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houzz: are you resisting? why?

July 10, 2015 by Karen

Why Set Up a Page on houzz?

I don’t like telling people what they already know, and I think many high end general contractors are on houzz.

However, if you think you don’t need houzz OR you put almost no energy into setting up your page, THIS article is for you.

I frequently talk to high end general contractors about their marketing. Many are getting new business/ fresh leads from houzz. When this first happens it really floors them! We are talking phone calls from people who they’ve never meet before! Not referrals, but warm contacts from new people.

This is pretty exceptional in the marketing arena for general contractors. As you probably know, marketing for generals remains a “word-of-mouth” deal. Lots of reasons for that. I mean when making one of the biggest financial investments of your life, you want someone who is a known quantity.

houzz is an exception to the “word-of-mouth” rule. I mean, think about it. Homeowners are spending a lot of time on houzz knocking themselves out looking at the gorgeous home photography. Unlike other social media platforms, houzz’s viewers are almost 100% people who will be doing a home remodeling project.

Hope you heard me. houzz people are checking out and calling contractors.

How to Set Up a Page on houzz

1. Set up your free account.

2. Add your business information.

3. Photos: Add only high quality photos. You’ll notice the high caliber of Houzz photos. They actually remove photos that aren’t up to snuff. Makes sense as they are working to attract the luxury home remodelers. If you don’t have a lot of photos, look at my recent article on Zero Marketing? Where to Start.

4. Logo and Banner: These spaces are both specific dimensions. You may need to size your logo to fit the logo space. Notice how square the logo space is. If your logo is very horizontal, it’ll look puny and small in the square space. Instead have a graphics person stack your logo to make it more square and vertical.

5. Reviews: Like LinkedIn, houzz has a tool you can use to ask for reviews of your work. Always use a personal message when asking for reviews; never the boiler plate message. I like to say something like “I’m refreshing or expanding my marketing. I’d really appreciate a review from you for our work together.”

How to Cultivate Leads on houzz

Maximize your presence on houzz by answering questions and writing photo-rich articles for the site.

Remember There aren’t any Guarantees

Focus on having stellar photos and getting your first 5 Houzz reviews. Stop resisting. Start or enhance your houzz page today.

Karen Nierlich is co-owner and web marketing consultant at Full Orbit Web and Marketing Services. Call her at 510-527-9920, if you wish to discuss a website or marketing for your high end residential contractor business. You’ll also find several articles about marketing for general contractors in this blog.

Social Media is “Bulls**t” for Generals, Except for These 2 Exceptions

July 6, 2015 by Karen

Aren’t doing social media, but feel you “should” be? You aren’t alone.

Do you believe you “should” be using Facebook? If so, you aren’t alone.

Many generals feel they should be marketing via social media and Facebook. However, that is very general marketing advice. General contracting isn’t every business but a rather unique kind of business that has it’s own rules of marketing.

General contracting is largely a word-of-mouth business and I’m not sure that will ever change. Homeowners are making what may be the biggest financial commitment of their lives! They want someone they know, like and trust.

There are expections to every rule and I can definitely tell you where you should be focusing your marketing time and dollars. Here’s where high end residential contractors have had proven success!

Do I need a Houzz page?

Yes, yes and yes! Many, many contractors have told me they are attracting leads and new projects from Houzz (a popular social media platform for home remodeling and interior design) from people they have never meet before. Some are really cleaning up on Houzz.

So get on there today. Post only professional, magazine-quality photos. Get 3-5 testimonials to start. Make sure your logo looks good.

Do I need a Google + page?

Yes, and don’t worry if you haven’t heard of it. Also, known as a Google Business page or Google Maps. Google + pages ensure you show up in a local search for “general contractors” in your area. It improves your presence on search and is one of the basic essentials for every business web presence. This is a free service, and ask your web person for help, if you need it.

Do I need a LinkedIn page?

Yes. Many of your clients for custom built homes are on LinkedIn. This is where you find business people and high worth individuals. They may look you up on LinkedIn before meeting with you, so you need a LinkedIn profile to look professional to prospects. LinkedIn can also provide a way for you to keep in touch with past clients and generate repeat business and meet new prospects.

Do you need a presence on Facebook? Or Twitter? Or instagram?

No. I’ve been networking with general contractors and building homeowner websites for over 5 years. I have yet to have a general tell me they are getting leads from Facebook, though I’ve had many tell me they think they need a presence there.

Do you need a blog?

If you want to. Not many contractors are blogging because of the time involved. However, if you do decide to blog, it could benefit your business. The content from a blog would include case studies about special issues or common issues in design. It could showcase really fun or practical designs. This content could be reshared in a newsletter or on LinkedIn or Houzz where lots of people will see it.

How about YouTube?

Yes, if you want a YouTube channel and to make videos, it’s a good idea. If you make videos and post them on a company YouTube channel, you can then embed those videos on your website and on LinkedIn. People love looking at video, so it can be a powerful marketing tool. Today one can make a video on an iPhone. However, getting everything to look right can be challenging. It can take a lot of time to make a good video.

So in summary, the “yeses” are Houzz, Google + and LinkedIn.

If you have more time or a bigger budget, try blogging or videos on YouTube. Both will be beneficial, if you share the articles or videos in multiple places.

As for Facebook, Twitter and other platforms, I know of no contractors generating leads from these sources and therefore don’t recommend them to my clients.

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Karen Nierlich is co-owner of Full Orbit Web and Marketing. She helps general contractors and other independent business grow their businesses 10, 50 even 100%. High end residential contractors need an eye-catching website to attract architects and homeowners. Call 510-527-9920 or visit us at www.fullorbitweb.com.

Contractors (Almost) Universally Overlook this Marketing Essential

June 25, 2015 by Karen

This post is for myself. I’ve failed multiple times at getting general contractors to listen to me on this. Every time I first meet with a contractor I find this one essential marketing task has not been done. Often it’s still not done at the end of the project!

I’d do it for you or them, but I can’t. It has to be done by someone in the contractors’ business office.

What is this one time task? Setting up or claiming your Google + page.

What? You don’t know what that is. Haven’t heard of it. You aren’t the only one.

I’ll tell you why Google + matters, where to find your Google + page, and what to do with it.

1. Why do you need a Google + page? Having a Google + page, gets your business onto Google Maps.

I think you’d agree that you want your business to show up when people search for Acme General Contractor, Your City, USA.

2. Where to find your Google + page. Do a Google search right now! Are you on the map? Then you have a Google + page.

Does it have your logo and current photos on it? No. No worries, I’ll tell you what to do next.

Here an example from a long time client:

See the little purple link under your business name where it says…Google + page. You need to click on the link and claim the page. Google will make you verify the phone # and address with a call or a post card.

Sounds easy enough. I used to offer this as a service but I ran into too many problems claiming the page. Your business needs to receive a call or postcard from Google confirming the address. Many clients have spent some time on the phone with Google getting it sorted out. That’s the bad news.

3. What to do once you’ve claimed the page! Add stellar photos and your logo, update your address and phone #, and fill in the business details.

Even if you don’t have a website, you can and should have a Google + page so prospects can find you.

Just to be clear, I’m not suggesting that you post regularly to Google +. Just ensure some of your best photos are on Google + and all the basic pertinent info. People are likely to see it if they search for your company online and it’s likely to make you look “with it.”

Hope you’ll get cracking on your Google + page so when we talk for the first time, you’ll have this essential task taken care of! Thanks for listening!!

Karen Nierlich is co-owner and web marketing consultant at Full Orbit Web and Marketing Services. Call her at 510-527-9920, if you have questions about Google +, websites or marketing for your high end residential contractor business. You’ll also find a few other articles about marketing for General Contractors in this blog.

Mobilegeddon: Was it all hype? What do we do now?

May 8, 2015 by Karen

Several clients contacted me to ask about alarming Mobilegeddon emails from other web companies. The emails I saw from 3 separate companies claimed any website that wasn’t optimized for mobile by April 21 would see their traffic disappear and their business drop. My clients were asking how to respond to such dire predictions.

Google did set a deadline of April 21

Google did say it would be a significant correction. They did publicize the changes they wanted webmasters to make.

SEO and other web people named it Mobilegeddon

They then used the situation to scare clients into building new sites. Reminds me of the Y2K deadline in 2000 when it was predicted that there’d be major computer failures around the world as computers hadn’t been coded to recognize the year 2000.

I really hate hype

It represents some of the worst kind of marketing. You want people to trust your expertise and hype comes across as manipulative and dishonest. As professionals we shouldn’t stoop to this.

The fall out was pretty minor

Web professionals and writers from many respected sources like Moz and Search Engine Land now see that while a few sites did lose mobile traffic, the change was pretty minor. I’ve provided several links at the end of this article if you want to see for yourself.

So what now?

So just because there wasn’t an immediate, large visible effect doesn’t mean we can all go take a nap.

Google has made it clear that mobile readiness is part of their algorithm…they expect and want us all to optimize our sites for mobile phones. Really who can argue with that.

Mobile phone searches now exceed desktop searches

Google wants to deliver a positive experience for all users, and they are telling us there are now more mobile searches then desktop searches. Even if we can’t see the data ourselves, we can see people on their phones everywhere we go…probably in your own home or office! It’s obvious people are searching on mobile a lot!

It’s in our own business interests to go mobile

Creating a mobile friendly experience for our customers and prospects is in our own interests.

So breathe a sigh of relief

Fortunately, April 21st wasn’t the hard deadline some thought. Consider yourself lucky and then make a plan to make your site mobile friendly in the next 6 -12 months.

Mobilegeddon Blog Posts:

The Fallout From MobileGeddon: What’s the Impact on Your Business? by Brain Hughes, Small Business Trends

A Look at the Immediate Effects of Mobilegeddon by Samual Edwards, Inc.com

Google’s Mobile Friendly Algorithm A Week Later: Was It Really Mobilegeddon? by Barry Schwartz, Search Engine Land

Mobilegeddon Is Beginning, Not Ending by Bryson Meunier, Search Engine Land

Karen Nierlich is co-owner and internet marketing consultant at Full Orbit. Call her at 510-527-9920 if you have questions about mobile and what one does to make a site mobile-friendly. She and her team work with small and medium size businesses on their websites and marketing. All sites built by the company use a mobile responsive WordPress theme.

5 Important Marketing Strategies for Home Builders

March 20, 2015 by Karen

general contractor websites Thanks to my work building websites for high end home builders, I often get to talk to generals about marketing: what works for them and what confuses them.

As any contractor can tell you, the industry operates on word-of mouth-referrals. After all, building a house is one of the biggest financial decisions people make. Wouldn’t you prefer to have a personal referral from someone you trust?

That doesn’t mean builders just wait for referrals to come to them. On the contrary, there are several strategies that will help you build your referral network.

1. Modern Website – See previous blog post about important features for your general contractors website. You want your site to look as sharp and photo rich as Houzz, as that’s the current standard! A stellar website saves you time in the sales process and helps you close more referrals. Prospects are judging you by your website!

2. Outreach to Architects – If your focus is larger new home construction, then most of those projects start with an architect. Thus keeping in touch with architects you’ve worked with in the past and starting new relationships with architects will help attract larger projects.

3. Houzz Profile – Homeowners are devouring Houzz for building and decor ideas. Here we diverge a bit from the word-of-mouth rule. Some contractors are closing new projects based on their Houzz portfolio and recommendations! Many homeowners are checking out builders on Houzz when considering them for a project.

Two other items to complete your online marketing:

4. Google + profile – I recommend every business claim their Google + listing. This profile is free and makes you show up on Google Maps. Setting this up is necessary to looking “with-it” when people search for you online. Skipping this step will make you look like a dinosaur.

5. LinkedIn profile – This step is also important to your online web presence. LinkedIn is the social media site for business people and executive types. Have a profile there, so if someone looks you up, they can find you. Simply part of having a complete up-to-date online presence.

Other marketing to consider:

Email Newsletter or print newsletter – Excellent way to keep in touch with those who know you and past clients. Send some pictures of your latest completed project or a cool idea from Houzz. Easy, low cost way to let your past clients know you are thriving in business.

Postcards to Targeted Areas – Looking to spur business growth? Send professional postcards with photos of your last project. Buy a list of mailing addresses for the neighborhood you most want to work in or blocks surrounding the home where you are working in currently.

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Visit my online portfolio to see our website work for general contractors. Or follow me on Houzz. I’d be happy to talk to you about your website or marketing your high end home construction business. I’m Karen Nierlich and I’m reachable at 510-527-9920 PAC.

How to Protect Your Website from Cybercrime

January 5, 2015 by Karen

How to Protect Your WordPress Website I don’t want to be sensational about cybercrime and the vulnerabilities of WordPress websites. I’m one of those people who doesn’t like to be sold to and I don’t like sensational headlines.

However, it is true that hackers are after your website. Cybercriminals are after all websites…enterprise or small business.

These hackers are the same people who are filling our email boxes with spam. Once they gain access to a website, they often place links to black market items. Most popular are prescription drugs…we’ve all see the viagra ads. The links on breached sites are part of how illegal pharmecueticals are promoted online.

In 2014 and now 2015, Full Orbit worked with our current clients to ensure that their sites were protected from hacking and cybercrime. Fortunately, some of the steps are simple and can be automated.

Here’s a short list of 4 steps to protect your site.

1. Back Up your Site Regularly. We are using a plugin called Back Up Buddy for WordPress. By having a back up of your site, you will have clean version of the site to upload in case of hacking. It could save you thousands of dollars.

2. Update WordPress Software, Themes, and Plugins as updates are released. WordPress puts out several software updates a year and each one of these have to do with plugging vulnerabilities that have been found or making changes to keep sites more secure.

3. Use Hard-to-Crack Passwords for your Website (no consecuetive #’s, not team names or pet names…instead use partial words, #’s, and random characters @%&.

4. Get your Themes and Plugins from reputable sources like WordPress. There are many free themes and plugins available. However, free themes or apps could have a malware or a virus or other hacking code already stowed on board. Sometimes free can come with a high price!

Want more details on the steps listed here?, visit our previous post Website Hacked? 7 Steps to Keep your WordPress Site Secure.

Monthly WordPress Maintenance Package

If you rarely login to your website or need support, we are now offering a monthly WordPress maintenance package. We’ll back up the site, check for viruses or hacking, and update Word versions and plugins.

Give us a call at 510-527-9920 or send an email, if you’d like to know more about the package or wish to discuss a website project.

One Simple Step to Protect Your Site in Case of Hacking

September 23, 2014 by Karen

Backup Buddy won’t stop an attack; at the moment there is no 100% sure way to stop hacking attacks.

What it will do for you is provide a recent copy of your files so you can restore your site quickly if it gets taken down! As they say in the Backup Buddy copy, it protects your bacon!

Backup Buddy is a well-reviewed plugin for WordPress. It has a modest licensing fee. Once you have it on your site, you can set it to automatically back up your site – both the database that holds all of your content, and the folders that hold your site theme and uploaded images and media. That means it makes a copy of your site at regular intervals and saves it. You can back up every 2 weeks, every week, twice a week. You decide based on how often you update your site!

What thrills me is that with Backup Buddy, you can also save a copy to the Cloud with ease. For example, if you use Dropbox or another back up such as Google Apps, email, Amazon, Rackspace, etc., you simply enter in the login and password and Backup Buddy backs up your website to the cloud. When you register Backup Buddy, they also provide a 2GB cloud storage space that would be plenty for a small site.

We like Backup Buddy, but there are other backup solutions out there — wordpress plugins, scripts that run on the server, backup tools provided by a hosting company — the key is to use one of them on your site. It’s a horrible feeling to realize your site has been compromised, but then it is a huge relief to realize you have a current backup that is easy to access.

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Loading BackUp Buddy to every client site, is one of many things at Full Orbit that makes me proud of our customer service. Whether yours is a web design, web programming or marketing project, we guide you through the process and help you make good decisions. In the end, we help you protect that investment but backing up the website data to the cloud.

If you have any questions about Backup Buddy or something else, feel free to ask me, Karen Nierlich, at 510-502-4963.

Two Powerful Little Words

May 29, 2014 by Karen

I’ve been reading books about negotiating recently, which really boils down to two powerful little words, Yes and No. Here are three inspirational quotes I gleaned from William Ury, Author of the The Power of a Positive No.

A ‘no’ uttered from deepest conviction is better and greater than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or what is worse, to avoid trouble.” — Mahatma Gandhi

I sit there all day and look at investment proposals. I say No, No, No, No, No, No—until I see one that is exactly what I’m looking for. And then I say Yes. All I have to do is say Yes a few times in my life and I’ve made my fortune.” — Warren Buffett

Only by saying No to competing demands for your time and energy can you create space for the Yeses in your life, the people and activities that really matter to you. Here is the paradoxical secret: you cannot truly say Yes until you can truly say No. Every Important Yes requires a thousand Nos. — William Ury, Author of the The Power of a Positive No & Getting to Yes.

Karen Nierlich is an Internet Marketing Consultant with Full Orbit. The Web firm provides web design, web programming and marketing services to help organizations thrive. We serve small and medium businesses as well as change makers of many strips from thought leaders, non-profits, schools, and socially or environmentally-focused businesses. Call her at 510-502-4963.

Full Orbit is Possible.

Don’t Underestimate the Power of WordPress

May 28, 2014 by Karen

We are huge fans of WordPress over here at Full Orbit and use the platform to build sites big and small. From time to time I run into people who think WordPress is just for small sites. Or say something like Drupal is the Content Management System (CMS) for enterprise sites. I want to explain why this perception is misplaced.

In 6 years of building WordPress sites of all sizes we have yet to regret choosing WordPress. We’ve built sites with 100’s of pages, rich graphics and multi-languages in WordPress.

WordPress is everything I’ve ever wanted for my clients. I say that because it allows us to build sophisticated sites more affordably and give clients more control over updates. It also makes optimizing a site and integrating social media easier and cleaner. When I say this, I’m comparing WordPress to how we built sites before in .html using Dreamweaver.

Is there a limit to the size of site you can create in WordPress?

There are over 60,000 million WordPress sites in the world today. And look around—some of the worlds largest news services are using WordPress: New York Times, CNN, Forbes and Reuters. There we are talking 1000’s or 10,000’s of pages and heavy readership.

How does WordPress deliver sophisticated features for less money?

There are 10,000’s of free WordPress plugins one can use to add features to a website. The reliability of plugins saves lots of coding time and thus saves money for the business customer. As the web designer/ developer part of our expertise is in finding reliable plugins and knowing how to customize them if needed. And when custom features are required, WordPress’ modular design, features for supporting custom programming, and the helpful developer community mean the job will take a lot less time than a from-scratch effort.

How does WordPress give clients control?

A site with a simple layout is very easy to edit in WordPress. You simply login and make changes similar to using Word. In 20-50 minutes I can teach a client how to make changes, save updates, add links and change photos.

Sophisticated websites with rich graphics and customized layouts can also be edited in-house. However, more work is required by the programmer to make the pages editable and more training is needed for the client. Nevertheless, even with a highly customized site, updates can be done by the client in-house. In these cases, the training involves showing the client where to go to find the editable fields for the advanced features of their site.

How is optimizing a site and adding social media easier?

The WordPress Content Management System and Plugins provides easy to find fields one can use to add keywords, page titles and meta-descriptions in the right places. This was not the case when one worked on html sites previously. Additionally, there are WordPress plugins like Yoast that make it easier for business owners (non-web professionals) to optimize their sites themselves. Adding a Facebook, Twitter or blog feed that looks fabulous is done via plug-in; again saving time and money.

Hopefully, I’ve dispelled remaining myths about the limitations of WordPress. On the contrary, WordPress in 2014 is a robust platform suitable for sites with any number of pages, traffic and prestige. Plugins make it possible to do more with a smaller budget or make the programming budget go further. In-house editing by staff is still possible for a graphically rich site if you work with a WordPress programmer who knows how to make the pages editable. In my humble opinion, WordPress is the one of the best things that ever happened to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) when it took if from a buried process in standard html to an easy-to-access and monitor process.

Karen Nierlich is an Internet Marketing Consultant at Full Orbit. She works one-to-one with clients wishing to improve their web presence and web sites and increase leads. The firm Full Orbit helps clients throughout the SF Bay Area with web design, web development and internet marketing. Full Orbit is Possible.

How to Handle Requests for Freebies

May 14, 2014 by Karen

Clients ask for freebies all the time. In my research on scope creep I’ve uncovered another winning strategy for handling requests for freebies: identifying nibbles and utilizing swaps.

What? I love little mysteries and things that sound absurd. Nibbles are when people flat out ask you to do things for them for FREE. If you are a web professional, I’m certain you know what I mean! The swaps are asks you have prepared for the client in return. For example:

I might be able to do that for you, however would you consider doing X for me?

Credit where credit is due: Last week I took a workshop from Bob Gibson called Negotiating with Existing Clients at the Bay Area Consultants Network. Bob presented a wealth of information about how to be prepared to negotiate with clients as new ideas and problems come up in your client relationships. As I said in my last article, scope creep really is inevitable in web programming projects and some other kinds of work, so you need to be prepared to respond.

Back to Nibbles: There can be pressure to simply agree to small requests. One wants to keep the client happy and to be generous. You also don’t want the clients to feel nickeled and dimed. However, once people discover they can get something for free, they keep asking. It’s like you’ve trained them to get stuff for free. If you realize your mistake later and try to change it, the client is unhappy because you’ve taken away their free stuff!

What Bob Gibson is suggesting is that you have requests of your own in mind to swap with the client. They might be related to the project such as a discussion about an extension of the project or the time table or it might be something that doesn’t involve fees such as event tickets (if the client does events) or referrals.

This way you aren’t saying “no” to the client but you are asking for something for your time and effort. Expecting something in return does alter the dynamic of the relationship and prevents you from starting a pattern of giving (in the business context) with no return.

This is but one of many strategies for dealing with nibbles and other requests for freebies. I’ve collected a number of books on negotiating. Another great source of ideas is “The Positive Power of No, How to Say No and Still Get to Yes” by William Ury.

FOW Internet Marketing Consultant Karen Nierlich

Karen Nierlich is an internet marketing consultant at Full Orbit Web and Marketing. She works with clients to help them generate more leads and grow their business. Services include search engine optimization (SEO), creating effective websites, writing calls to action and and other strategies.

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