7 Reasons Your Painting Website Isn’t Generating Leads – And What to Do About It!

 

John Schofield:

My wife wasn’t with me yesterday to watch you guys. When I went home, I said, “Baby, listen, they killed it and I got to start this thing tomorrow, and I’m really nervous about this. You got any words of wisdom, some sage advice?” She’s good with that. She looked at me and I knew something good was coming. She said, “Don’t screw it up.” I was like, “Okay.” I was like, “Sage advice. You got to learn.”

Anyway, we’re going to learn some very interesting stuff today. I’m going to tell you right now, if you’re here to learn SEO, you’re not going to get it because that’s not what this is about today. If your website is not giving you leads, if your traffic is not great, if your rankings are not good, talk to me offline. We’ll talk about that a little bit more.

What I want to discuss today is a little bit more on the inside, which is really cool because everything that was discussed yesterday, and I didn’t even know this, but I’m going to kind of throw it onto your website and show you what you want to do. I am going to be the bear of bad news. I believe that 2023 is not going to be a very good year for any company. I believe the recession’s going to be pretty ugly; just from the things that I know from across the United States, working literally with companies, Canada, Mexico, the United States, what I’m seeing myself. I preface it that way because what I want to show you, what you’re going to add to your website is what’s going to help you capture the minimal stuff that’s going to show up. So that’s really what we’re going to do.

We’re going to talk about mistakes that sabotage painters, getting users to convert to your website, what is it that you really need? And then I’ll get into some of the trends for 2023, some of the things that you absolutely want to make sure that you’re doing on the website to go. First a little bit about me. I am a born and bred New Yorker. Thank you, Jennifer, as she’s going, “Yeah, you can say that.” I’ve been married 19 years. By the way, gentlemen, the way to have a very long marriage, one word, witnesses. Keeps you out of trouble. My favorite Bible verse is, man makes plans. God laughs. I got married. I didn’t want children. I don’t have children. He has me marry a woman with four children, and I’ve got 9, 10, excuse me, 10 absolutely beautiful grandchildren. So I am very happy about that. I am a diehard outdoor fan, and I am a diehard Formula One fan. If you want to talk football, go talk to Jennifer. Auto racing, we can talk.

Before working for Brandon, I worked for several large advertising and internet marketing agencies in Manhattan. Like I said, born and bred in New York. I’m that guy. I have been with Brandon now for a little over five years. In that time, I’ve done well over 200 digital diagnostics, and like Brandon said, we’ve built well over 120 websites for painting companies. So let’s get into why we’re here, what we’re going to discuss today: the city that you’re working in, lack of specific search terms, content and structure, who you are in the minds of your clients, failing to update your website, I’ll get into that in half a second, are reviews still important, a little bit about Google My Business that you may not know, and then again, like I said, I’ll get into the trends for 2023.

Local Online Search

So I said we’re not going to do SEO, but this is important enough that I need to explain this. If your website is not set for local search, you are going to lose big time, okay? Reason is this: over 90% of all searches now, and I’m talking worldwide, are done mobily on your phone, and everybody’s got a phone in their hands. It’s just part of our lives these days. Even Google understands that. But AI, and by the way, anybody doesn’t believe it, AI is very much part of life now, it’s never going away. AI, what it does is it uses your phone when it comes to what you’re doing.

So when you search something like painters in Chattanooga, AI is actually using your GPS to find out where you are, and then it will take those sites that are locally optimized and show them as the results. So if you are not showing those results, oh, excuse me, if you are not optimized on your site to allow them to see those results, you’re going to lose. But here’s the thing, guys, you cannot put two pounds of garbage in a five pound bag. It’s not going to work. If you work eight towns, you cannot put eight towns on one page and expect to get found for all of them. It’s not going to happen. Every city needs its own optimized page, so we’ll just deal with interior painting. If you’re dealing with interior painting and you’re dealing with Chattanooga and East Ridge, the town next door, you better have a Chattanooga page and an East Ridge page and so on.

That optimization is what’s going to help you, I should say, what’s going to help AI help you to get found. It’s very important. That’s pretty much answers the question. I’ve got a question for you as I was going to ask you, but I’m just going to kind of answer it for you. What do we do? Well, we’re all painters, okay? That’s what we do. And the thing is that we all offer the best service. We offer the best customer experience. Our prices are competitive, if not the best in the entire area that we service. But here’s the problem, so is everybody else in your neighborhood. If we get down to brass tacks, there is nothing that separates you from everybody else that you’re competing against. We’re all doing the same thing.

Unique Selling Propositions for Your Website

Now, like I said, if 2023… And I pray that this time next year I’m standing up here and y’all go, “John, you’re a liar, because literally we’ve all made a billion dollars.” That’s what I really want to see, but just in case, what we need to do is we need to stand out and find a way to be different from everyone else. So I want to start here because this is important. Every painting company that I work with, not everyone, but the majority of them, when it comes to their website, they think from an owner perspective, not from a user perspective. That is a huge mistake. I’ll give you an example.

One of the very first diagnostics I ever did, I was looking at the guys, Google My Business and always look at the images, see what people have going on. The guy literally had an image, and it kills me that I didn’t keep it. All these years now with Brandon and I didn’t keep this; he had painted a back deck, it was midnight blue, it was gorgeous. And right on the back banister, he had a six-pack of beer, and I said, “What the hell are you doing?” He goes, “What? We were finished. We were celebrating.” I said, “That’s what you see. What I see is you’re a bunch of alcoholics that aren’t coming to my house.” Image is everything on your website. So important. When it comes to your clients, WIFM, it’s an acronym, what’s in it for me?

That’s what they want to know: what are you going to do for me? But here’s the biggest problem, okay? You are saying the exact same thing that everybody else is saying, “I paint interiors, I paint exteriors, I do residential, I do commercial.” And we all do it because that’s what we do, but what do you do? What’s going to separate you from everyone else are unique selling propositions. Now, most sites have some. 75% of websites don’t have enough of them, and that’s really what’s going to start separating us from everyone else. As we start to get more into what the user wants, and this is really the crux of what I want to talk about, they want to know more than you just paint interiors and exteriors.

I sat in on all the hot seats. I don’t sit in there to babysit, I really don’t. I jump in there as well to learn as well. I really get a lot from all of you guys, so I appreciate that, and there was a lot of great stuff being talked about. Even yesterday in the presentations with customer retention, things of that nature. Fantastic, but here’s what you’re doing, you are doing that after you’ve already made that connection. It’s important to start making that connection well before they even think about talking to you. If people are going to be really tight-fisted with the amount of money that they’re going to spend, and let’s face it, I’m just going to be very low on my price here.

Let’s say average cost is a thousand dollars for a job. 23, if people are going to have less money, they’re going to be a lot more frugal on how they’re going to spend it. So we need to say to them, “But wait, there’s more.” Okay? A lot of people that I have talked to, they said, “Well, we will touch up the trim, we’ll take care of the walls, and it’s kind of that hidden extra they get and makes them feel good when we leave.” Fantastic. But if site B says, “I paint interiors,” and your site says, “I paint interiors,” there’s nothing separating you. Start saying it. Do you do trim? Do you do spackle when you do the walls?

Somebody had mentioned this yesterday in one of the hot seats. When they do the walls, it’s perfect, okay? We blend the colors to make sure that they literally match. Say it. Don’t expect them to understand. Again, user perspective, not an owner perspective. People don’t know what you do. You know what you do. You know what you will do, but if you start telling them, what’ll happen is, “Oh, wow, these guys will paint the trim and my doors for me, fantastic.” Site B is, “I do interiors.” You’ve already got that step up, which is important.

This last line here, guys, I want each and every one of you to write this down. When you go home, whether it’s yourself or you have a team doing it, I want you to write down the most commonly asked questions that you get when you’re on a quote: your interior painting questions, your exterior painting questions, if it’s residential, if it’s commercial, they’re all separate. Those are four separate areas, and here’s why. What happens is that… Oh, wow, that’s small, guys. Sorry. I can’t even read that up here.

Again, users are looking for a reason to choose you over the other competitors. I’ll be the first one to raise my hand on this. The last thing I want to do is call somebody with a question, knowing full well that when I get them on the phone, I get that hotheaded salesperson, “But wait, if you buy right now, I’ll give you this absolutely free.” Yeah, we don’t want that, okay? Just answer my flipping question. So if the commonly asked questions that you get are on the top of the page, do you move my furniture, are my floors protected? You know what they are. Listen, there are common questions across the board that we’re all going to get, but every region is different as well. You know the questions you have, you put them on the page.

So now what happens is that the user’s going through your stuff, “Oh, they do move furniture. Oh, they will take care of the trim. Oh, great, they will repair the drywall if it’s needed.” They don’t have to ask those questions. Now before they even bother them picking up the phone or actually filling out the form, they know what you do. This is what’s going to separate you guys from everyone else, okay? Well, everybody else is saying they do interiors. They know exactly what it is that you’re going to offer them. And listen, I get it. A lot of people are like, wow, that’s kind of that hidden gem that I give them that will help them come back. Listen, if they don’t come in the first place, not going to make a hill of beans. So that’s why it’s important in 23 when we are going to be fighting for scraps, I want you guys to be prepared for these people like, “Yep, he does what I want. That’s what I need. Oh, this is fantastic.”

And again, what this will also do, it will help you during the whole quote phase because you’ve already answered those questions. You don’t have to jump through those hoops when they talk to you. They already know what you do. So that’s how that’s going to work. Users are looking for specific clues to decide, am I going to work with you or do I really want to work with somebody else? It’s that important. Here is an industry fact. You have only eight seconds for a user to decide. Are they going to stay on your website and go deeper, or are they going to bounce? Industry fact, eight seconds, that’s it. So if that’s the case, there are things that you absolutely positively want to have on your website and you want to have it A, on the homepage, and you want it above the fold. So when they show up, it’s like, “Hey, here I am.” It’s very important.

Number one is background checks. People want to know, are my wife and kids safe or do I have a convicted felon in my house? Okay? Now, I can tell you from the bazillion of these that I’ve done, a lot of people like “John, I don’t do background checks.” Number one, Brandon will tell you straight up, start doing them, okay? But also I like to dance and skirt in the gray area, and he might beat me up for this, but I will. There is not one of you in here that drives up the road and sees some guy walking go, “Hey, hold this paintbrush. You’ll work. Come work for me.” It doesn’t happen. Everybody goes through an employment background check of sorts: They resume, you sit down, you have an interview. We all do.

By the way, where’s the preday people in here? Okay, I just want you to know that the whole hiring thing that Brandon was talking about, he did that to me. The only difference was I didn’t have to paint the circle, okay? Just letting you know because I’d still be there going, “I can’t do this, man.” But background checks, very important. Oh, I’m sorry, I was going somewhere with that. You still vet your painters, you still look at their resumes, you still check the people that they work for. You do vet your painters. There is something you can say on your website if you don’t do the quote unquote background check. Brandon will tell you again when I’m done, I’m sure, “Get those background checks done.” I think some of the presentations yesterday it was talked about. It hurts. Don’t get yourself in that trouble.

Tied for a second is a warranty and guarantee. Look, there is nobody in this place, I guarantee, that has a taillight warranty. Once the taillights are gone, the warranty’s up. Doesn’t happen. You guys stand behind your work, show it. You be proud of what you do and what you stand behind. People want to know these things. Get those little badges. Two year warranty, a hundred percent guaranteed work. By the way, a hundred percent guarantee, satisfaction guarantee does not mean I don’t like that color. But you pick that color. Yeah, but I don’t like it. I’m not satisfied. That does not mean what it means. We all know if somebody screws up the wall and there’s drips through the whole, that’s what it means, so put them on your site, it’s going to help. These are the little nuances that are going to make people decide, “Yeah, I need to work with these guys because that guy just says, ‘I paint.'” So that’s what we want to do.

By the way, the warranty and guarantee, put those badges on every single page on your site. Put them on the left, on the right, on the top and the bottom, but put them someplace. More times than I can count people, “Well, I got the warranty in there. Look, it’s in the copy, like 400 lines down in the middle there. It says two year warranty.” Don’t do that. Put it in their face. It’s one of those areas that you want to be bold and let people know, “Yeah, man, I do stand behind my work.”

Now, most people have an about us page. If you don’t, you really should have one for several reasons. Number one, it’s a great way to really be personal and connect with people to understand you’re part of the community. You really are. It’s also a great place to add company accolades, ownership and staff profile, licensing, insurance, years in business, associations, certifications. Now, not all of us have that, so if you don’t have it, don’t worry about it, but these are things that people want to know. This is the reassurances that are going to say, okay, these guys have been around for a while. They really know what they’re doing and they’ve got some things to prove it. Who was it yesterday that was, had the picture of all the sponsorships and everything that they were doing? Who was that? There it was. Okay, let me ask you something. Do you have those on your website?

Audience:

No.

John Schofield:

You don’t. You should literally have a page, proudly sponsor, because again, that brings home the fact that I am part of this community. It’s going to sound silly, but auto racers are going to look at that and go, “Hey, man, he’s into auto racing. That’s cool. Hell, let me talk to these.” It’s only going to help. So that’s the kind of things that you want to do, guys. Be personal. Be real. Don’t be too personal. I’ve been divorced 37 times. You don’t need that, but you know what I’m saying. Again, you’re looking for that reassurance that people are going to be confident in what you do.

Online Reviews

I’m going to shift gears a little bit and we’re going to talk about reviews. I was really impressed, again through the hot seats, of how many people were talking about reviews. Guys, if you are not getting reviews for 2023, you are going to lose big time. I can promise you that. Again, because people are getting very frugal with money. They are absolutely checking on who you are. It is essential that you have them, okay? They’re going to take those additional steps. Here’s the thing that I really want to drive home: if you don’t have any reviews, you have only a few reviews, or worse, your last review was six months, eight months, two years ago, you will absolutely lose out to your competitor, and I’ll tell you why. Remember that user experience thing? They’re going to look at that and go, “His last review was six months ago? This guy hasn’t worked in six months. I don’t want to work with that.” Image impression is everything. Get on those reviews. Google is getting… Oh, actually, I don’t want to go there yet.

Google is starting to understand. Google is a very dangerous place, guys. They also understand what’s coming. They are getting very serious about reviews and gearing it up. So yeah, you want it. Oh, and by the way, the sweet spot that Google says that you want to get to, where they will start looking at your company more favorably, is 50, five zero. You want to get to that 50 plus mark. Reason being, now, if you got 23 reviews, doesn’t mean you won’t get found in the three pack, but when you get to the 50 mark, Google, if you are literally tied with someone else in the area… Got to pick it up? Scott, I’m sorry. I said I was worried about talking too fast, now I’m going too slow. What’ll happen is you’re over that 50 mark, they will absolutely go, “Okay, let’s reward them,” so that’s important.

There’s three areas that absolutely you’re going to want to deal with. Google, 800 pound gorilla in the room. If you get reviews anywhere, that’s where you absolutely want to get them, period. The other two are interesting. Yelp, and this is kind of wild because Tuesday I was on an international SEO conference with some people, so this is interesting. I got this information, I kid you not, from an insider in Google. I had a friend of mine chat with a chief technical officer, and I actually got some very interesting information. Yelp is owned by Apple products. The reason this is important is because Apple products will absolutely push Yelp onto page one when you use an Apple product, okay? Very interesting. Now, the guys were saying, “Well, they’re just bottom feeders.” People use Apple products. Get your Yelp profile up to date. I’m not talking about spending, but get that Yelp profile up to date. Start using some reviews.

Facebook and Google have finally kissed and made up. They are absolutely a essential to get reviews in. By the way, Google has now started to allow their reviews to be posted on Facebook. Please guys, do not post every single one of your reviews from Google on Facebook. That’s not what I want you to do. Your killer reviews, post it and then put something really cool about it. On the cheat sheet that I gave you, it explains how to do it, so just so you do. But yes, get Facebook reviews as well.

Video Testimonials

This is going to be a massive game changer: Video testimonials. I started AB testing this last year with a bunch of our accounts, and this is a game changer. We all read reviews, but when there is a video review of Sally on the interior painting page saying, “Listen, ABC painting just killed it. They did a wonderful job. They were clean, they were this, they were that.” Okay, now it’s personal. Now I’m actually looking at the person that’s saying it. This is the kind of thing that are going to kick people over the edge and go, “Yeah, I want to work with these guys.” Now, here’s important. You can’t do one of these and expect to post it across your entire website. You need interior ones, you need exterior ones. If you’ve got commercial, you want to do commercial ones. I will tell you straight up, this is not easy to do. All the people that work with us at APPC, this is our 2023 project, because it takes time. This is the kind of thing that you’re going to have to be real nice with the people and say, “Hey, I’d love to do this,” and give them some kind of incentive to do so. But this is the kind of thing that is going to push people over the edge and go, “Wow, I want to work with these guys.”

I got to say this. If any of you are working with these guys and you have a link on your homepage pointing back to them because they told you, “Hey, you got reviews on our site, let them come, let them see them.” They’re lying to you. Very quickly, two reasons. One, it’s the most rarest possible link that you can possibly give somebody. You don’t believe me? Google any contractor in any town and see who capitalizes page one. It’s all of these idiots because everybody gave them a link on their homepage. Big mistake. That’s number one. Number two, you can run into squirrel syndrome. They click on that link, they see something shiny, they don’t come back, you just lost a potential sale. Don’t let them leave. If they’re already there, let them do the homework on your own. What? Oh, you made me nervous. I was like, what?

Google My Business

Jumping into Google My Business. Google My Business guys, is about to become different from what it has been. Google is going to start pushing GMB to become more interactive, believe it or not, so it is going to be essential that every possible bit of information that’s on there is updated. You want it to be perfect. You want images, images, images. By the way, I’m going to give you an inside trader tip, start geotagging every image you put onto your GMB. That’s actually longitude, latitude. If you want to know more about it, I’ll tell you about it offline, but that’s something you want to start doing. So, get all that stuff.

Oh, the other thing, it used to be you wanted multiple towns, you had to have multiple GMBs. You don’t have to do that anymore. On the back end of Google, you can actually go into the location section and put all the areas that you work. By doing so, you don’t have to go through all those hoops. Google says that it will be the umbrella and it will actually work across the board.

This is what’s going to be the game changer. There is a posting section in your GMB. Google is going to require us all to start posting a minimum of one to two times a month. Can be anything, could be a blog post. All the people that we will write blog posts for all an APPC. Every time they’re done, we post them immediately, but blog posts, images, videos, coupons. They want to push coupons. I know it’s a little hard with painting companies, but they want to push that too. Start getting used to doing this. If you got a Facebook page, you use it all the time, start making this part of your life. This is what’s going to change you from being in the three pack to being on page two in Google My Business. I know I got to pick it up a little bit.

New Trends for Maintaining & Advancing Rank in 2023

Let me get into the trends for ’23. So the top three, and it’s really no surprise, is website speed, optimizing for voice search, end user experience. I’m going to jump into all three real quick here. Website speed, guys, speed is paramount. Especially when everybody’s using mobile, your site better bounce up very quickly. People will leave. Google knows this. Google will hurt you in your rankings if it’s not. By the way, I’m sorry guys, you really can’t see that. You do not need someone like me. I’m going to shoot myself in the foot, but I’m going to say it, you do not need someone like me to tell me what your website speed is.

Go to GT metrics. I don’t think it’s GTmetrics.com, but it’s GT metrics. Once or twice a month, you can actually put your website in it. It’s a great, it’s a letter grade score. It will tell you how you are and how you’re not. It’ll even tell you what’s wrong. 9 times out of 10, it’s usually you need to minimize the images or your CSS and JavaScript need a tweak. It’s usually never too serious, but if you’re doing it yourself, you can see it; or if you’re working with an agency like us, you can be, “Hey, John, listen what I’m seeing,” and you know. Don’t have to rely on someone like me to tell what your site is doing. So that’s that guy.

Optimizing for voice search. This again, literally falls into play with everything we’ve been talking about. All right, Siri, Alexa, all the voice assistants, everybody uses them. Everybody uses them on your phone, and the more we do, the more it’s important that your website is actually optimized for voice search. What do I mean by that? Well, guess what? You remember those FAQs we were talking about? That would be optimized for voice search. Long tail keywords, not interior painting. Guess what? Most of the copy that I write, I will sneak in there somewhere, painters near me. Now hear me, you do not want to just stuff keywords in there. Go, “I have to put painters near me.” That’s not going to work. AI is so intelligent now. They read just like you and I do. So if it sounds stupid, AI says, “Yeah, that’s stupid,” and they will hurt you for it.

But people said it, “Hey, Siri, show me painters near me.” So having that kind of stuff on your page will help you in search. It’s very important. Long-tail keywords, again, inside house painters near me. Siri, show me inside house painters near me. Think from a user perspective, that’s the kind of things that is going to help you get found. I know it’s a little SEO. I said I wasn’t going to do it, but this is stuff that’s important. And long tail keywords, I said that. All right, last one.

User experience. That’s what UX stands for. Everything that Google ranks is based on user experience. The better the experience the user has, the more Google is happy and says, “Okay, let’s reward them for it.” I started here, I’m going to end here. Everything about your mobile has to be perfect. Google indexes your mobile site first. Forget about your desktop, your mobile site better be perfect: your speed, how the links look, is it literally resizing itself perfectly? These are things that are absolutely essential going forward. It’s got to be fast, got to be easy to use. Here’s something that I guarantee most of us don’t have in here. So think about a website on your cell phone, you got those three little lines up on top. By the way, it’s called a hamburger, believe it or not. You tap on the hamburger, the links come down, you tap on where you want to go, and now you scroll down the page, but the hamburger goes up. So if you want to go to the next link, you’ve got to scroll all the way back up, hit the hamburger again and go from there.

But if at the bottom of every page you have a button that goes to the next page and the next page and so on, user experience gets better. And guys, the percentage of a user converting, it increases with the number of pages that they go to. So it is something you absolutely want to do and you want to add to your site. So again, navigation, it’s important. User experience is becoming almost as important as keyword optimization. So these are the types of things that you absolutely want to make sure that are on your website. So you got a lot of work to do. This is not open heart surgery. It’s really not. Just about everything I said can easily be added to a website. It’s going to take a little work, going to take a little homework, but you guys can absolutely do it.

I have on front of each and every one of you, the cheat sheet, if you haven’t noticed it. Again, it’s just some bullet points of some of the stuff that I went over. Again, going back to the SEO, if you are not sure if your website’s actually working right, if you just want it checked, I am more than happy to do a free diagnostic for you guys where I will check your digital footprint. I’ll look at your competitors in your area, what you’re doing, the good, the bad, the ugly, your Google My Business, as well as your website. If you want to fill that out and get it back to me, I’m more than happy to. Hear me, just one thing I ask for, please write neatly because if I can’t read it and I don’t get back to you, you’re going to get ticked off and then you’re going to be angry at me. And I’m like, “But I can’t see what it says.” So please just take care of that for me.

And also, listen, I will be here the entire time. If you’ve got questions, come talk to me. The only thing I ask is please be respectful of everybody else when they’re presenting. Don’t come talk to me while everybody else is. I won’t talk to you then, but afterwards, please pick my brain forever. It’s all good. All right, so questions, comments, gripes, groans, complaints? And gripes, groans, complaints go to Jennifer. I’m not taking those. Hold on. We got to get a mic. Who’s got the other mic? Oh, we got the other. Do we got the other mic here? Oh, Jennifer’s got it. There she is.

Thank you.

Audience:

Hey, John. Hey, thanks for everything. Quick question, if a bunch of us here decided to help each other out and give each other Google reviews, is that a bad idea? Would that hurt us?

John Schofield:

Yes and no. See, here’s the thing. If you have Dave who has never done a review in his life leave a review, people can go check what Dave has done. Like, oh, he left one review. So it’s kind of the hit or miss. If Dave’s Sabatini leaves a review and they’re like, oh, wait a second, this guy’s got Sabatini Painting. Why is he giving ABC a review? It’s kind of the 50 50. Is it going to hurt you? I don’t think so. Let me put it that way, Google is not going to penalize you for that kind of thing. That’s probably the best answer.

Audience:

Thank you.

John Schofield:

She’s coming. She’s coming.

Audience:

John, I’m noticing sometimes Google, my satisfied customers go to post a Google review, they are within the Google guidelines, they select post, but yet it does not appear.

John Schofield:

And I’m going to tell you something that people don’t know because Google doesn’t want it known. Google was hacked. They were actually attacked three months ago, and I mean, literally the entire company got hacked. It caused massive problems. Actually, full GMBs were completely deleted, never to be seen again. That’s actually part of the problem. That’s things that they’re trying to take care of. They’re never going to talk about it. It has nothing to do with the guidelines and that kind of thing, the permissions. It literally is that Google got hit really hard and they’re still trying to recover from what happened.

Audience:

Number two, some of my reviews are disappearing.

John Schofield:

Same thing. Same thing.

Audience:

I’m telling everybody I have 80 reviews. I go look at it and it’s down to 77.

John Schofield:

Yeah, one of our guys online, Kevin, if you’re listening, I love you, buddy. American Painting Specialists. His entire Google My Business was just gone. 66 reviews gone, and we have been doing everything we can with Google to try to get them back to date. And I’m going on four, five months now. We have not been able to do it. So yeah, that is a Google issue. It’s nothing you are doing, it’s nothing they’re doing. It’s an actual Google issue.

Audience:

One more, two more.

YouTube channel. What do you think about that? I mean, I put a lot of-

John Schofield:

Absolutely 100%. Remember the video reviews I just said? Anything that you can put on there. As a matter of fact, if you have the time, you can show the guys painting a wall and actually talk, that’s the kind of things people are going to watch. Especially, here’s the thing that people don’t… Again, user perspective, owner perspective. User perspective perspective is, “I ain’t going to do all that work. That’s ridiculous. Let them do it.” So yes, absolutely. And also optimization in YouTube is essential. Those links count a lot when they’re pointed back to your website.

Audience:

John, just quickly, thank you so much. We work with an SEO consulting firm, a marketing firm, that’s all they do is help you optimize SEO. They’re recommending that we redesign or rebuild our website to increase our SEO optimization, and it’s a pricey ticket. Can you give any guidance on how we should think about that?

John Schofield:

How is your website doing now? I mean, how are your conversions? They’re okay.

Audience:

But we want that-

John Schofield:

But you want more. Doesn’t everybody. What’s your ranking look like?

No, no, no, no, no. I’m talking about your keyword ranking, your organic ranking. Where do you rank for interior painting? [inaudible 00:34:41] Okay. First and foremost, and again, this goes back to the local stuff, guys, don’t search interior painting and expect to get found. You can, absolutely, but that’s not what people are searching for. Remember back to the AI and GPS. So it’s interior painting, whatever town you’re looking for. Start looking. Do it yourself. Go in your main keywords, see where you’re ranking. Start there. Chances are, it may just be a simple tweak on the website. It may be that the form is in the wrong place and people don’t realize it. Do me a favor. Before you do anything, fill out that form. Let me do a digital diagnostic for you, and then you can kind of go from there. Okay.

Audience:

Right there.

Good job. Good job.