For most contractors, a blog is the third priority and gets treated as the first. Service pages and area pages bring the work; blog posts bring readers, some of whom will never need you and most of whom are not ready.
What blog traffic actually is
Blog posts attract people asking questions: why is my radiator cold, how long should a water heater last, what does a cracked tile mean. Genuine questions, and worth answering.
But the person asking is usually earlier than a customer. Some are researching a job they will do themselves. Some are hundreds of miles away. Some have a problem that will resolve on its own. The traffic is real and the conversion rate is a fraction of what a service page produces, which is the fact most enthusiasm about blogging skips.
That does not make it worthless. It makes it a different instrument, and one to reach for after the others are in place.
Build the pages that catch buyers first
Somebody searching for your trade plus their town, or a specific job plus a price, is ready. Those searches are answered by service pages and area pages, and a contractor without one page per money-making service is losing work that blogging cannot recover.
The order that makes sense is: service pages, area pages, the Google Business Profile, reviews, and then a blog. Reversing it produces a site with interesting articles and nothing for a ready customer to land on.
What a blog genuinely does for a trade
Four things, none of which is a flood of bookings.
- It answers the questions that come before the job. Somebody working out whether their system is failing may become a replacement customer in six months.
- It gives you something to say to people who are not ready. Useful for social, for email, for retargeting audiences.
- It fills the retargeting pool. Every visitor a ranking page brings enters it at no cost, which is the only free source of that audience you have.
- It demonstrates that you know the work. A homeowner comparing three firms and finding one that explains things clearly has learned something the others did not tell them.
The posts worth writing
Not general marketing subjects. The ones that pay are close to the money: what a job costs and why it varies, repair against replacement, what goes wrong with a particular system in this area, what to do before the engineer arrives, how to tell whether something is urgent.
Each of those is asked by somebody with the problem, which is the whole difference between a post that attracts customers and one that attracts readers.
Judge it on the right measure
Blog traffic flatters. A post can bring hundreds of visitors and produce nothing, and be reported as your best-performing page.
The measure that matters is whether blog visitors go on to a service page or a phone call. If they never do, the posts are answering questions for people who were never going to be customers, which is fine as a public service and should not be funded as marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Do contractors need a blog?
Not before service pages, area pages, a complete Google profile and reviews. After those, it earns its place, mostly by reaching people earlier than a service page can.
Why does my blog get traffic but no calls?
Because question-led traffic is usually earlier than a customer, and some of it is out of area or planning to do the job themselves. Check whether readers reach a service page at all.
What should contractor blog posts be about?
Subjects close to the money: what jobs cost and why, repair versus replacement, what fails locally, and how to tell whether something is urgent.
How do I measure whether the blog is working?
By whether blog visitors go on to a service page or a call: not by visitor counts, which flatter it.
Where to start
Check whether every service you actually want more of has its own page. If any does not, that page is worth more than the next twelve blog posts, and it should be written first.
Real Time Marketing has worked with home service contractors since 2016: plumbing, HVAC, roofing, electrical and other trades, nationwide, from our office in Bradenton, Florida. Agreements are month-to-month. See our search optimisation or book a strategy call.
