Are pay-per-lead services like HomeAdvisor Stealing Contractors’ SEO?
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Content Team,
HALSTEAD.
You need leads for your construction/remodeling firm and that’s one reason you’ve looked into investing in Search engine optimization, or seo. That’s a smart move—but how you go about it and who you partner up with to help you, will matter in terms of the quality of your leads and how bogged down you get with smaller, perhaps less desirable project requests. Does that mean companies like HomeAdvisor are worth your time? With over 20 years experience, and 100’s of case studies under our belt, let us shed some light on this topic.
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The Pros and Cons of HomeAdvisor for Contractor Marketing.
HomeAdvisor creates a connection between homeowners and home remodeling contractors, and leads the way in the space in terms of volume and brand name recognition. The service is particularly popular among smaller, growing contractors with less than $2M in annual revenue. When owners in this revenue segment first reach out to discuss scaling their marketing, they are (rightfully so) doing their due diligence and inquiring about whether HomeAdvisor should be a part of the mix.
This transition in a company’s growth journey can be a tricky one. Often, it comes at a time when the average project size is getting larger and/or more detailed. This is a critical moment for propelling the business to the next stage. It’s time to put gas on the fire and keep the momentum, and some clients have tried to do that through continued use of HomeAdvisor - hoping to fill their funnels quickly.
When we ask how they like the service, the answer is always the same. It has become a necessary evil. It’s an expensive way to get leads, but because the firm hasn’t invested much in their own marketing systems, the service has become a crutch. They’ve got to fill that sales funnel somehow to keep the crews busy.
And if there’s one thing that HomeAdvisor does is drives leads. That's what they do. But, inevitably, business owners get burned out from sifting through the low quality tire-kickers to find the rare good project opportunity, and then to go to bat pitching against at least 3 other companies for the sale. The problem is that your company has scaled past the others you’re bidding against because many are still smaller companies with lower overhead, lower work quality, and less knowledge of their numbers.
HomeAdvisor gets a bad rap with remodeling contractors.
This is around the time in the relationship when anger at HomeAdvisor erupts. There’s a backlash and accusations of being a scam. But the fact is, they’re doing a job. They saw an opportunity in the market and they're filling it. But what are they really doing when they fill that thing? Do you know what HomeAdvisor really is? HomeAdvisor is simply an SEO company.
They are simply a search engine optimization company that happens to deliver leads to home improvement professionals.
HomeAdvisor for contractors saw a rapidly growing home improvement market, made up of landscape contractors, design/build firms, kitchen and bath remodelers, landscape lighting companies - all these service providers backed by high market demand.
They also noticed that the majority of these less than $3M/year companies weren’t building out their own marketing systems. They didn’t have websites backed by proper, ongoing SEO. Bigger than that, they just didn’t have the knowledge or commitment to digital marketing. Over the years as digital has become more and more important to the consumer buying process, more contractors have become committed to digital marketing, but there's still a large percentage of design/build firms that have not realized what is at stake. This is where HomeAdvisor continues to see their opportunity.
Interested in learning more about our SEO services for Design/Build firms? Let’s jump on a free consultation call!
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The long-term effects on SEO for contractors.
So let’s say you’ve put your profile on HomeAdvisor and they begin to drive leads for you using their strategy—local SEO and link-building. All seems great, but the problem lies in how they drive those leads, and how SEO works in general. As owners put in the time to learn the foundations of SEO, and as they launch local SEO efforts for their own companies directly, the long-term risks of using these pay-per-lead services become more clear. They are literally paying HomeAdvisor to steal their leads and sell them back.
Somebody searching for ABC Custom Kitchens, searching directly to find that company, will click a link that HomeAdvisor optimized, thinking they are calling ABC Custom Kitchens when in fact they are actually calling HomeAdvisor numbers.
What’s happening? They are taking your lead opportunity, bringing it to their platform, and then charging you back for it. On top of that, they are selling that same lead to 2 or 3 of your closest competitors creating a race to the bottom of the pricing barrel.
When HomeAdvisor scooped into that search result, they simply passed you in the search rankings (if you are present at all). In the short term, they sold you a completely unqualified lead. In the long term, though, they made it way more difficult for you to rank your own site at the top of results. Trust us, HomeAdvisor has a much larger SEO budget than the typical $3M remodeling company. They go in, they build massive amounts of links around local search terms, they create thousands of new pages a month, and they dominate search rankings, stealing the leads from local companies.
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So what should contractors do?
We’re not saying not to use HomeAdvisor or other companies like them. But before you do, realize what you’re doing. For some companies, the volume works and they don't need the higher-end sales. They may be comfortable with their current size, don’t mind sorting through the leads to find the good ones, and have a process for prequalifying those leads without driving all over their service areas late at night meeting with people who want the lowest price. It’s true…some of those leads will be good projects. But the approach won’t help you invest and grow the marketing equity in your company, set you apart from the competition, or help you scale to bigger and better things.
So how do you manage the transition process from HomeAdvisor to owning your own SEO? Gradually. SEO takes time to work. Often, up to 6 months of consistent work before it starts driving leads for you. During that time, you need to keep your lead flow with HomeAdvisor (if it’s working at all for you). Each month you gradually reduce the HomeAdvisor spend, and let your SEO and other marketing take over.
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Getting your own leads through a well-rounded marketing system.
We help clients build their SEO, and their overall marketing systems. We build real estate on the web for those companies like ABC Master Kitchens who used to rely on pay-per-leads solutions. Our best advice? Take that customer who is searching online for your services, right from the start. You have an opportunity and a responsibility to build your SEO value as a company. Don't let anyone take your customer and then sell it back to you. Take it yourself and invest in marketing that works to reach them where they are today - online in search and on social media.
