Houzz for Landscape Contractors: Deciding How to Use This Popular Design Inspiration Site
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Corey Halstead
Owner, HALSTEAD.
The community of 40 million monthly users on Houzz.com makes the site worth considering for landscape contractors. The popular site is frequently visited by homeowners in search of inspiration for their next home improvement project, and professionals showcasing their work are there to be found and for their services to be seen.
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Why Houzz Deserves Attention
The site attracts a steady stream of traffic in the form of renovation-ready homeowners—a highly relevant audience at which to target your marketing efforts. The images are sorted into categories and subcategories so that users can find the kinds of projects in which you specialize, while geo-targeting helps to ensure that local homeowners are looking at your work.
Once your images have caught their eye, a discussion feature allows you to demonstrate your expertise through answering user questions. Designed to promote interaction between homeowners and professionals, Houzz enables relationship-building that culminates in tangible leads by making its database of contractor information available to users. This kind of relationship-building on Houzz is not uncommon, as every visitor to the platform is spurred by an existing interest in, or need for, home improvement. Therefore, users are highly likely to engage with local contractors behind images they admire.
Despite the user-friendliness and simplistic nature of the site, there are ways to improve your results with Houzz.
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Upload the Right Content
Landscape contractors were initially among the least active professionals on Houzz, possibly due to the intimidating quality of project photography featured on the site and the fact that many landscape contractors today still fail to catalog their portfolio of work with high-quality, professional photography. Houzz is, first and foremost, a platform for homeowners to find inspiration and, secondly, find professionals to hire. Therefore, it’s impossible to sidestep the need for high-quality photography.
Uploaded photos, once found, will be bookmarked by inspired users and can even be added to their ideabooks. Ideabooks are essentially digital scrapbooks to which users add pictures that inspire them. Landscape contractors can create and share their own ideabooks to strengthen their online presence, convey their elevated taste, and generate further interest in their business. “Projects” on Houzz are similar to ideabooks, and outline a project from beginning to completion through detailed images, which users can save and share. The site’s visitors can also interact with the pictures they admire by adding comments and asking questions. Responding consistently is key to building relationships with users and generating leads. Adding your company information to the project also helps interested users contact you.
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Be Active and Consistent
One of the easiest ways for landscape contractors to attract interest on Houzz is by joining conversations. Many users seek professional opinions and ideas, and professionals do themselves favors by answering discussion questions and offering their expert opinions. By solving problems, you prove you know what you’re talking about and highlight your company as a reliable option. Conversations remain on the site once ended to be stumbled upon by other potential customers.
Contractors should also consistently respond to comments and questions on their own pictures and projects, while keeping the information on their profile up-to-date. Updated information helps clients find what they’re looking for, improving their online experience with your company, and ensures that searches on the site produce the correct results.
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Marketing Alternatives to Houzz
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1. SEO Strategy
Search engine optimization (SEO) generates traffic from natural (non-paid) searches online and is usually centered around meeting Google’s latest algorithms. With quality content and keywords or key phrases, your website will be more findable by search engines and closer to the top of the search list.
Proper SEO also involves careful consideration of how other sites link to yours and the mechanics of your site to make it search-engine friendly. Because of the technical issues and complexity involved, it’s recommended to consult with a digital marketing company that can help you optimize your online presence.
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2. “Near Me” Searches
A smart SEO strategy incorporates your location. Many people have their location turned on as they search for services around them—and you want your firm to appear prominently if someone nearby searches for, say, “swimming pool contractor” or “remodel my backyard.” Along with having content on your site that meets these requests, you also need up-to-date listings of your location on every page of your website, along with your emails, social media pages, and other sites where your company appears.
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3. Facebook and Instagram Advertising
Reach exactly who you want, based on age, income bracket, and location. Facebook and Instagram advertising enables targeted campaigns to zero in on the type of homeowners who can contribute to your business growth, the ones who are ready for serious remodeling of their landscape and are on the hunt for the type of services you offer (or do not yet realize they will want to pursue it). This type of advertising is also cost-effective as, with proper management and seasonal timing, you can decide when to heavily invest in it and when to pull back.
While Instagram has heavier visual focus, both platforms have the power draw in people who are looking for your exact services—in other words, a more captivated audience than a non-targeted campaign. Moreover, there’s the ability to analyze how your Facebook and Instagram ads perform in order to refine future campaigns.
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4. Google Ads
Another flexible option can be found through advertising on Google, which allows for location-based targeting. There is, however, more complexity involved, and expert guidance can help you navigate the right combination of keywords, based on your services and region. Look for experts who know your industry well and have proven success with Google Ads.
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5. Videography
A welcoming development is the increased use of video in marketing. Done well and strategically, video can be captivating and inspiring to homeowners looking for an upgrade. Videography presents the opportunity to showcase, quickly, your specialties and the beauty you add to outdoor spaces. Narration can help to tell the story and give ideas to prospects. Video used on social media, and properly managed, can be easily shared between spouses or neighbors, adding to the possibilities of your reach.
