General Contractor Website Redesign

PINT recently launched a redesigned website for Joe Bushman, a long-established contractor in San Diego. This contractor website redesign included a full renovation of the site structure, content, and visual design. Read on to see why we did a complete overhaul.

The existing website for Joe’s company, Custom Construction, hadn’t been updated for several years. It did not effectively communicate the value Joe brings to his work and services. That meant some big changes were in order.

New General Contractor Website Features

 
A prominent addition on the redesigned site is the testimonials section. A dedicated testimonials page allows for plenty of space to share quotes and link to more detail. To draw further attention to testimonials, a snippet from one testimonial is featured prominently on the homepage.

Why Did We Do That?

During the Discovery Phase of the project, our Information Architect identified and analyzed key users of the site. Then she developed user personas and customer experience maps based on this research. These diagrams helped visualize the needs and goals of these various audiences.

Using these tools, PINT was able to identify the primary values held by homeowners seeking a contractor. They include:

• A sense of quality
• Experience
• Trustworthiness

Well-crafted testimonials, when applied correctly, convey exactly these values to the site’s users. That’s why we included a robust testimonials section.

Testimonial Audiences

The testimonials section of the website communicates with two primary user groups: construction industry colleagues and homeowner clients.

The page features one professional testimonial and a number of client testimonials. Each one presents a unique insight and experience with Joe Bushman Custom Construction. These testimonials effectively build credibility and give users a first-hand look into what it is like to work with Joe.

To further validate these testimonials, links to client project pages are included. This call-to-action prompts a natural user flow. When a user feels like a particular testimonial speaks to them, they can dig deeper into an individual project. Within each project, users can:

• Explore a photo gallery
• View cost metrics
• Read about other relevant specifications

Ideally, these project pages will help potential customers imagine their finished project and inspire them to contact Joe to get their project started.

What if you haven’t been documenting your work?

One of the challenges of this project was finding high-quality images of Joe’s work for these project pages. Given the nature of Joe’s business, using good quality photos of original work rather than stock imagery was of high importance. So, we got a little creative.

We crafted a trade with Mark Silva, an Architect with whom Joe has worked on several homes. In exchange for the use his photos, we added a link out to Mark’s website.

What’s Next for This Project?

Taking the Entire Business Online

PINT also reviewed how Joe conducts business and analyzed possibilities for making these processes digital and more efficient. In fact, a future phase of this project is an entire digital transformation at Joe Bushman Custom Construction.

Joe’s current process is somewhat an ad-hoc. He uses Excel to fulfill one need, paper plans to fulfill another, and so on. PINT sees an opportunity to answer the question:

Is there one digital tool, or a set of digital tools that could refine and optimize Joe’s business processes?

For an initial proof-of-concept, PINT researched and compared several software products that could add value to Joe’s business processes. The products researched included:

• Industry-specific tools such as Plan Grid, a construction-oriented app to manage and collaborate on blueprints
• Generic project management tools, such as Dropbox for file storage and Basecamp for task allocation and tracking amongst a team

A total of nine products and 21 plan types were compared based on the following matrix:

• Financial Management
• Construction Planning
• Project Management
• Customer Management
• Basic specifications such as pricing, plan options & flexibility, storage capacity

From our findings, we created a set of product recommendations and a proposed software adoption process for a general contractor business:

Driving Traffic and Generating Leads

A polished and informative website goes a long way in promoting and validating a business and its services. But a website redesign isn’t the only thing a company can do to build reputation and influence within a local industry.

In the past, clients have typically discovered Joe through referral- either by a previous customer or by a professional they’re working with. Expanding Joe’s web presence expands his reach, thereby diversifying his client base.

Social Media

PINT researched several social media outlets, both generalized and specific to Joe’s industry. PINT weighed the relevance and projected value of individual sites against the amount of upkeep needed per social media profile.

Some websites like Pinterest don’t require much upkeep beyond initial setup, as content is not sorted chronologically, and dates are less prominent in feeds and searches. However, other social media profiles, such as a Twitter, run the risk of appearing stale and outdated if posts are infrequent.

Houzz, in particular, is a popular social networking tool within the home design and construction industry.

A profile on Houzz can serve several purposes for a contractor like Joe. Namely, a Houzz profile will:

• Showcase his business and prior projects
• Provide contact information to prospective clients and business partners
• Collect reviews and act as a repository for questions Joe has answered online

Based on these findings, PINT will work with Joe to generate an effective and efficient social media and digital strategy in 2017.