As any contractor knows, word-of-mouth referrals are often responsible for helping earn new jobs and projects. But if you’re ready to take on more work by using Houzz, it may seem hard to stand out on the website without those happy homeowners sharing their reviews. If you’re going to be successful on Houzz, do you need to advertise?
As you get ready to dive into this platform, we’ve put together this guide to help you get start your local online marketing strategy on the right foot. From how to create an account to what strategies will help you stand out on the site, we hope that you feel confident about how to use Houzz effectively by the end of this piece.
If you’d rather have a professional take on the challenge so you can focus on your contracting business, JetRank provides in-depth advertising plans for Houzz and beyond.
Houzz Advertising Overview
Started by a couple frustrated with old-fashioned ways to research and hire contractors, Houzz has turned into a hub where 40 million homeowners, interior designers, and home improvement professionals can come together.
A combination of products and services, Houzz is a great resource for DIYers and homeowners with little to no building experience. Enthusiasts can search the site for tools, fixtures, and accessories to spruce up their homes while others can compare a variety of businesses offering their services on the site to find the right partner for their next project.
For a contractor looking for a new network of potential clients, creating a business profile is essential to getting in front of Houzz users.
How to Set-Up Advertising on Houzz
While getting set up on any new platform may seem intimidating, Houzz has simplified their set-up process so you can start marketing your home improvement services quickly. You simply need to follow three steps:
Create a Company Profile
This will be the main page where potential customers can learn more about your services. You can upload a variety of vital information, including an introduction, contact information, website, and more.
Showcase Your Portfolio
Once your account is up and running, don’t forget to upload past projects into your portfolio. Combining images and text, you can present your skill and specialties in a visually engaging manner.
Tag Your Work
To help ensure that your projects are seen, you can tag items within the photos to help show your work and what products you used. If a user searches for that particular tag, your image is likely to show up, helping to expose your business and possibly converting them into a new client.
Choosing Houzz Basic or Houzz Pro+ Account
Setting up a basic Pro account is completely free on Houzz. Simply just use your email and create a password to gain access to a wide network of potential customers. But if you are looking to grow quickly, or have outgrown the usefulness of a Houzz Basic account, then it might be time to upgrade to Houzz Pro+.
Pricing for the premium account is dependent on a few variables, including what type of services your company offers, your region, and any associated categories you want to appear in search results for. To help sweeten the deal, Houzz Pro+ also gives you access to analytics so you can optimize your profile and make sure you’re appearing in the right searches.
Houzz Impact and Advantages
While there are 2.3 million basic and Pro+ accounts on the site, they are competing for 40 million homeowners that use Houzz to research, hire, and rate their contractors. And those potential leads are active, with 74% of them indicating that they are looking to perform some type of work on their home in the next 2 years. With so much opportunity, it seems silly to not get your business on the platform.
If you decide to upgrade to Pro+, you’ll be able to advertise to all those homeowners as well. You’ll be able to create campaigns that extend throughout the site, from photo ads to sponsored ads in the Advice and Stories sections.
But how do you know if you need to add advertising capabilities to grow your business? We break down the pros and cons of earning paid versus organic traffic on Houzz to help you make the right call.
The Value & Cost of Houzz for Advertising
Just creating an account on the platform already increases your visibility to potential customers. You can reach homeowners as they begin researching on who and how to build, remodel, or renovate their home, engaging them with helpful resources and insightful expertise. This is especially impactful if you can reach a local homeowner in need of your services.
But once you add the cost of Houzz Pro+, there is no research to indicate that contractors have been able to attract enough leads to justify the advertising spend. Since the main function of the website is to conduct research and search for inspiration, many homeowners seem to be higher up in the purchase funnel, making their clicks to your profile less impactful for your ROI.
Unless you are determined to spend the money without an immediate return, there may be better strategies to pursue. Rather, we recommend integrating your basic Houzz account into your overall marketing plan. As we’ll discuss in detail below, Houzz can help you reach a wider audience than you might realize.
The Value & Cost of Houzz for SEO
You already know all about the benefits of having a presence on Houzz to connect with leads and clients. But did you know that creating your profile can help you reach homeowners who aren’t even on the website? That’s thanks to optimizing your Houzz account to rank organically on search engines, helping you reach clients who are looking for contractors with your services.
Rather than paying for clicks that are not guaranteed to convert into customers on Houzz, you can take over more “real estate” on Google search results by having an additional link for people to learn more about your services through your Houzz profile and portfolio.
The cost is largely time-based, as it takes long-term strategy and optimization to improve your search engine rankings. If you decide to add Houzz to your marketing plan, this same effort will be needed to ensure that both the website and search engines keep you high in search results.
What if I Don’t Have Time to Manage Houzz?
If you are unsure of how to maintain an optimized Houzz account, we have in-house experts who can set-up your profile and portfolio. We’ll create an in-depth mission statement for your page, as well as showcasing your certifications, skills, and awards to help impress potential customers.
Using your existing collateral, we’ll create your portfolio, making sure that the supporting text is optimized both for Houzz and Google to maximize visibility. Tags will be added that not only describe your past work but have traffic behind them to ensure that your work is seen by a wide audience.
Once your profile and portfolio are live, we work with you to create ongoing content that will keep your page fresh and homeowners interested in your services. This will largely be as Ideabooks and Projects. These will help improve engagement with homeowners on Houzz with visually-engaging content while increasing potential touchpoints for users on search engines looking for inspiration.
As you complete new projects, we’ll be sure to add to your Portfolio to keep it up to date. Older projects will be monitored and optimized to ensure that they are still earning organic traffic via Houzz and Google.
Finally, we’ll monitor your page for new reviews to ensure a quick response and build engagement with potential leads and past clients.
Focus on Organic Traffic with Help from JetRank
By including Houzz as part of your SEO strategy, you’re maximizing your reach, helping you reach homeowners on both the website and search engines.
Here at JetRank, we specialize in creating multi-faceted SEO plans that take a look at the big picture and execute perfectly on the little details. We’ll identify other platforms where, in tandem with your website and Houzz profile, you can maximize your potential reach and generate high-quality leads.
We hope that this guide helped you better understand how Houzz works, the benefits of creating an account, and the best way to leverage your profile. If you are interested in talking to a strategist on how to help your contracting business grow with organic search, contact us today!
