How Online Reviews Affect Your Roofing Business

Do you know the full effect that online reviews have on your Roofing Business?

As a roofer, you understand how challenging it can be to find a new client due to the low demand of homeowners who require your services. Customers may need roof repair replacement here or there, but obtaining new customers is extremely crucial for your expanding your business.

Since installing a new roof is a substantial investment, most homeowners don’t want to enter into a contract with a roofing contractor who cannot offer outstanding results. Looking for an experienced roofer can be an uphill task, which is why property owners go to search online to find the best one.

Over 50% of property owners searching for a roofer turn to search engines to assist them to find a good roofing company in their local area. When you do a Google search for local roofing contractors, you see a lot of review sites such as Google reviews, Facebook reviews, Yelp, and Nextdoor, you find high-quality roofing contractors.

Reasons Why Online Reviews Are Super-Important for Roofers

Online reviews are essential to any roofer who wants to keep track of his online reputation. Reviewing has changed the face of roofing marketing since most clients nowadays use the internet to make a purchase or book for services. It allows roofing companies to have positive, active participation from customers and gives them a solid foundation for establishing a lasting relationship with those roofing contractors, so it pays to manage your online roofing reputation.

But why are online reviews so important for your roofing business? Here are the mind-boggling facts you need to know:

Online Reviews Increases Your Roofing Sales

The #1 reason why online reviews are critical to your roofing business is that it boosts roofing sales by giving clients the information they require to make a wise purchasing decision. Property owners are likely to book for jobs from a roofing contractor who has been recommended by others.

Online Reviews Helps Roofers to Connect with their Customers

Roofing reviews can help you to know whether you are doing a good job or where you may be going wrong. This helps your business to serve customers better by efficiently and quickly resolving any problems consumers have, thereby building a positive experience for the client that will help your company in the future.

Online Reviews Improves Your Search Engine Rankings

Online reviews go beyond just creating excellent relationships between your roofing business and customers; they help your roofing website to rank high in search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo. They play a critical role in SEO and can determine where your roofing business falls within the search engine rankings. Google, for example, collects information from several review sites before deciding where your roofing business will fall in the search results. Sites like Facebook and Yelp determine your ranking depending on the number of reviews and overall ratings.

Online Roofing Reviews Builds the Credibility of Your Business Online

In the modern age of smartphones, property owners conduct more research online before calling your roofing business for products or services. And as stated previously, clients are more likely to trust online roofing reviews as well as personal recommendations. Homeowners turn to review sites to gain a good understanding of your business, so make sure that you have a bunch of positive reviews in your roofing marketing arsenal. This will solidify your online reputation as the market leader in the roofing industry.

Online Roofing Reviews Allows Customers to Have a Voice

Property owners who take their time to leave a review for your roofing business are likely to remain loyal and keep frequently coming for services or products. Through leaving such reviews, customers feel that they have a voice and stake in your roofing business.

Online Reviews Allows Customers to Market Your Roofing Business for Free

A bunch of positive roofing reviews is worth much more than what a simple roofing marketing campaign can do. These customer reviews give a constant positive brand image to prospects who, in turn, call your business for services or products.

Online Reviews Helps to Build Local Trust

Since roofing clients are inherently local, their search results are targeted towards a specific area. The high-quality map listings have the highest number of Google reviews. After all, Google would love to display a roofing company that has built its reputation over the years than a virtually unknown one. The more positive reviews a roofer has in their roofing marketing arsenal, the higher chance they stand to rank high on organic search results and Google Maps.

How Your Roofing Business Can Generate a Bunch of Positive Online Reviews

Now that we have discussed why online reviews are crucial for roofing contractors, so let us explain about ways of generating them.

Roofing contractors know that online reviews can help to shape their reputation, but generating them can be a huge task. Most clients will not bother to leave a positive review, even if you offer topnotch services. But if you want your business to stay ahead of the curve, online reviews are crucial.

Here are surefire ways to generate more reviews for your roofing business in 2020:

Asking Directly From Your Previous Clients

You should prompt your past clients to leave positive online reviews. You can request for such reviews through your roofing website or email newsletters. Once property owners book a job from you, send them an email asking them to leave an excellent review. Asking for such a review immediately after finishing a job is preferable. Recent studies show that 70% of clients will leave a review when requested. You can ask for a review even after you have resolved a client dispute.

Include Review Links in Your Emails and Other Marketing Materials

You can include a review link on your roofing website, blog, or service pages where clients can leave their happy thoughts about the products/ services that your roofing business has offered.

Rewarding Customers

You can offer incentives to collect reviews, especially in the first stages. You can consider offering free roof inspections or estimates to property owners who leave a positive review. Announcing such offers will motivate your clients to share their feedback on your roofing website.

Integrate Review Badges on Your Roofing Website

Most directories have review badges that you can place on your roofing website. These badges will help clients to share their thoughts about your roofing services/ products.

How Roofers can respond to Negative Online Reviews

As a roofer, you need to respond to all online reviews regardless of whether they are good or bad. This is because every review provides a unique public relations opportunity for roofing contractors. Getting negative reviews should not discourage you, as that is part of doing business. That said, positive reviews should be more than the negative ones.

Negative reviews sting, but don’t allow that to harm your roofing business reputation. You should aim to deal with such reviews as efficiently as possible. Expect to get craziest reviews from competitors who pose as unhappy clients just to outshine your business.

The key to dealing with such bad reviews is to respond respectfully and quickly. Don’t argue opinions or facts. Simply write a response that looks like this; “We sincerely hope that we can resolve this, we have thousands of happy clients, please contact us.”

The point here is that you should demonstrate to other readers that you are responsive, and you care about what your prospects are saying online. It sends a positive, strong signal about your roofing business and makes lemons out lemonades!

5 Tips on How Roofing Contractors Can Respond to Positive Reviews

What was your initial reaction the first time you received a positive review from a client? Probably, you thanked them, right? Customers take their time out of their busy schedule to give their feedback, and responding to their comments shows that you are courteous.

Of course, commenting on such positive reviews has many benefits than being polite. When done correctly, your response to positive reviews can bring more clients and solidify your reputation online. Since other prospects will see your response online, here are a few things you need to know when answering positive reviews:

Tip 1) Thank the reviewer

As a roofer, thanking your reviewers is a standard show of courtesy. It also shows clients that you value them and their time.

Tip 2) Respond Promptly

Again, show your clients that you value their time by responding quickly to their positive reviews.

By responding swiftly, you show clients that you appreciate their kind words and patronage. Better yet, you will stand out from your rivals who stay for months before responding to their client queries.

Tip 3) Keep it Short

Don’t be too long in your response-just be authentic and brief in your reply to the kind words from your clients.

Tip 4) Be Personal

Just like your client was particular in the review (“Erick did an outstanding job!” you should also try to add a personal touch in your review as well. Try to address your reviewers by name.

Tip 5) Invite the Reviewers to Share Their Positive Experiences

While thanking your clients, request them to share the positive experiences with their family and friends. This is likely to be advantageous to your business, especially if you have a referral system in place.

How Online Reviews Affect Your Roofing Business Reputation

Your online reputation can either make or break your roofing business. Reputation is formed by collecting various reviews from platforms such as Yelp, Google, and Facebook. Roofers who want to compete for leads online should optimize their Google My Business Listing and encourage online reviews. When appropriately managed, online reviews can help your business to:

Clients leave reviews on multiple platforms like Yelp, HomeAdvisor, Angie’s List, and Facebook. That said, Google is the most prominent review platform so far. Because Google controls most of the search market, it goes without saying a published review in Google will bear more weight than in any other platform. Since most of your leads will come from search queries, having a bunch of positive Google reviews can improve your online reputation

Final Thoughts

As a roofer, attempting to handle internet marketing, managing your online reputation, and daily activities involved in running your business can be a daunting task. For your roofing business to realize its full potential, you must invest heavily in reputation management. At BlackStorm Roofing Marketing, our experts will do everything to boost your ROI. With our knowledge of online reputation, our goals are to generate, respond, and monitor online reviews. To create roofing reviews, we put links to your roofing profile so that clients are encouraged to review your business. To monitor reviews, our experts will set notifications to alert us when a new review is published.

Our experts generate reviews on the following platforms:

• Yelp
• Google My Business
• Better Business Bureau
• Facebook

At BlackStorm Roofing Marketing, we have worked with countless roofers, and thus, we the importance of maintaining a positive reputation in this highly-competitive industry. We will help you to minimize the damage that could have been caused by a negative review left on your website.

We know that online reputation management is critical for roofers who want to maintain positive brand identity in the eyes of potential clients. Hiring an experienced roofing marketing company to manage your roofing business will help to build trust, confidence, and ultimately conversions. We deliver top-notch services that will guarantee a high return on investment.

Reach out to us today!

If you are searching for a reputable roofing marketing firm to manage your online reviews, contact us to schedule a free strategy session. We will help your roofing brand to crush the competition, increase sales, and salvage the negative reviews that could harm your online reputation. Let us help you leave a long-lasting impression on your prospects/ clients today.