have an email capture start for free, short, actionable text.

We also have the trust indicators of like no credit card required. That's different, or subscription SaaS service versus a roofing business. But having that so people know they don't have to like really commit and then having all of our [00:16:00] trust indicators there is then a really huge wonder in increasing our personal conversion rates from the site.

We had it up to about 19% for new visitors this past week, and that's really strong. So things like that really make a difference. About 80% of people don't go past your hero, so that's also super important to remember.

Um, we're seeing Ash's comment. We have two. Yeah. Yeah, that's great. I think you could also, um, look at adding potentially like your prequalification at the end of your, in estimater. I think we have custom links potentially, or like financing links for Roofr. If you're finding you're getting drop off from that, Ashley, but if that works for you, then that's amazing.

You should keep doing that. Okay. Okay. Services section. So this is the next section. After your homepage, you can arguably test mixing up the placements. We'll go through the rest, but services should just kind of cover like what you offer. So it's just to make sure, like for example, you could have commercial, residential, you could have material [00:17:00] type, you can have like flat.

Whatever you wanna put in there that sets you apart, that's going to the people search for the most is super important. So you wanna again, have your clear, compelling headline, our most popular roofing services or you know. The fastest roofers in the northwest, whatever. And then normally you wanna have it in grids or like a list.

So this can make it very digestible, easy to read. You don't wanna have like a bunch of things written out. Um, you wanna put like your top three and then potentially a button for them. And this is where it would make sense to have a secondary CTA. So like get a free estimate. And then a second one would say like, view all services.

And it would take them to your services page. 'cause you just wanna highlight the main things. You don't need to put everything on your homepage. Pete didn't agree with me, so he left. But you  

Nic: sometimes just gets triggered. Oh, he is back. He was triggered. Something about, thought about the, the license plates again, and just  

Pete: that was crazy.

You guys went completely black on my screen. You like disappeared. I've never had to do that before. So.  

Kate: He just doesn't wanna hear it.  

Pete: Think it was, uh, Kate's presentation [00:18:00] too much into the crash. I know. It's too useful. Yeah.  

Kate: Um, and then going back to it, so like, again, just keep it short and sweet. The main one's to highlight there are top three.

Videos or images are helpful. You don't have to include them here. I'd recommend it if you have something that makes sense for the space. And then again, your primary call to action and potentially your secondary call to action if you wanna take them to another page with more services. But again, if you're just trying to get your homepage done, that's all you need.

Um, and this could be an example, like a wire from, again, this is it with no branding, no colors, no imagery, but this is what you could have. Um, like here, you could also have something. I put it somewhere else. No, I can't find it. So let's just look at this. Something like this. All right, Nick, Pete, comments, questions before we move on to the next section?

Nic: No, but there is a good question from Ashley, uh, in the chat there [00:19:00] that she has two. One is for getting a estimate within 30 seconds with the instant estimator. One is for financing. Having two different CTAs like that, do you don't, does that pull away from any of the stuff that you were talking to, or you think that those two are good kind of, uh, co-branding, not co-branding.

Uh, co co, um, touchpoint  

Pete: complimenting, complimenting of  

Nic: each other. Complimenting is the word that we're looking for. There's the English teacher. That's what I'm  

Pete: here for.  

Kate: I think we, I, I think I touched on this slightly, but to go into a bit more detail, I think like it would only hurt you if. One of the steps, like if they both ultimately result in the information to make a sale.

If you finding success with both of 'em, I would say keep them. If you're finding that people are like it's carved for the horse with the financing there before you really can qualify them, make sure the right fit, or you're getting the information you need from them and you're giving them do a lot of work before you're aligned, I would hide it or add it to like a section where it has, if you choose to add that to your homemade for trust about [00:20:00] financing.

Um. I think what I would recommend is just trying to test it. Like even if you can't afford or you're not interested in setting up like an AB testing software, you could just do one week where you have the button there and one week where you don't. And see, it's not perfect, but it, it allows you to see what is working better.

So I would try something like that out.  

Pete: Nice. I'll tell you what I really like here is, uh, what you were just showing there, Kate, is the visual aspect of it, right? Because I think so many times when we go to Roofr pages and we click on the services section, it's a tremendous amount of. Text and information, um, about the services that they do and where the areas that they service and all that stuff, but there's not a lot of visible aspect to it a lot of times that are, you know, and, and if I'm a homeowner, you know.

Hopefully I've done my homework, but maybe I haven't, maybe I don't even understand exactly what you're talking about. And I think the visual representation here could be, could play a huge part in that. Um, so I like the idea of [00:21:00] having this, like you said, the, the way you have this set up, kind of that like grid format where you have some fo, you know, some, uh, gallery of images attached to the service, so it's very easily identifiable as to what you're talking about.

And then maybe less text. Uh, what do you think?  

Kate: Yeah. I think the less text, the better. As you can see, like they've been very, not very text heavy people. They won't read it. If there's, you actually do yourself a disservice by having too much because they're just gonna say, I don't care. And they're not gonna read it anyway.

And they might just go to get a quote with a understanding more about you or why they should pick you. So you wanna like find that sweet spot and you can use, again, ask Chacha, BT look online. Like there's things you can do, but I recommend like keep it short.  

Nic: I remember Mike, uh, we did a one a while ago on websites and stuff, and that was one of the big things he said.

It was like, have those photos, summarize it. Don't just have like a laundry list when you hit a dropdown, it just drops out. So having those three, three items, those photos that you mentioned there, Kate was really, really [00:22:00] sharp looking.  

Pete: Yeah. I also like the idea of, like you said, in the dropdown of having just like your most popular services and then maybe an other services button or something like that that leads to the page rather than listing.

Mm-hmm. Because I've seen that too, where, you know, you have, uh, they're essentially a general contractor and you've got like 20 services listed there. The list is extremely long and bulky and confusing to look at. So yeah, I like the idea of keeping that very straightforward.  

Kate: Yeah. One last thing I'll say is like if you as roofers know so much about your craft homeowners as someone who just bought a house, we know nothing.

I mean, I'm a younger homeowner, but still we don't know much. So how dare you. Yeah, I apologize for saying that, but it's like you wanna something quick and easy like we do, you know, we do. We can service you in a week. We could do, and whatever it is. Or like Roofr replacements in this time. Roofr repairs these things like keep it to what they understand and then you can sell on more and have them understand and educate them when you get a chance to talk to them.

This what you're trying to do here, just get their info. You're not trying to necessarily make a [00:23:00] sale at this point if you do great, but you're just trying to get like latch in, you know?  

Pete: What about, I have a quick question for you, Kate. What about service area, like the areas that I cover? 'cause I've seen two approaches, right?

I've seen it. Kind of prominently displayed when you go to the services page, and I've seen it essentially listed in the footer. Hmm. Right. Where it'll say like, we service and then it's got a list of cities. Um, what's your take on that?  

Kate: Yeah, I think that's very helpful. I would ra if you only are in a certain city, like, you know, you're located one place, you're not like a massive chain as most roofs are.

Are just in a single area. I think it's important to have that in like your back when you go to the peer, the section where you talk about, you know, serving the Houston region also in your footer, which would be down here. Um, you could add your address, like your contact information. Again with, not include here, but I'd recommend that and your, your address.

And if you wanna have a section, you, this is optional. At the bottom, near the bottom, I would say [00:24:00] probably even after get in touch, you can have a map. That shows where you service just to like really drive that home. If you're getting, especially, it's important to have, if you get a lot of leads from like outside the area, then I would look at being, finding ways to be more clear.

Pete: Shout out to Avery from our design team. We love maps. Avery and I love maps. Maps are, maps are nice.  

Kate: Maps are great. Um. Once you get to this section, so the free estimate section, again, we talk about moving things around. This would be a great section assuming you use like something like the Roofr instant estimator where you can, after you have the hero, after you have the services, you can plug this in.

You could also do this and move up reviews. 'cause reviews are ultimately what help. You can also have like a quick review like we do on our website under the Hero where it says like. Someone's testimonial. Um, but this section's super important. So again, going back to the benefit driven headline, a short paragraph about what it does, what you, what the steps they'd have to take in a high level.

Like, tell us what your current Roofr de [00:25:00] details, what services you're looking for, and contact information and we'll give you a free instant Roofr estimate. It makes it very clear, also some great keywords in there, what their action, what the point of the free estimate is, and that they're gonna get one right away.

There's so many websites. I don't know if anyone's tried this, not even for roofing, but where you, you get the free estimate or the free info and then they actually send you an email and you're just like, I just wanted it on the page. I don't wanna do that. So highlighting they'll get it instantly is really important.

And then having a video or image, I've seen people like roofers actually embed or instant estimator into their website. That's a great option. But having like an image of, you know, what it would look like or an estimate. That's awesome. And then again, your, your primary CTA we should be like, get a free estimate so that looks, that can look like something like this.

The benefits, you can have three things, like finish it in seconds. We'll reach out to you within 24 hours. It's also helpful for 'em to know how long it will take for them to hear back from you once they submit that. Um, and something that like, we won't spam you, we won't call you. We'll try, we'll leave you a [00:26:00] voicemail or we'll call you twice, and if not, we'll leave you alone.

Just something that highlights, like you're not gonna spam them. I think a lot of people are really hesitant to give out information because they don't want all those calls. So something that really sets you apart of like, Hey, we're just trying to like help you out, get this info for you. It's an accurate estimate.

We're not gonna spam you. You'll get it right away. Is all really helpful info I have here,

Nick, Pete, anything next? I've  

Pete: got a question. I've got one question for you and I'm gonna play devil's advocate here a little bit and get your response.  

Kate: Yeah, love it. Do  

Pete: you find it better? Let's say I'm a brand new Roofr, right? And I'm gonna build myself a little website. I have a very limited budget. Do you think it makes more sense for me to have multiple pages that are very small in the amount of information that they contain or to essentially just have like one page, essentially a one pager that contains, you know, basic information?

I'm probably, let's say I'm a new Roofr, I'm probably only covering one. I. Small area, maybe a, a, you know, a city [00:27:00] or something like that. So my services area and my services offered is probably not gonna be super extensive at that point. Right. Does it make more sense for me to just have one page of information that the co, that the customer's gonna scroll through, or should I break it up into smaller bits and have it, you know, essentially broken down?

Uh, you know, when in the nav bar above.  

Kate: That's a great question. I would say you should always try and have one versus others. 'cause it's the second you take someone to a page that's a bit more distinct, it's like a contact us page. You have that separately, you're gonna lose them. If they want more information, they don't have to go back.

So having 'em on the same page where it's like all there and it also like tells the story that you want, like you get that buy-in, they know your services, you're ready to give them the estimate is really helpful. As soon as you send 'em to like a material section, they start them with materials and they might get overwhelmed and say, okay, I'm gonna come back.

You wanna make it as frictionless as possible. You should only have extra pages if you have a lot more information that you wanna include. That's important that you can't highlight on the main page in [00:28:00] my opinion and experience. Nice. Okay. There are a few more slides we're about halfway through. I'm gonna try and get through the rest quickly.

Um, the about Us and why section is super important again. I almost think I'm, I'm on the fence for this, going below the testimonials. Testimonials. I really highlight, will recommend highlighting it in different points if you are gonna test it to see what works. 'cause it's the best thing that drives conversions is.

People saying however you are, but the about Us. Why section is kind of like your unique proposition that allows you to stand out differently. So think about what all roofers do. A lot of them are family businesses, multi generation. A lot of 'em do X, Y, Z services. They're gonna know this kind of stuff.

What makes you different? Is it that you're faster? Is it that you have really high ratings? Is it that you have, they'll have a dedicated account manager, a salesperson, the entire process. Um, it could be almost like anything that really helps you stand out. I recommend thinking about what your customer care is about, which [00:29:00] is probably the quality of work, speed and insurance or safety.

If you can like talk about that and at a high level, that'll really help set you apart and like really sell 'em on why they should go with you and, and what you can have, what you offer versus someone else. And that includes the same things we talked about. Your headline, your value props could be three sections.

Icons, if you don't wanna have imagery, icons are great. They're way to just kind of break things up and then your primary call to action. And so that could look something like this, like understanding this. It also in what? Okay. This is something you can do as well just to like latch on. You can use another section, but your process is super important.

So you can have why us or your process or try doing both. But having like, we'll book a call, we'll give you the free estimate. We'll book a call, we'll take a look at your Roofr, we'll give you a proposal. We'll start work about four days after that. It takes about a week to do it depending on the size of the Roofr.

Um, we'll come and inspect, make sure there's no loose nails, and then we'll send you the final invoice. [00:30:00] The whole thing takes, on average this many days, having that listed out really educates the homeowner and lets them understand like exactly what you're gonna be doing. So it takes out a lot of their like anxiety around, how long is this gonna take?

How expensive is it gonna be? What can I expect from this process? Writing that note is also super helpful as a unique prop. If you don't wanna just write out your unique props so you don't have anything.

Pete: Yeah, I think that the about us page for me is a big one. I think honestly, in today's day and age, obviously, right? Like you, you're looking to develop that relationship and the customers want to develop that trust with you. Like you said, I. 80% of these people are figuring out that they wanna work with you based off of what they're finding online before they're even calling you or having a conversation with you.

So they're learning about you from this about Us page. And Nick, the name of the company completely escapes me. Maybe you can remember 'em, but we talked to a company I. These guys, two guys, I think his name was Matt, and they had the most incredible about Us [00:31:00] page that they were two friends. Oh yeah. Had started a business and I feel bad not remembering They met their wives.

Yeah. Yeah. They met their wives and together they just, the four of them started this business and they were, I think they had married sisters or something and like Yeah. Just an incredible story that led you through. The whole story of how they got into the business and started the business and what they were hoping to do with the business.

It was just an incredible, probably the most impactful about us page that I have ever seen. And, uh, but it was great. Like at the end of it, you felt like you knew them personally a hundred percent. You knew kind of the history of them. You knew how they developed a business, where they came up with the idea, what they were looking to do, who did what in the company as far as, you know, him and his wife and their friends and all this stuff.

And so, um, yeah, it was really, uh. Really eye-opening for me to see that and see how involved they did it. And they, you know, it was very descriptive. It was like a timeline. They had photographs of them, uh, along the way, which I thought was really cool. And, uh, you know, it really just, there was a whole different like, [00:32:00] level of buy-in when you read through this, uh, you literally felt like you trusted them and you knew them before you even went off the about Us page.

And it was like, it, it changed like the whole way you looked at them as a company. You know, obviously Nate, uh, Nick and I were going to talk to them and going into that conversation, reading that about them, I felt like I knew them before we even had the first, uh, conversation, you know, so it was, uh, it was something that was very impactful and stuck with me.

And I just wanted to bring it up when we're talking about the about Us page, because it was really cool. Like, it was literally like there's whole entire story kind of backstory of how, how they got to where they were. Nice.  

Nic: And the other thing is too, like I, I look at websites almost all day for how many demos we do.

We always have a website up and when you have just like a basic website like, Hey, we do roofing and replacements, we do this and that, you're not getting anywhere with that end buyer. Most clicked, uh, spot on your website outside of the homepage is typically about us. So tell a story, tell about how you created the company, where [00:33:00] you guys are.

I love the step one, two, and three here as well, because lists just hit differently. You like, you just see all like the social media, the buzz feeds, the everything, like the top five lists, like all the sports accounts I watch too, uh, have that stuff there. So it's a good way to engage it's bite size information.

But two things that I love is just talking about your process, the 1, 2, 3, like that. And number two, having that about section that. My, my parents have a good story about husband and wife. Started that up, family owned and operated, all that stuff there. You want it to be punchy. You want it to be good because again, going back to what I said earlier, people are buying the experience.

They're not just buying that Roofr. So they need to connect with you so that you can separate yourself from the competition on different levels there. Because you might not be the best price. You might not be the most expensive. You might not be the cheapest, but what's the value to that customer that you're gonna bring?

And your story is a part of it as well.  

Kate: Yeah, I see in the chat. Just quickly, Ashley mentioning having a bonus page and testimonial page [00:34:00] separate. I think if you have a lot more testimonials and you wanna tell a larger story, those are great secondary pages to start with. 'cause you can do them relatively quickly and they don't require a huge lift.

So that's something that you can definitely put in more detail. And Angela, I see that you mentioned that you're win no business in, I believe the Dallas, Dallas-Fort Worth market, and you haven't found traction on sharing this. I would say consider who's reaching out to you. I find with the women-owned businesses work really well when you have female people reaching out.

Um, and again, not that men don't care and don't wanna support women, but I think ultimately it's more of a niche and a great way to sell yourself when you're focusing and you're, you're working with women more, if that's not working for you, then you could try different things about why you're different out there while still highlighting that somewhere on the page.

But maybe it's not like the main part of your story. It could be something else about how you employ certain people. Um, or how many people you employ, or it could be about their growth trajectory or where you started or why you got into it. Um, so just try and like tweak around the story and see what works for the audience that you're working with.[00:35:00]  

Nic: Yeah, I find that women-owned, veteran-owned and stuff like that does, uh, it does pop in certain areas depending on, again, your audience. Know your audience. Like Kate said. Find out who, who you're marketing to. And really focus there. I think it's important as well to be proud of the ownership group, family owned and operated, stuff like that.

All hits. And uh, it's a nice touch, so I'm glad it's working for you. Angela. We had Amanda Ven. Oh, dammit. I always say her French name and that's not how you pronounce it. It's not veno. Itno is, OID is the proper way. I say v.  

Pete: V's. The jersey v's. The jersey pronounced pronunciation. I need to  

Nic: learn the jersey, the, the, the dirty jersey.

It's probably not how you say  

Pete: it, but that's how we say it in Jersey.  

Nic: Right? But she does lead with the women owned and she kills it, and that's, that's super important to her. So keep on rocking man, Angela, that's awesome. Yeah.  

Pete: Yeah. And I think, I think one thing to note here too is don't be afraid to share backstories like I do this Roofr of the Month podcast, right?

And I talk to all [00:36:00] these roofers that are fairly new in business, you know, in the first couple years of business. And their backstories are so colorful, right? Some of them have had incredible careers doing other things beforehand. Some of 'em got into it and the most. You know, unique ways, and I think it's very, uh, it would be very important, it would set a lot of them apart if they showcased how they got into roofing.

Mm-hmm. You know, because it speaks to their di you know, to the diversity of their skills and the things that they've done beforehand. And, uh, you know, I think that it's not leveraged enough. Uh, you know that most roofers have a fairly colorful background. Right.  

Kate: Yeah, absolutely. Very  

Pete: colorful. Colorful.

That's a good, that's, that's the most politically correct way to put it, I guess. Yeah.  

Kate: Okay. Moving to the next section. This one's optional, but your project or gallery section, same thing, headline, paragraph, and then just some images of the job. This just helps create trust with people like they've seen you actually do the job.

They've seen you on the Roofr, [00:37:00] they've seen you done great work. It really just like instills that like you know what you're doing. I highly recommend, even if you're not an owner who goes to every job, just gets one your team to snap a couple shots. That you can use. It takes a couple seconds and it's super helpful for, for creating and building that trust.

Um, I'm gonna like merge this with the review testimonial section when I go back to it just to, I don't know how much time we have a lot, but just being harsh on time. Um, this is the most important section I think, on your page other than like your hero, potentially your instance mirror section and your services section.

So this the testimony section, you wanna take them from Google. You do have to get permission if you use someone's full name, I believe, or if not just their first name or if you wanna use their picture. I highly recommend having like at least five to 10 on your page. If the more you have the better. But again, just break that out into a separate page.

If you have more than five or 10. You can have it as like a carousel where it slides around. You could have it just as like certain points. [00:38:00] You can use this to highlight your average reviews, like feedback. I also think when you finish a job, especially if it's someone who gives you a good review, send them a link.

Ask them, make sure you ask 'em for a Google review. Make sure you ask 'em for feedback. That's so important. An easy way to capture. I think a lot of people forget, and also from our routine by the numbers report, we, I think we found that people who ask for reviews have like 400 more jobs per year because they're just getting that, that.

Trust right away and they're getting that feedback that people live for. So you wanna again, have a headline, a paragraph, the review section imagery in your call to action. So going back to those two sections, we have the project showcase, which is super simple. I didn't include a CTA here just 'cause you don't necessarily need it.

I think you should try and have in every section and put it right here if you do. But this is what it can look like. You can also just have like, you know, five different that you can click open, you can do whatever. And this is an example of like reviews. Having like the five stars is really important as well.

Assuming these people all left five stars because it just like reinforces in their mind like five star, five star, five star. If they don't [00:39:00] wanna read everything, at least they're seeing visually that they left you a lot of five star reviews. So this is like, this is a quick way you can do that. And then you can have like CTA here, which should be like get started or get a quote and then view more reviews if you do wanna have a secondary page.

Nic: I love reviews on websites. That's like the first thing I look at. We had that ma was that our last masterclass was reviews in referrals, Pete?  

Kate: Mm-hmm. Or was that two ago?  

Nic: Yeah, it was the last one. And we talk about how, how valuable those, uh, uh, reviews are. So having them on your website, having them in stuff like.

Cough, cough, hint, hint. Instant estimator, uh uh, and, and building stuff in is huge value to you and you're selling your company. The more reviews the better. You're gonna show up better against algorithms. We had PE conversations in the past where it will actually influence the amount of PE firms looking at you.

The more reviews, so add those into your, uh, automations in Roofr so you can get them automatically, have them [00:40:00] automatically show up on, on your website. It just provides legitimacy. And it's such a big thing. Um, I also see a lot of roofers just adding them into like single posts for, um, their website, sorry for their socials.

So just like, Hey, this is how Jenna thought we did. Um, those things are going to get more eyeballs than just a regular Roofr pitchers that you're doing before and after. So get those in there. Use them as much as you can. And then also while we're here, shout out to our boy Corey Combs, who has his company's, Jerry's Roofing already got a hundred reviews on that, and that shows a super successful businessman, such as Corey.

One of his core focuses when starting a new company was getting up to a hundred legitimate reviews, and that makes a huge difference down the line.  

Pete: Yeah, and I think, you know, we, we often talk about, and like Nick said, the last masterclass that we did, if you guys haven't watched it, it's on our page, but about setting up a referral program.

And today, in today's day and age, the [00:41:00] referral is coming from online, right? It's coming from your website, from your Google reviews, it's coming from, you know, uh, some local Facebook group that you're a part of. You know, all of these people are going on there. And that's where they're looking for that referral, right?

That's where they're finding out that information. It's, they're not asking their neighbor like they used to, or the guy down the street who they saw get a Roofr. They're going here and they're looking for it. So being able to showcase that stuff and, and visually do it well, like I really like this approach that Kate's put up here because it's very visual and I think, uh, the more visual you can be, the better off.

You know, the more impactful it's gonna be. Like she said, with the five stars, that's gonna stick with me more than just a bunch of texts. Uh, you know, that's some paragraphs of people recommending me. So, um, so I, yeah, I think that, you know, the importance of this is, is heightened for sure because it of the way people are now shopping and, and the way they're looking for that referral.

Kate: For sure. I think also to Ashley's point she put in here is having during photos better than before and after. I actually [00:42:00] think both are really important. I think you definitely wanna have before and afters for the difference, but I would really only use those for occasions where it's like a clear difference.

Like the Roofr was like looking stained or worn, or there was like broken off shingles. Um, and it's like clearly better, especially if you can get on like a dark day and then like when it's down to like a sunny day is great. Um, but having. During as well. It's like it shows you doing the actual process.

It shows you doing the work. It kind of reinstalls like how much work it actually is to be on a Roofr and do that extra water and do everything that is required versus just like plucking it on plucking back off. So I think it, it, it shows the effort that goes into it and hides in their brain that you're a hard worker who's gonna do great work for them.

But I, to answer your question, short answer, yes. I think before, before and after is very important.  

Pete: Yeah, I'm a big fan of the in process videos, right? Like one that comes to mind, Nick is, uh, Maron Roofing, Johnny Mera, and he does a lot of really good drone videos of his crew working on the Roofr, and then with some before and after pictures, so you really get to [00:43:00] see the Inpro work.

Um. And see his crew in action and, and see the houses that they're working on. It's just cool. I really like, I think he, he does a really good job, really polish videos and, uh, like you said, it kind of showcases both sides of it. You see the before and after, but you get the InProcess stuff, so you're, people are getting an idea of what it takes to actually install a Roofr.

It hook people in.  

Nic: Um, you find a good drone pilot in your area or do it yourself, but I think can edit a video. Um, it's on my parents' website. It's like the first thing and we'll, we'll pull people in all the time. If you're going through social and you see a drone video, you're gonna stop because it's kind of a different view.

So separate yourself from the competition. That's like the main story here.

Kate: Okay. A hundred percent. We are kind of  

Nic: be  

Kate: to contact us and then the footer. So I'll do this together 'cause the footer is pretty generic. Contact us is the same kind of thing. This is like a place where you wanna just capture the information. [00:44:00] You wanna make it easy for people who aren't willing to get a free quote.

I think you always wanna like try and push that to get the free estimate for them. 'cause then especially Roofr, you automatically get that information into your CRM and that's super important and just helpful for you to have all that, all the details you need right away. If they're not willing to do that, you wanna have like a quick form where you can capture the important things about them.

So again, headline, short paragraph for SEO, the form, maybe an image. You don't need an image, but that could be option. Then the the CTA, so. Um, and then actually I lied. I am gonna go to the section first. Go. This is a lot of information. You don't have to have this much, but like their name, their email, their phone number, a topic, or like what kind of Roofr or like what kind of service are you looking for?

And all having like, not sure others important in case someone doesn't know. We put like residential Roofr replacement, Roofr repair, whatever. And then you could also put this if you want more information and then a short message like optional. Describe more details about your Roofr. And then submit. And then you can get this information automatically right to your email, which is super [00:45:00] helpful for you to capture that you need from people.

Um, if you don't have another section, you can also have like a contact section at the top for people who just automatically wanna get there, um, or have a free quote and then link it to this section as well, which is very common. Like anchoring on the pages is also optional for everything. If you don't wanna have other sections, you could put.

Services about free estimate and just anchor it, have it linked to these sections versus individual pages, which it helps people self-identify faster. Okay, last but not least, homepage, or sorry, homepage. This all time the footer. The footer should be on every page of your website. And this includes all the main links, your contact info, your logo, and then any terms of service is super important.

Anything that's like legal that you think is important to have there, you definitely, it's definitely worth it. And you also wanna make sure you sign, like you get your homeowners, I'm sure you won't do this, but to sign a waiver, I. In case something goes wrong. So this for example, again, they, these can anchor [00:46:00] back up.

You could have additional sections. I highly recommend having your, I don't have it here, I forgot to put this in, but your contact information, like if you have a main email, you want people to reach out to, um, your phone number, if you have an office, put the office information. At the very least, put the Roofr service if you don't open your office.

Keep in mind though, if you do put your email and phone number one, you're gonna get more spam. I think it's worth it in the end, but you'll get more spam. And also if there's, if you need qualifying information from people, they might just email you directly and not fill that out. So like it could counter produce what you're trying to do, but I think it's worth having some form of contact at that point in the footer to make sure people can reach out to you and they know how to get in touch with you.

And that's pretty much it. That's the homepage.  

Nic: That's awesome. Um, one, one question that I was just about to respond to, uh, in, in the chat there that I would love to get Kate's opinion on, um, we've talked about this with Mike on the, uh, on the show before we talked about it with other marketing, uh, [00:47:00] uh, guys as well is the ownership of your website.

So Sean's with another CRM who built up.

So he wants to move over to us, but they have it there. So the question is, what do you think are the best DIY for building and hosting options?  

Kate: Yeah, I think like normally when you go with someone like Wix or Squarespace or Webflow, they offer hosting. Built in so you don't have to like buy that and put it somewhere else.

I believe GoDaddy has a lot offers hosting along with URLs. Mm-hmm. What I would do first, assuming you don't already have it hosted somewhere else, is like look at which platform you wanna use and then get understanding their hosting platforms and options before transferring. It can be a pain in the, but I hate doing it.

It's my least favorite part of owning website. It takes a long time. There's a lot of time, you know, there and keys you have to fill in. So make sure you, you know how to do that before you, before you buy a plan, um, or lock into [00:48:00] summer for a year. Does that answer your question, Nick?  

Nic: Yeah, I think it does.

And I think it's important to, uh, Sean and everybody else's watching is own your domain. Uh, if you're getting someone else to build it, that's one thing. Uh, but own your domain. Buy it yourself. Make sure you have that 'cause then you have that power and that goes with you everywhere. If you need to start up again and, and redo a website, at least you have that domain locked in.

Um, like I bought my name for the web, like for website. So just so that like I have it for future needs if I need it, right? So super important, not super expensive, but work with that. Um, and Sean, I personally used Wix to build out websites as well, uh, for my dad's company and other, uh, uh, family's, uh, members' company.

I'm no website designer. I'm not that good. But you can make a really nice functional website on there, um, and build out another good one to take a look at once if you own your, uh, domain, especially if you're at GoDaddy, um, check out one local. Um, one local is a great company as well. Offer hosting and bunch stuff.[00:49:00]  

A good option there for, you're going through all that stuff right now?  

Kate: Yeah. Wix is definitely, I think the, the most user friendly if you're gonna build it yourself and the top of the line is Webflow. Mm-hmm. It requires probably, so you have to hire, we use ulu for a lot of our stuff for templates. They actually can create these wire frames and you can export them it directly into web flow, so you don't have to build those yourself.

You just change, you can easily change the background, color, the text, that kind of thing. So if you're interested, that's an option as well. But for sure, if it's just like one and done, I highly recommend Wix.

Pete: Okay. Nice.  

Kate: Thank you. All right everybody.  

Pete: Well, we appreciate you joining us. Thank you, Kate. Lots of great information here and I think, uh, you know, some great thank you. Some great questions in the chat there. Um, if anybody else has any other questions, go ahead and throw them in the chat really quick and we'll, uh, we'll be, uh, happy to jump on there and answer them really fast.[00:50:00]  

Nic: Uh, wait. I don't think you have your,  

Pete: yeah, I don't think you have your wheel to spin there. Uh, Nick, I don't see it. You might just have to randomly.  

Nic: Oh boy. Um, I'm just gonna scroll up and down the chat and wherever my mouse stops. You're gonna have to, you're gonna be the winner. Super. DIY here it's Pete.

No, I'm kidding.

Pete: I have the socks ready.  

Nic: It legitimately landed on Sean. So Sean, oh, there you go. Your website up. But good consolation prize. You get socks with mine and Pete's cartoons faces on them. So yes. Can't do that. That probably could take it all. Um, Sean, I'm gonna DM you right now to get some info as we're waiting for any other questions.

Um, but I'm gonna get you to email me. The stuff so I can find it out. So gimme a second.

Pete: Uh, Angela. [00:51:00] The answer to that, the best place to go is to the resources section on our website. Um, we have, uh, everything there from I. Blogs to help articles to, I believe the Roofr Academy's on there now. Uh, so any help that you guys need with Roofr itself, uh, along with the masterclasses that Nick and I have done and the podcast, uh, showcasing our Roofr of the month, I think we've done almost a year's worth of those now.

So we have, I think,  

Nic: yeah,  

Pete: we're getting maybe just  

Nic: over it.  

Pete: We might even be just over a year. So we've got a good bit of them on there and a great mix of, of, uh, contractors that we've showcased on there. Some fairly new, some fairly established with some great stories. And uh, you know, everybody's got their own little take on things and their own good gold nuggets that they've figured out.

So they're definitely worth a listen if you haven't jumped on there and listened to them. And they try to keep them short so they're like maybe 30 minutes so you guys can jump on there and listen to a couple and it doesn't take that long. So, uh, definitely check those out. [00:52:00] Like I said, they're on our website, uh, and I believe on YouTube as well.

Maybe. Yeah, I'm not sure. I think they're, I know we host the podcast on all of the podcast stuff, right? Spotify and all that. I think you can find it. Yeah, but I believe they're on YouTube as well. So also check  

Nic: out Roofr dot com slash implementation. There's, uh, daily, uh, education sessions on there. More hyper-specific versions of these where they're just dealing with automation, just dealing with proposals and you can have a bunch of other people in there kind of like have a team learning atmosphere.

We have the Roofr Academy on there as well. So a lot of good stuff that comes with your plan. So, uh, a lot of different ways to kind of open up that convo a little bit more  

Kate: For sure.  

Pete: Awesome. Thank you, Kate. Another great, uh, masterclass. Thanks for joining us and, uh, we thank you everybody for joining us on the Masterclass today.

Hopefully you guys got some good stuff out of it. As always, if you need anything, feel free to [00:53:00] reach out to Nick or myself, he's nick at Roofr dot com. I'm pete at Roofr dot com. Probably the two easiest, uh, emails to remember in the whole company. And, uh. Hit us up, let us know. And uh, like Nick said, be sure to answer that survey at the end so we can continue to improve these and we will see you all next time on the Roofr Masterclass.

Thank you everybody.  

Nic: See you all. Thanks Kate.  

Kate: Bye. Thanks everyone.

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