Commercial Construction Industry's Biggest Web Design Mistake
I originally wanted to write a top 7 mistakes, but the more I thought about it there is really one little mistake that I see construction companies make when they redesign their website.
Ok, this actually isn’t a small mistake. This is a mistake that is costing construction companies $10’s of millions to $100’s of millions in potential revenue. It’s a fairly easy fix, but it takes a lot of convincing. Like so much I almost don't want to write this article cause it seems like a waste.
Even suggesting the idea is a problem
Just the act of bringing the idea up has resulted in me, at worst, laughed out of a meeting.
Year after year, every construction company we speak to is in complete disbelief when we suggest that their website could contribute to bringing in new business pursuits – and in turn, bringing in more revenue they didn’t even know was there.
Their answer is usually something like:
Our site doesn’t / can’t bring in leads.
Our project budgets are in the 10’s of millions to 1’s of billions of dollars. There is no way our website will ever bring in a project like that.
Lead gen might work for other types of sites, but the scale of project budgets are so big and our sales cycle is so long that it would never work for us.
The disbelief is totally understandable
When I audit their website, I can see in a matter of seconds that it was never designed to rank in search for anything other than their company name, so of course they wouldn’t get exposure to new project opportunities. Put simply, they only rank in cases when people already know the name of the construction company and search for their site online.
The disbelief is wrong
But can you imagine a scenario where people might search for the type of work you do, in the city or region you work in, rather than searching for your company directly because they don’t even know you exist?
In the midst of The Great Resignation, with younger people coming up, people coming into new roles and moving to new states, isn’t it possible that there’s a potential partner out there who doesn’t know your company or what you do, someone who doesn’t have an established network of GC’s or subcontractors?
They might even be searching for the very thing you specialize in. They type in something like “healthcare construction” or “hospital construction companies” and rather than seeing your company at the top of the list, you’re nowhere on their radar.
Now imagine that scenario day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Even if most of those leads don’t pan out (and they won’t.) Even if 90-95% of them don’t, isn’t it worth landing the 5% that do? Fuck it - even if you only get 1 project it’s worth it… can someone tell me what the avg revenue on a new healthcare campus construction project?
This is not just a hypothetical scenario
It’s happening and we’ve seen it. Once we’ve optimized a site, the leads do come in and those leads ultimately lead to more potential revenue.
What’s crazier is that it’s not that difficult a problem to fix. It’s simply one that’s just ignored or overlooked. It’s the leak in your roof, the loose screw, the missing puzzle piece. It’s that thing that if you addressed it, then you’d see immediately the difference it makes.
We’ve seen it with other construction companies. We’ve fixed it. And we’ve seen the results. Now it’s just a matter of convincing an industry that is only has a leg up technologically speaking over the U.S. government.
Data doesn't lie, but people can still be wrong
"The numbers don't lie" that's something my dad use to say about why he liked being an accountant.
Whether or not people want to look at the numbers, misinterpret them, or use them to tell whatever narrative they want is a different story.
I guess I find it a bit confusing when the prospective clients I speak to in the commercial construction space are so closed off to the idea. Especially because they are so data-driven when it comes to costing their projects and other aspects of running the organization so I just can't understand why in another area they have yet to explore they are so confident they are correct despite having any real data.
Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Please don’t throw out the idea because you’ve never seen it work, at least not until you have some data to back it up.