Why Garage Door Companies Need Search Engine Optimization

With an estimated 63,000 Google searches every second, it is conclusive to say that someone out there is probably searching for a service you offer. But most people don’t even have efficient marketing strategies for their garage door companies. This creates an opportunity for other local businesses to be more successful if they have a productive marketing strategy.

For example, the number one thing people search after looking for a service is “near me.” People are constantly searching on their phone for a business near them with great reviews. There are different marketing strategies all catered to a specific industry or service type. Some people want to see different results and therefore will need a specialized marketing strategy. Marketing is key to having a successful business in the 20th century. Look at the number of people in America using the internet.

Increase in Technology

As technology increases, we will start to see more and more people using the internet. That means there will be more and more opportunities to present yourself to those people. Thus, you shouldn’t wait to begin digital marketing for your garage door company; it’s something that takes time. Search engine optimization cannot always be rushed. Lots of people want instant results when they invest but don’t realize they are the new kid on the block when implementing SEO strategies, and you have to build your reputation with Google. 

There are also different apps you can utilize to benefit your digital marketing journey. NextDoor is a social media app for neighborhoods. The company, founded in 2008,  launched its product in the US in Oct 2011. Homeowners request access, and NextDoor verifies the homeowner’s address by sending a postcard with a unique code on it for access to the app. You can even invite your neighbors by sending them a postcard invite.

Although promoting your garage door business is not permitted using your personal account, you can request access to advertise your business. For example, NextDoor recently allowed one of our Heroes (what we call clients here at Markinuity) to participate in a beta test called “Offers.” We were able to post deals for neighborhoods around their business or specific zip codes. About six months later, Offers changed and became more sophisticated, so they charge for the Offers option now. However, this can still be a useful resource for advertising your business to local neighborhoods or specific areas in which you have worked often.

The value is enormous! Not everyone is doing offers on NextDoor, so you should jump on it before others do. NextDoor Offers won’t be one of the best-kept secrets for long. We strongly encourage you to use NextDoor to promote your garage door company.

Different Strategies

Depending on the method of marketing, most of the time, marketing takes time. It’s a good idea to make changes and track the results of those changes. There are many different ranking factors, including social media activity. The biggest trend in the garage door marketing world is mobile, and it’s changed how people search. As mentioned above, everyone is used to having their phone’s geolocation open so they can search for products and services “Near Me.”

We no longer go to Best Buy to pick up a product and check it out. We go online to Amazon to see if we can get it cheaper than using Amazon to price match. It’s never been more obvious that homeowners have the power in their hands. You can quote a garage door repair, and a customer can look up the average price for that repair online within seconds. Having an effective and transparent strategy will help you with search engines and customers alike. 

Content Creation

To rank well against your competitors, you need to have unique content. However, this doesn’t mean that you target extreme keywords and write about topics people aren’t searching for. Recently, natural language search has become increasingly popular. This is due to tools like Siri and Google Now. Instead of typing keywords into a search engine, people are turning to Siri with a question. This translates to long-tail keywords, which you should be implementing on your site.

Your website should include content surrounding garage door repair, garage door installation, and commercial garage services if you offer them. It’s important that you hire content creators who research well and know how to write insightful, creative content. You can also target service areas near you, which will rank your website in other locations.

Be sure to utilize social media as part of your content creation efforts! Social media marketing is quickly becoming more and more popular. Apps like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok are great places to start building your brand awareness. However, what about X, formerly known as Twitter?

X is great for engagement! It can be intrusive, but it’s also a place where you can interact and engage in conversation. Many companies use X for support by allowing customers to voice issues that need to be resolved. It’s also a place where you can find people who use X regularly in your area. However, we don’t believe that X is a great marketing outlet for garage door companies in particular. Tweeting about your garage door company isn’t going to get you a lot of attention. You can get creative in your posts or have an influencer retweet something of yours, but in general, don’t expect a tremendous amount of engagement on X.

Provide Quality Service

We all know that one person who has a garage door issue they’ve been ignoring for a while. And any garage door guy can tell you leaving these issues untreated will eventually lead to something more costly. Every day people are searching for garage door services near them on their mobile devices, whether it be a spring issue or just a quote that never gets finalized.

It is the responsibility of a garage door company to provide great quality services to its customers. Making sure you can better communicate with a customer to make them feel comfortable with your company is helpful. When doing digital marketing to get the most site authority and relevancy in Google’s eyes you need to be consistent with providing great services for your customers.

The truth is, it’s hard to market something bad. Reputation certainly helps your marketing efforts. You can begin to lose ranking authority amongst your competitors if you don’t maintain a good reputation. Customers want to feel comfortable with the decision to trust you with working on their home. Once you gain customers’ trust, you gain a business relationship, and like any relationship, you want both sides to be happy and on the same page. Make sure you are providing the best quality customer service for your garage door company. Being kind and honest with your customers will only help you in the long run.

Some other areas to focus on for your garage door marketing include:

If you ever need help with any of this, our growth guides at Markinuity have you covered!

Now that we’ve discussed some of the ways to improve your marketing efforts, it’s time to discuss why that’s important for your business: generating leads!

What You Need To Know About Garage Door Leads

No matter what stage you’re in during your journey with your garage door company, leads are a must. Buying leads can seem difficult to accept, especially because of the industry vendors who generate the leads. They’ve made it difficult and very expensive.

Leads for Startup Garage Door Companies:

As a startup, time is your friend, and spending money is your enemy. That will flip when you become more established. At this stage, you don’t need to focus on branding as much as staying busy. Every minute you’re not driving revenue, you’re wasting time. In fact, only 56 percent of startups make it to the fifth year (Mansfield 2019), which means the odds are against you. I say this because you need to know the severity of the situation. You’re at a massive disadvantage over established businesses for multiple reasons, but let’s address buying garage door leads.

Your marketing strategy will change as you grow, but starting out, you need opportunities that give you the best possible chance to succeed. Google Adwords (Google’s online marketing platform) is what most people rely on, but that can be a mistake unless you know what you’re doing. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) can take some time to get ranked for the keywords you’re going after, but you need more rapid satisfaction in order to spread the word about your business. 

This rapid success can be generated by buying leads from companies like HomeAdvisor and Google Home Services/Google Guaranteed on a per-lead basis. Buying leads is the absolute best way to generate business for your garage door startup. It’s the perfect relationship for you at this stage. You pay them $20 – $40, and you get a lead for a homeowner looking for garage door install/repairs. You get information about an already-interested potential customer, and it doesn’t cost you a fortune.

All you have to do is call and take the time to pitch a great presentation to win the job. These are called pay-per-lead or transactional leads; they are a great opportunity if you have any sales and/or presentation skills. Take these steps to build confidence with customers over the phone and fight for an opportunity to get in the garage. You won’t win them all, but you have to do your best to win most of them.

Here’s a sure-fire way to increase the leads for your start-up garage door company:

1. Find out if your phone service can allow texting to your main number with a way to respond easily.
2. Research live chat/messaging platforms and add them to your website.
3. Add a self-serve option to your website. Typically, this is best done with an “embed code” from your dispatch software.

Leads for Established Garage Door Companies:

Years pass, and you’ve established a local brand in your market. Do you still need garage door leads? We believe you do. If managed right, you should see a return, but now your processes have to be on point. This means you’re most likely delegating the leads to your team, but perhaps they aren’t able to sell the appointment as well as you did, or they may not be calling as quickly. Given this, you’ll probably want to pull back and only buy leads for smaller areas or, more specifically, services you don’t rank as well in SEO to supplement.

For example, if you rank really well for repairs but not for new doors, we suggest buying leads for new doors until you can get your SEO on point. At this stage in your business, you’re also dabbling in Ads on platforms like Google, Bing, etc. Buying ads can be really difficult because your creative content has to be on-point, or you will not get the results you’re seeking. Many marketing companies do Adwords in a lazy way because they aren’t willing to pay to have it done right. Now that you’re established, you have to be willing to put money into advertising in order to make resources like Google Adwords work for you. 

This makes us unique in the fact that we understand your business pains and your customers. If you’re looking to get successful results, Markinuity knows how to streamline your garage door marketing. With our industry knowledge, we’ll get your business ranking for garage door repair in your area. We prioritize growth and results, so we promise that you’ll see an impact once we begin our stellar marketing tactics! If you’re interested in beginning garage door marketing, schedule a free consultation!