July 6, 2023 • 31 mins
Paul Altobelli, Hibu's Website Product Lead, walks us through an in-depth discussion about what your local business website needs to have today to drive in leads and keep you competitive online today. Paul talks about a recent study he did on HVAC websites across the country – what's working, what's missing, and what sets some sites apart from others when searching for local HVAC businesses. If you own a local business – whether it's HVAC, some other service provider, or anything else, you're sure to learn a lot of ways your website could deliver more customers.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ian Messinger (00:01):
Hi, I'm in Messinger with my co host,
Lauren Schenck (00:05):
Actually, it's Lauren Schenck now.
Ian Messinger (00:07):
Oh, yes, it is.
Congratulations.
Thanks for joining us for thisepisode of Small Business Small
Talk powered by Hibu. At Hibu,our goal is to help local
businesses across Americasucceed and grow with Digital
Marketing. Today, we're talkingwith Paul Altobelli, Hibu's
Website Product Lead. Threeyears ago, when we launched
Small Business Small Talk, Paulwas actually our very first
(00:29):
guest. Thanks for coming back.
Paul Altobelli (00:30):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Ian Messinger (00:33):
Now remind everybody again, as I almost
choke on my coffee, what you doat Hibu.
Paul Altobelli (00:40):
As the as the website product lead, I'm pretty
much responsible for to maintainthe integrity of what we've
Lauren Blackford.
defined as the website. Websitehas certain rules in terms of
how we go about building it. AndI define those rules. And then I
work with the different teams,our process teams, our training
teams, our production teams, ourQA teams, sales teams, GTM - Go
(01:03):
To Market – teams, to make surethat they're all aligned. This
is what we're building, this ishow we build it.
Additionally, I'll stay up withthe latest trends, I look at
existing sites, I figure outways that we can improve our
websites all the time. Websites,as you've heard me both say many
times are never completed,they're abandoned. As far as the
(01:24):
Hibu website goes, that applies.
I'm just not building oneproduct, and then sticking with
it and setting it and forgettingit. We're constantly evolving
our product to make sure thatwe're meeting the demands of the
marketplace. So it's it's notthe same, you know, the same
flavor it was three years ago,five years ago, it's it's
something better, it's somethingcurrent, it's, it's, it's always
(01:45):
changing. There's alwayssomething new with what we're
trying to achieve here.
Before we get started, though, Ijust want to say, mazel tov to
Lauren. I both... I've workedwith Lauren, and Ian at various
different times in the 15 yearsthat I've been with the company.
Lauren Schenck (02:03):
So, Paul, when when you're looking at a local
business' website, and whenyou're looking at the Hibu
websites, and the product thatyou create, what, what makes a
good website?
Paul Altobelli (02:14):
Before I answer that, let's just let's just
state that the rules by which Isort of think about that has to
do with the fact that I want thewebsite out of the gate to make
sure. And to convince somebodyto stay on a website longer than
seven seconds, we don't have alot of time. A website doesn't
have a lot of time to convincesomebody to stay. They... if I
don't see what I want to seeimmediately on my phone, which
(02:37):
I'll be referencing here onlater today.... I'm off
So as far as what I what I thinkmakes a good website out of the
somewhere else.
gate, we're looking for thingsthat establish credibility,
right out of the gate now to seethat. And that includes things
like I call them trust signals.
So some sort of badges orsomething that that addresses,
(02:57):
affiliations and licenses andthings of that sort awards,
that's a good one that'sestablishing that I've arrived
in the right that a good place.
I'm looking for testimonials andreviews. If I'm looking at two
websites, identical in everyway, except this one has 500
(03:18):
reviews, and it's saying we haveover 500 reviews, check out our
reviews, here's our stars. Andthis one has none. I'm going
with this guy every time. Mywife looks at reviews for
everything, no matter what.
She's like, "Oh, I'm not I'mgonna make that cake once I see
reviews." That's important.
The website has to beprofessionally designed. I know
there's a lot of websites outthere that will convert no
(03:41):
matter what it looks like. Butas far as capturing my attention
and maintaining my attentionlonger than seven seconds, I
want to see something that lookslike a professional company. And
two things that I look forbecause it's the first two
things you probably are lookingat yourself is the logo and
photography. A lot of times witheverything matches, everything
(04:02):
looks great, except for thatlogo, it's all blurry. Or it's
just a text based logo. I'mgoing to be spending a lot of
money with you. And I want tomake sure that that you've
checked off everything on yourend if you're if you don't have
enough time to make sure yourlogo isn't blurry Well then how
do I know you're going to makesure that you're styling my my
(04:23):
air conditioner correctly,that's important. And then
photos especially if thebusiness is something like a
landscaper or something alongthose lines. If they don't have
good photography on their realphotography, you can get away
with stock photography based onin certain scenarios. But if you
can have real photos, you know,we talked about that trust thing
right and testimonials orreviews, if you can put before
(04:44):
and after photos is fantastictrust and I'm looking at that
and I'm going to immediately getsucked in.
Additionally, I'm looking forthings like ways that the
business is differentiatingitself from competitors. So, at
Hibu we call this motivatingfactors – some people will refer
to them as unique sellingpoints. We want to see right out
(05:04):
of the gate - why should I hireyou? And for our example, here,
I'm going to go with this ideathat it is some sort of a home
services provider, like aplumber, or an electrician, a
landscaper. So right out of thegate, I want to see things that
are going to tell me how much isgoing to cause me to hire you to
fix my AC. So things like dothey have coupons? Do they have
(05:25):
specials? Do they have financingoptions? That has to be
addressed? How much is it goingto cost me? I want to look at to
see if how fast you can help mefix my problem? Is it 24/7
emergency services to the handlefully stocked truck, things of
that nature? How quickly willthey call you back? We promise
you we're gonna call you backwithin one hour. That's that's
(05:48):
really key. That's good to makethat phone ring. Because a lot
of us all of us here have dealtwith contractors that will call
you back right away. nothingmore frustrating than getting
some feedback. Just FYI, wemight have a guest joining us.
Ian Messinger (06:02):
Okay, what do you mean?
Paul Altobelli (06:05):
That's Tony, just in case Tony wants to get
on.
Other things, I'm looking for isOn-page SEO. It isn't something
that isn't necessarily in yourface. There's this code that
goes on behind the site, andthat's helping the search
engines find the site. That'swhat I look for. Did they, have
they, have they included theright title tags and meta
description? Or the key or theheadlines? Do they include
(06:29):
keyword terms? Does it makesense that you just say, Welcome
to our website? Or does it say,Cherry Hill? Where I live.
Cherry Hill plumbing services24/7? How about this: 24/7
Plumbing Services in Cherry Hill– perfect headline. It's good
for both the user for me and forthe search engines.
I want to know if it's a fastloading site, if it's a real
(06:51):
slow site on my phone, that's abad thing. If it's fast loading,
that's a good sign.
And then finally, I want to makesure that the calls to action on
the website align with how toget in touch with them. So if
the website is constantly sayingthings like, call us today, call
us today, call us today, and Ican't find the phone number.
Then good luck.
(07:15):
I don't want to see things thata lot of times I'll see with
websites that have multiplephone numbers in the header,
which one should I call if it'sclear, if it's clean, if I know
if it's telling me exactly whatto do? That's a good one. So all
those factors come into play,ultimately making me stay on
that website longer than sevenseconds. It's interesting to me,
because everything you justsaid. And I mean, this in a good
(07:37):
way is geared toward thinking ofthe website and for us building
websites with an eye towardbeing transactional. You know,
you're not saying it's got tolook great. And it's got to
impress your your colleagues andyour competitors. And it should
look like you know, whateveramazon.com or something it's all
(07:57):
about here are the things Ineed, as a consumer to arrive on
your website with the intentionof hiring you and doing business
with you.
Lauren, it goes back to theheart of the question, right?
What makes a good small businesswebsite? Well, assuming you're
using the website to drivebusiness and not just have a
website for fun, this is what itshould have to power it to drive
(08:21):
calls to drive leads to get aresponse. I think that's a great
point. And because businessowners are always told you have
to have a website, you have tohave a website. But they don't
always know what to do with thatwebsite. And I think this is
great information to it's todrive, you know, closing the
sale, people into the shop.
People go to web pages, peoplego to the internet, to solve a
(08:41):
task – or visiting a website,they're doing whatever that
query might be. I'm coming to adestination on the internet to
solve a task. It could be assimple as I want to look at cat
videos.
(He is a Tony.) I want to pay abill, I want to listen to music.
I want to find a plumber, I wantto find an electrician, I want
(09:04):
to find somebody to fix my airconditioner because it's 90
degrees. I want to solve a task.
The easier that web page, thatwebsite, that company makes it
to solve all the things I needin my head to say, Yeah, you're
the guy, you're solving my task,then I'm gonna call him up. It's
all about conversions. You wantto look good? Do you want to
make money? And the idea here,nobody's ever gonna say I just
(09:25):
want to look good. I mean, it'svery rare. They always have a
lot of combination of the two.
But if you have a professionalsite with good pictures, a good
logo, and it's laid out in a waythat makes sense for the user,
well, then it's going to lookgood. That's good. A lot of
times we have clients or I'veseen websites where they're
trying to look good, andunnecessarily try to get the
(09:48):
phone to ring, and then theywonder why aren't I getting any
calls? Well, I don't know.
Because you didn't put the phone
Ian Messinger (09:53):
Right. Yeah. And it's not really a chicken or the
number up in the right handcorner,
egg scenario. Right? You know,it's you're never going to have
a client who says, "Well, I'mgetting a lot of calls, but I
just don't think it looksgreat." That doesn't happen.
You're absolutely going to haveclients that say, "I like the
way it looks." But you know,yeah, it's just you've got to
have it built to convert.
Paul Altobelli (10:11):
Yep.
Lauren Schenck (10:12):
S o you've outlined a whole lot of factors
to to drive somebody to closethe deal. So of those and maybe
even more what, what does bringin the most calls from website?
How can we pinpoint how to getthose calls made?
Paul Altobelli (10:28):
Three C's! I'm still, just from a commercial I
just saw, they're talking aboutthe three P's. I'm talking about
the three C's –content, content,and content. A lot of times we
see with websites, they'llthey'll have the traditional
sort of left to right navigationhome services about contact me.
(10:49):
And on the services page,they'll list all the things they
do. They do, they do AC repair,they do heating repair, they do
plumbing, they do indoor airflow, and they just every every
one of their services is listedas a bullet point. That's not
enough content. That's notenough content. If I am trying
to solve a task, if I have a ACthat's on the fritz, and it's 90
(11:12):
degrees, I am most likely typinginto Google AC repair. And then
wherever town on it, that's whatI'm typing into it if the
website has pages that arealigned with the different
things that their clients arelooking for, meaning there's a
page for every query in arealistic way, well, then that
website has a great chance ofconverting, that's what it needs
(11:33):
to do. It's all about content.
And the more pages of contentthat's added that are specific
to somebody's needs, the greaterchance of conversion in years
ago, you refer to it and pleasetalk about it and the lottery
ticket analogy.
Ian Messinger (11:50):
Yeah I forget what it was exactly. But
basically, you know, if you onlybuy, you know, four tickets,
what are your odds versus if youbuy 12 of them three times more
likely to win? Probably stillnot doing great. I've never won
the lottery, because maybe madefive bucks off a scratch off but
right, you know, especially ifit sounds like we've been using
HVAC as a sort of an exampleindustry here. You know, it can
(12:12):
be very easy, I think for asmall business owner to say
well, I do HVAC – heating, I doI do air conditioning, I do you
know all sorts of ventilationductwork. That's, that's right.
That's, that's what's on my youknow what I do page on my
services page. But you know,chances are I'm not looking,
depending on the time of year,I'm not looking for both heating
and air conditioning. You know,it's Listen, we're all in the
(12:34):
Philadelphia area. It wassummer. Last week, it was
summer, two days. You know, itwas it was 90 here, which is
insane for April and I turned myair conditioner on for the first
time this year. And you kind ofkeep your fingers crossed? Like
is it gonna kick over? If itdidn't? I would be searching for
as you point out, Paul, youknow, air conditioner repair.
And if I get to someone's site,and they've just got a laundry
(12:57):
list of Well, we do airconditioning heating Baba Baba,
Baba Baba. Yeah, I don't know,I'll probably keep looking for
someone that has a page or hassomething specific to exactly
what I'm looking for.
Paul Altobelli (13:08):
And let's be clear, you're not going to find
that website that just has alist of bullet points on a
certain page. Yep, just asimportant as it is for the user
to have these pages that areunique to what they're searching
for, and the test they want tosolve, it also helps with the
SEO. Google is looking for thosepages. Google is only going to
serve up the pages that bestmatch the query being asked,
(13:32):
right? So if I type in roofrepair, and the website is
optimized for a generalcontractor, Roof Repair is never
going to get found, are going tofind that business. There is a
page dedicated to roof repair.
Right, then there might be apage dedicated to Emergency Roof
Repair or Storm Roof, air or, orroof replacement. You know, so
(13:54):
there's no I just listed fivepages for what used to be a
bullet point. Just the bulletpoints. So bullet points are
great for a side of a truck. Ido all these things. Visit my
website for more info, visit thewebsite for more info, then you
get the detail you're lookingfor. Does anybody really read
all that content? Probably not.
(14:15):
But it for somebody that thatneeds that extra bit of content?
It's always good to have it?
Lauren Schenck (14:21):
Yeah. Well, that's an interesting point.
Because like you said before,they're going to this website to
complete a task. But it's alsoto answer a question, like you
said, do you do this specificthing? And I think sometimes the
business owner or anyone in anindustry just assumes people
know, oh, I do I do theirconditioning. That means this,
the repair, replacement all ofthis, but that doesn't always
(14:43):
translate to the common personwho's not in that industry. And
so then what do you do thisspecific thing? Is a very
important question that needs tobe answered for the consumer
that the business owner needs toinclude.
Paul Altobelli (14:55):
And the way you just frame that too is something
else that if you made thischoice means to your website, it
will have an impact for twoways. And that's FAQs,
frequently asked questions.
Because even if you're saying,Yes, I will fix your roof, there
might be questions specific tothat. Yes. And if you add them,
that's going to help seal thedeal, so to speak. So FAQs are a
(15:15):
great way of things that are agreat option of something you
can add to a web page that willhelp with the conversion.
Ian Messinger (15:24):
And that could be with the roofing example, that
could be something as simple asyou know, what's the best time
of year to replace my roof or,you know, just anything that
someone might search for. Andit's almost like as a business
owner, Lauren, to your point youkind of have to think of, and
this can be very challenging,you know, imagine you don't know
anything about your industry,but you have the problem that
(15:44):
your company can solve, youknow, what are those questions
that have come up? You know, isthere a different time of year
for replacing an asphalt roofversus a metal roof? Maybe there
is, I don't know. But that's allgreat content that you can
include that someone may searchfor, and it may get you a visit.
Paul Altobelli (16:02):
They get you a visit. And they may get you
somebody picking up the phone. Itell the story... heck, I may
have even said it last time Iwas on this podcast. But well,
my wife and I were looking for anew roof, it was pretty much
down to a couple of differentdifferent roofers when I was
flipping from site to site andcomparing notes and mentally and
one of them said somethingspecific to that when they clean
(16:23):
up, that they have this big sortof metallic drum that they roll
on the ground, and it picks upall the nails. And at the time,
we had little children. And thatwas important to my wife. If
they hadn't brought up somethinglike that. I wouldn't have
called them and hired him. Now,they may all have that they may
all have that sort of this aswell. But it's normal, just like
(16:45):
you said, well, everybody doesthat. How do you know that but
this guy called it out. And as aresult, we hired them.
Ian Messinger (16:51):
Yeah. And that goes back to what you're talking
about with on the websitehighlighting those USP. So it
doesn't have to be you know, 10%off or you know, free this, it
doesn't have to be anythingmonetary, it can just be right
we clean up after ourselves. Or,you know, the other example you
shared, we will return calls inan hour. Maybe that standard.
Maybe everybody does that inyour industry, maybe in your
(17:12):
neck of the woods. Everybodydoes that. But it doesn't mean
they all pointed out. And thatcan be a big, big deciding
factor in whether someone picksup the phone or goes back to the
search results.
Paul Altobelli (17:22):
Or they wear booties on their feet when they
are house and they don't trackin tracking dirt or that the the
technicians are all theirbackground checked in. And and
drug screened. You don't youknow, I'm letting somebody into
my home. You know, this isstating I mean, it's a simple
thing, maybe a very standardpractice. But the fact that
they're saying that out loud,that could help seal the deal
(17:45):
for me, and I'm going to callback.
Lauren Schenck (17:47):
Over communicating every simple
feature that they have, whichanswers the user's questions
before they even know they havethat question.
Paul Altobelli (17:58):
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is no, there's
no problem with putting morethan you need. There's overkill.
I mean, in terms of the theamount of content, we're talking
about content, content content,you want to make sure that it's
the necessary content specificto that topic. You don't
necessarily need to go on andstart talking about family
history and things of that. Sothere's other places that can go
(18:19):
learn about our history andlearn about this or see our our
Project Gallery or things likethat, you can link to other
places. But yeah, don't don't beafraid to add more than you
need.
Ian Messinger (18:30):
Well, and I'll just kind of springboard off of
that and put on my my Hibu hatfor a second here. I mean,
everything we've talked about upto this point, is part of our
consultation process. You know,this isn't stuff that you have
to know, as a small businessowner to do yourself, this isn't
stuff that Paul, you know, inyour position you've defined,
(18:50):
but it may not be what you get,when you actually engage with
us. This is all part of what wewalk a small business owner
through. And you know, if wesay, well, what sets you apart,
and they say, good enough, andI'm like everybody else, we
don't just go okay, likeeverybody else and move on, you
know, we really engage with youand, you know, try to kind of
impart this lesson during thatconsultation that well, that's,
(19:11):
you know, that may not be enoughto convince someone you know,
let's talk through this andfigure out you know, what we can
highlight on the website to makesure it's something where
you're, you're really gettingthe best bang for your buck.
Paul Altobelli (19:21):
But content itself also has to align with
with ways that traffic's findingyou and by traffic, meaning the
the potential customer, that youmight be finding you because of
an ad they saw in the flyer, orthat mailer that they got, they
might be finding you because ofa pay-per-click ad. If I do
search, they might be finding itbecause of a social something in
(19:43):
social. There's an ad inFacebook, and they expect that
battle has to align as well. AndI think that's one of the great
things I love about our companyis this solution sync, where it
all connects. Three years agowhen we first had this
conversation... there hasn'tbeen a lot that's changed three
years. 10 years ago, is a hugechange from 10 years ago to now.
(20:05):
And that 10 years ago, you couldjust have a website, you just
didn't need anything else. Now awebsite all by its lonesome
isn't enough, even if you checkoff all the things that I just
said, what makes a good website,you need, you have to assume
that people aren't just going togo to google and type something
in. They're going to, they'rekind of, (sorry, the cats
(20:26):
leaving), so it was my turn togo, they're gonna go on
Facebook, and they're gonna seesomething there, they're gonna
ask a friend, they're gonna getsomething in the mail, they're
gonna just not even type my orvisit my webpage through Google
organic search, they're going toclick the Google My Business
there, there's all sorts of waysthat people can visit and find
your website. So you have tospeak to all of them. Do that,
(20:47):
again, through those those bitsthat we talked about in the
beginning, specifically with thethe motivating factors, and then
that clean design that we talkedabout. That's important. It's
got to load fast, too. I'dmentioned that. As far as specs
go, I did some research beforewe started, you know, we're
looking at about 60% people arelooking and converting on phones
(21:07):
over over desktop, there's a lotof times we add things to
websites that because it looksgood on desktop, you can't
assume anyone's ever gonna seeothers things it has to adhere
to. This is in key to make yourwork.
Ian Messinger (21:21):
Right. Well, that's even assuming they're,
you know, searching on theirphone, you know, they may just
be picking up their phone andsaying, you know, hey, Google,
or Hey, Siri. And you know, atthat point, they're not even
seeing your website. But youknow, Google is crawling that
site looking for the answer toyou know what, I forget if I
mentioned this before, but lastlast Fourth of July weekend, our
air conditioner didn't turn on.
So is this mad dash to we needair conditioning repair not
(21:44):
nature experts, and specificallyair conditioner repair that
works holiday weekends? Thatmight be something I say, hey,
what air conditioning repairpeople are open Fourth of July
weekend, and Google is going tolook and if it can find that
information on your website,it's going to serve that up as
Hey, check these guys out. Youknow, I may never see the
website, I might just call rightfrom there, I might see some
(22:05):
other kind of listing and checkit out.
Paul Altobelli (22:08):
So yeah, something as simple as we never
close, call us anytime, day ornight, even at 3am. Something
that's simple. Could be thedifferentiator between going
with HVAC guy A or B.
Announcer (22:26):
You're listening to small business small talk
powered by Hibu. Hibu is thecountry's leading provider of
synchronized digital marketingfor small businesses, delivering
more visibility, more visitors,more leads and more customers.
Visit us today @hibu.com.
H-I-B-U. hibu.com.
Lauren Schenck (22:49):
And we're back talking about local business
websites with Paul Altobelli,Hibu's website product lead.
Ian Messinger (22:56):
You had mentioned a week or two ago that you were
looking at a bunch of HVACwebsites for small businesses
went across the country or...
Paul Altobelli (23:05):
I looked at I wanted to look to figure out
what is the secret sauce? Whatdo HVAC companies do that? We're
not doing it? I do. Because as Iwas saying earlier, you know,
websites are constantlyevolving. As part of my role, I
got to see what are the trends?
What are what are other peopledoing that we could be
incorporating into not only ourwebsite, but the consultation,
(23:25):
it could be questions that we'reasking.
So my criteria was... I added, Ityped in the words AC and then a
geographic area. So AC repair,Houston, AC repair, Baltimore,
AC repair, Portland, AC repair,St. Louis, etc, etc. And then
whatever showed up naturally,that's what I looked at the
(23:48):
general theme that I foundamongst the 100 sites that I
looked at, goes back to some ofthose points that that I brought
up in the beginning, they allhad a presentation that told me
congratulations, you've arrived,we can fix your air conditioner.
I came I visited, I was directedto a page that was specific to
(24:09):
AC repair. I didn't land on anyother page that had anything to
do with heating or services ingeneral, the pages that showed
up in Google were specific ACrepair. So that goes back to the
content content content, makesure you have a page dedicated
to that the pages themselvesthis is cool. I'm looking at my
notes to the pages themselvesweren't just air conditioning
(24:29):
services that include Bum BumBum Bum bum. They took air
conditioning services, and theybroke it into five pages. Most
of them did this not all of thembut most of them. There was a
general sort of air conditioningpage. We do air conditioning,
repair and maintenance andreplacement and we have a 24/7
emergency service. And then theywould link to individual pages
(24:50):
that were unique to those fourtopics. repair, maintenance,
replacement or installation andthen 24/7 and then they repeat
it this same sort of process orformula for heaters, they can
buy pages dedicated to heaters.
And that's something else that'scool too is you got to make sure
that and here's a little tip, asyou build your website, you're
(25:12):
using the words that peopletype, use the words people type.
So in some parts of the of thecountry it was furnace. So it
was 24/7, furnace repair andfurnace maintenance and furnace
replacement and furnace, etc.
Sounds like okay, well, that'sgood to know. So if I want to
build the perfect HVAC site, I'mgonna have those five pages,
(25:32):
there's 10 pages out of thegate. And then when it got into,
into plumbing, for thosecompanies that have plumbing,
well, there's a lot of differentplumbing, you know, and I'm just
gonna rattle off some of them,there were pages dedicated to
appliances and fixtures anddrain faucets and garbage
disposals and leak detection andreverse osmosis, whatever that
is. But they had a pagededicated to it. In some pages,
(25:56):
it's, you know, if there wasfive pages for air conditioning,
there were 20 Pages forplumbing, you got into indoor
air control, or air quality, youmight have 10 different pages
there. So they all have a lot ofcontent. They all have dedicated
pages for all the services thatthey provide. 68% of the
websites I looked at its help...
(26:18):
getting into that... offered afinance option. So sometimes
they go, "Oh, yeah, well, we dothat, yeah, I got a guy or we
got something." And they mayonly mention it as a bullet
point. But if they had adedicated page for that, think
about if I had, if I know thatmy AC is on the fritz, and I
gotta get x, that's seven,eight, ten, $12,000 out of the
(26:40):
gate. If they have a financeoption, I might hire them versus
somebody that doesn't have that.
Yeah.
Additionally, many of the sites,as we talked about earlier, had
FAQs to a lot of them, because Ihave different questions for
different things that they offerdifferent things that they do.
So that was that was somethingout of the gate that I feel like
okay, well, as far as Hibu goes,as far as how we're going about
(27:02):
building our websites, or forwhatever that future sort of
website may be. As our websiteevolves, I'm gonna make sure
that we're incorporating FAQquestions on all those specific
pages, they were some of the bigtakeaways from from looking at
all those sites,
Lauren Schenck (27:17):
It just sounds like you know, the key, just a
successful website is answeringall the, you know, customers
questions before they even pickup the phone.
Paul Altobelli (27:26):
And you might even be sort of qualifying them
out. Sure, looking for somewindows recently, and I found
this company and they kind ofchecked off all the boxes, and
then I realized they're probablyoverkill for what I'm looking
for. And I that was okay,because they wouldn't want me to
call if they knew thatultimately, I was gonna go now
you're too big for what I what Ineed, I need smaller.
Ian Messinger (27:47):
And that's, that's probably a caveat to how
many times I've talked about,you know, phone calls and leads,
it should be qualified phonecalls and leads, you know, you
don't want whoever whoever theperson is that, you know, takes
those incoming calls, whetherit's someone in a back office,
whether it's, you know, a lot oftimes with the clients that Hibu
has, it's it's the owner, it'sthe guy on the roof, and the
(28:08):
cell phones are getting, youknow, you don't want to spend 10
minutes on a call, let alonehalf an hour an hour, and then
realize this isn't the rightfit, you know, and and you could
have cleared that up by makingit clear on your website that,
you know, you don't offer thatservice or you don't, you know,
do financing or, you know,whatever the case may be.
Paul Altobelli (28:25):
You can do that too, as well. You don't have to
necessarily state it. But as faras website is optimized, you
don't want to just generally sayI cover all of New Jersey, when
in reality, I'm only coveringSouth Jersey. And then within
South Jersey, it might only betwo counties, yeah, within those
two counties, that really is thesix cities. So then with Hibu,
(28:49):
we have a product called LocalRanking, where we could focus on
those this very specificgeographic areas. And then
that's what's showing up in theSERP in the search engine result
page in Google. Additionally,when you get in a lot of people
that do pay-per-clickadvertising on their own. They
don't think to get that granularwith the geographic and where
(29:11):
they're focusing where that doesthat ad show up. I do offers
that I know I'm sending like acommercial for it. But but
that's that's how you do it.
That's how I do it. And that'swhy if you came to somebody that
knows what they're doing, if youcame to a company that gets it,
then you're gonna get the betterquality leads, you're gonna get
the leads, because the websiteis optimized with that campaign.
And more importantly, it's goingto be a qualified lead, because
(29:33):
it's in the area and it's forthe for the service that I'm
looking for. And that's what I'mcalling about.
Lauren Schenck (29:39):
Yeah, I think there can sometimes be a
tendency to want to hit thebroadside of the barn. That's
gonna bring in the most amountof leads, but you know, what
we've learned as being hyperspecific to what you do where
you serve, and what you offer isactually going to bring in the
most successful leads.
Ian Messinger (29:55):
This has been really good. I think we covered
a lot of ground that we didn'tthree years ago, so you know,
Despite, I think, all of ussaying like not much has
changed, like, it's same maybenot changed, but kind of
refined. And what's next threeyears from now is not what was
next three years ago. So I thinkwe've, I think we've covered a
lot here.
Paul Altobelli (30:14):
We are always learning and that that learning
is what Hibu does, it plays intothe the evolution of our
products, just yet anotherreason why somebody might want
to call up Hibu and say, "Hey,take care of me. I want to know
what your solution is."
Ian Messinger (30:28):
All right. Well, great, Paul, thank you again for
for joining us and sharing someof what's going on now and what
you're seeing and what's comingup next and sharing the good
word as it were with the localbusinesses who are who are
listening to this, and to all ofyou they're listening, be sure
to visit hibu.com. See how Hibucan build you an effective
digital marketing solution thatgenerates leads and customers
(30:51):
and delivers the kind of resultsyou want.
If you liked what you heard onthis episode, be sure to
subscribe. And please if you canleave us review let us know what
you'd like to hear next, whatmakes sense what you want us to
elaborate on? It really doeshelp. Until next time, this is
Small Business Small Talk... out
Announcer (31:12):
Thanks for listening to this episode of Small
Business Small Talk powered byHibu. Hibu is a leading provider
of synchronized digitalmarketing for small businesses
across America. With Hibu youget all the digital marketing
your business needs, all from asingle provider all working
together to maximize results,visit us today @hibu.com.
H-I-B-U. hibu.com.
Hi, I'm in Messinger with my co host,
Lauren Schenck (00:05):
Actually, it's Lauren Schenck now.
Ian Messinger (00:07):
Oh, yes, it is.
Congratulations.
Thanks for joining us for thisepisode of Small Business Small
Talk powered by Hibu. At Hibu,our goal is to help local
businesses across Americasucceed and grow with Digital
Marketing. Today, we're talkingwith Paul Altobelli, Hibu's
Website Product Lead. Threeyears ago, when we launched
Small Business Small Talk, Paulwas actually our very first
(00:29):
guest. Thanks for coming back.
Paul Altobelli (00:30):
Thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Ian Messinger (00:33):
Now remind everybody again, as I almost
choke on my coffee, what you doat Hibu.
Paul Altobelli (00:40):
As the as the website product lead, I'm pretty
much responsible for to maintainthe integrity of what we've
Lauren Blackford.
defined as the website. Websitehas certain rules in terms of
how we go about building it. AndI define those rules. And then I
work with the different teams,our process teams, our training
teams, our production teams, ourQA teams, sales teams, GTM - Go
(01:03):
To Market – teams, to make surethat they're all aligned. This
is what we're building, this ishow we build it.
Additionally, I'll stay up withthe latest trends, I look at
existing sites, I figure outways that we can improve our
websites all the time. Websites,as you've heard me both say many
times are never completed,they're abandoned. As far as the
(01:24):
Hibu website goes, that applies.
I'm just not building oneproduct, and then sticking with
it and setting it and forgettingit. We're constantly evolving
our product to make sure thatwe're meeting the demands of the
marketplace. So it's it's notthe same, you know, the same
flavor it was three years ago,five years ago, it's it's
something better, it's somethingcurrent, it's, it's, it's always
(01:45):
changing. There's alwayssomething new with what we're
trying to achieve here.
Before we get started, though, Ijust want to say, mazel tov to
Lauren. I both... I've workedwith Lauren, and Ian at various
different times in the 15 yearsthat I've been with the company.
Lauren Schenck (02:03):
So, Paul, when when you're looking at a local
business' website, and whenyou're looking at the Hibu
websites, and the product thatyou create, what, what makes a
good website?
Paul Altobelli (02:14):
Before I answer that, let's just let's just
state that the rules by which Isort of think about that has to
do with the fact that I want thewebsite out of the gate to make
sure. And to convince somebodyto stay on a website longer than
seven seconds, we don't have alot of time. A website doesn't
have a lot of time to convincesomebody to stay. They... if I
don't see what I want to seeimmediately on my phone, which
(02:37):
I'll be referencing here onlater today.... I'm off
So as far as what I what I thinkmakes a good website out of the
somewhere else.
gate, we're looking for thingsthat establish credibility,
right out of the gate now to seethat. And that includes things
like I call them trust signals.
So some sort of badges orsomething that that addresses,
(02:57):
affiliations and licenses andthings of that sort awards,
that's a good one that'sestablishing that I've arrived
in the right that a good place.
I'm looking for testimonials andreviews. If I'm looking at two
websites, identical in everyway, except this one has 500
(03:18):
reviews, and it's saying we haveover 500 reviews, check out our
reviews, here's our stars. Andthis one has none. I'm going
with this guy every time. Mywife looks at reviews for
everything, no matter what.
She's like, "Oh, I'm not I'mgonna make that cake once I see
reviews." That's important.
The website has to beprofessionally designed. I know
there's a lot of websites outthere that will convert no
(03:41):
matter what it looks like. Butas far as capturing my attention
and maintaining my attentionlonger than seven seconds, I
want to see something that lookslike a professional company. And
two things that I look forbecause it's the first two
things you probably are lookingat yourself is the logo and
photography. A lot of times witheverything matches, everything
(04:02):
looks great, except for thatlogo, it's all blurry. Or it's
just a text based logo. I'mgoing to be spending a lot of
money with you. And I want tomake sure that that you've
checked off everything on yourend if you're if you don't have
enough time to make sure yourlogo isn't blurry Well then how
do I know you're going to makesure that you're styling my my
(04:23):
air conditioner correctly,that's important. And then
photos especially if thebusiness is something like a
landscaper or something alongthose lines. If they don't have
good photography on their realphotography, you can get away
with stock photography based onin certain scenarios. But if you
can have real photos, you know,we talked about that trust thing
right and testimonials orreviews, if you can put before
(04:44):
and after photos is fantastictrust and I'm looking at that
and I'm going to immediately getsucked in.
Additionally, I'm looking forthings like ways that the
business is differentiatingitself from competitors. So, at
Hibu we call this motivatingfactors – some people will refer
to them as unique sellingpoints. We want to see right out
(05:04):
of the gate - why should I hireyou? And for our example, here,
I'm going to go with this ideathat it is some sort of a home
services provider, like aplumber, or an electrician, a
landscaper. So right out of thegate, I want to see things that
are going to tell me how much isgoing to cause me to hire you to
fix my AC. So things like dothey have coupons? Do they have
(05:25):
specials? Do they have financingoptions? That has to be
addressed? How much is it goingto cost me? I want to look at to
see if how fast you can help mefix my problem? Is it 24/7
emergency services to the handlefully stocked truck, things of
that nature? How quickly willthey call you back? We promise
you we're gonna call you backwithin one hour. That's that's
(05:48):
really key. That's good to makethat phone ring. Because a lot
of us all of us here have dealtwith contractors that will call
you back right away. nothingmore frustrating than getting
some feedback. Just FYI, wemight have a guest joining us.
Ian Messinger (06:02):
Okay, what do you mean?
Paul Altobelli (06:05):
That's Tony, just in case Tony wants to get
on.
Other things, I'm looking for isOn-page SEO. It isn't something
that isn't necessarily in yourface. There's this code that
goes on behind the site, andthat's helping the search
engines find the site. That'swhat I look for. Did they, have
they, have they included theright title tags and meta
description? Or the key or theheadlines? Do they include
(06:29):
keyword terms? Does it makesense that you just say, Welcome
to our website? Or does it say,Cherry Hill? Where I live.
Cherry Hill plumbing services24/7? How about this: 24/7
Plumbing Services in Cherry Hill– perfect headline. It's good
for both the user for me and forthe search engines.
I want to know if it's a fastloading site, if it's a real
(06:51):
slow site on my phone, that's abad thing. If it's fast loading,
that's a good sign.
And then finally, I want to makesure that the calls to action on
the website align with how toget in touch with them. So if
the website is constantly sayingthings like, call us today, call
us today, call us today, and Ican't find the phone number.
Then good luck.
(07:15):
I don't want to see things thata lot of times I'll see with
websites that have multiplephone numbers in the header,
which one should I call if it'sclear, if it's clean, if I know
if it's telling me exactly whatto do? That's a good one. So all
those factors come into play,ultimately making me stay on
that website longer than sevenseconds. It's interesting to me,
because everything you justsaid. And I mean, this in a good
(07:37):
way is geared toward thinking ofthe website and for us building
websites with an eye towardbeing transactional. You know,
you're not saying it's got tolook great. And it's got to
impress your your colleagues andyour competitors. And it should
look like you know, whateveramazon.com or something it's all
(07:57):
about here are the things Ineed, as a consumer to arrive on
your website with the intentionof hiring you and doing business
with you.
Lauren, it goes back to theheart of the question, right?
What makes a good small businesswebsite? Well, assuming you're
using the website to drivebusiness and not just have a
website for fun, this is what itshould have to power it to drive
(08:21):
calls to drive leads to get aresponse. I think that's a great
point. And because businessowners are always told you have
to have a website, you have tohave a website. But they don't
always know what to do with thatwebsite. And I think this is
great information to it's todrive, you know, closing the
sale, people into the shop.
People go to web pages, peoplego to the internet, to solve a
(08:41):
task – or visiting a website,they're doing whatever that
query might be. I'm coming to adestination on the internet to
solve a task. It could be assimple as I want to look at cat
videos.
(He is a Tony.) I want to pay abill, I want to listen to music.
I want to find a plumber, I wantto find an electrician, I want
(09:04):
to find somebody to fix my airconditioner because it's 90
degrees. I want to solve a task.
The easier that web page, thatwebsite, that company makes it
to solve all the things I needin my head to say, Yeah, you're
the guy, you're solving my task,then I'm gonna call him up. It's
all about conversions. You wantto look good? Do you want to
make money? And the idea here,nobody's ever gonna say I just
(09:25):
want to look good. I mean, it'svery rare. They always have a
lot of combination of the two.
But if you have a professionalsite with good pictures, a good
logo, and it's laid out in a waythat makes sense for the user,
well, then it's going to lookgood. That's good. A lot of
times we have clients or I'veseen websites where they're
trying to look good, andunnecessarily try to get the
(09:48):
phone to ring, and then theywonder why aren't I getting any
calls? Well, I don't know.
Because you didn't put the phone
Ian Messinger (09:53):
Right. Yeah. And it's not really a chicken or the
number up in the right handcorner,
egg scenario. Right? You know,it's you're never going to have
a client who says, "Well, I'mgetting a lot of calls, but I
just don't think it looksgreat." That doesn't happen.
You're absolutely going to haveclients that say, "I like the
way it looks." But you know,yeah, it's just you've got to
have it built to convert.
Paul Altobelli (10:11):
Yep.
Lauren Schenck (10:12):
S o you've outlined a whole lot of factors
to to drive somebody to closethe deal. So of those and maybe
even more what, what does bringin the most calls from website?
How can we pinpoint how to getthose calls made?
Paul Altobelli (10:28):
Three C's! I'm still, just from a commercial I
just saw, they're talking aboutthe three P's. I'm talking about
the three C's –content, content,and content. A lot of times we
see with websites, they'llthey'll have the traditional
sort of left to right navigationhome services about contact me.
(10:49):
And on the services page,they'll list all the things they
do. They do, they do AC repair,they do heating repair, they do
plumbing, they do indoor airflow, and they just every every
one of their services is listedas a bullet point. That's not
enough content. That's notenough content. If I am trying
to solve a task, if I have a ACthat's on the fritz, and it's 90
(11:12):
degrees, I am most likely typinginto Google AC repair. And then
wherever town on it, that's whatI'm typing into it if the
website has pages that arealigned with the different
things that their clients arelooking for, meaning there's a
page for every query in arealistic way, well, then that
website has a great chance ofconverting, that's what it needs
(11:33):
to do. It's all about content.
And the more pages of contentthat's added that are specific
to somebody's needs, the greaterchance of conversion in years
ago, you refer to it and pleasetalk about it and the lottery
ticket analogy.
Ian Messinger (11:50):
Yeah I forget what it was exactly. But
basically, you know, if you onlybuy, you know, four tickets,
what are your odds versus if youbuy 12 of them three times more
likely to win? Probably stillnot doing great. I've never won
the lottery, because maybe madefive bucks off a scratch off but
right, you know, especially ifit sounds like we've been using
HVAC as a sort of an exampleindustry here. You know, it can
(12:12):
be very easy, I think for asmall business owner to say
well, I do HVAC – heating, I doI do air conditioning, I do you
know all sorts of ventilationductwork. That's, that's right.
That's, that's what's on my youknow what I do page on my
services page. But you know,chances are I'm not looking,
depending on the time of year,I'm not looking for both heating
and air conditioning. You know,it's Listen, we're all in the
(12:34):
Philadelphia area. It wassummer. Last week, it was
summer, two days. You know, itwas it was 90 here, which is
insane for April and I turned myair conditioner on for the first
time this year. And you kind ofkeep your fingers crossed? Like
is it gonna kick over? If itdidn't? I would be searching for
as you point out, Paul, youknow, air conditioner repair.
And if I get to someone's site,and they've just got a laundry
(12:57):
list of Well, we do airconditioning heating Baba Baba,
Baba Baba. Yeah, I don't know,I'll probably keep looking for
someone that has a page or hassomething specific to exactly
what I'm looking for.
Paul Altobelli (13:08):
And let's be clear, you're not going to find
that website that just has alist of bullet points on a
certain page. Yep, just asimportant as it is for the user
to have these pages that areunique to what they're searching
for, and the test they want tosolve, it also helps with the
SEO. Google is looking for thosepages. Google is only going to
serve up the pages that bestmatch the query being asked,
(13:32):
right? So if I type in roofrepair, and the website is
optimized for a generalcontractor, Roof Repair is never
going to get found, are going tofind that business. There is a
page dedicated to roof repair.
Right, then there might be apage dedicated to Emergency Roof
Repair or Storm Roof, air or, orroof replacement. You know, so
(13:54):
there's no I just listed fivepages for what used to be a
bullet point. Just the bulletpoints. So bullet points are
great for a side of a truck. Ido all these things. Visit my
website for more info, visit thewebsite for more info, then you
get the detail you're lookingfor. Does anybody really read
all that content? Probably not.
(14:15):
But it for somebody that thatneeds that extra bit of content?
It's always good to have it?
Lauren Schenck (14:21):
Yeah. Well, that's an interesting point.
Because like you said before,they're going to this website to
complete a task. But it's alsoto answer a question, like you
said, do you do this specificthing? And I think sometimes the
business owner or anyone in anindustry just assumes people
know, oh, I do I do theirconditioning. That means this,
the repair, replacement all ofthis, but that doesn't always
(14:43):
translate to the common personwho's not in that industry. And
so then what do you do thisspecific thing? Is a very
important question that needs tobe answered for the consumer
that the business owner needs toinclude.
Paul Altobelli (14:55):
And the way you just frame that too is something
else that if you made thischoice means to your website, it
will have an impact for twoways. And that's FAQs,
frequently asked questions.
Because even if you're saying,Yes, I will fix your roof, there
might be questions specific tothat. Yes. And if you add them,
that's going to help seal thedeal, so to speak. So FAQs are a
(15:15):
great way of things that are agreat option of something you
can add to a web page that willhelp with the conversion.
Ian Messinger (15:24):
And that could be with the roofing example, that
could be something as simple asyou know, what's the best time
of year to replace my roof or,you know, just anything that
someone might search for. Andit's almost like as a business
owner, Lauren, to your point youkind of have to think of, and
this can be very challenging,you know, imagine you don't know
anything about your industry,but you have the problem that
(15:44):
your company can solve, youknow, what are those questions
that have come up? You know, isthere a different time of year
for replacing an asphalt roofversus a metal roof? Maybe there
is, I don't know. But that's allgreat content that you can
include that someone may searchfor, and it may get you a visit.
Paul Altobelli (16:02):
They get you a visit. And they may get you
somebody picking up the phone. Itell the story... heck, I may
have even said it last time Iwas on this podcast. But well,
my wife and I were looking for anew roof, it was pretty much
down to a couple of differentdifferent roofers when I was
flipping from site to site andcomparing notes and mentally and
one of them said somethingspecific to that when they clean
(16:23):
up, that they have this big sortof metallic drum that they roll
on the ground, and it picks upall the nails. And at the time,
we had little children. And thatwas important to my wife. If
they hadn't brought up somethinglike that. I wouldn't have
called them and hired him. Now,they may all have that they may
all have that sort of this aswell. But it's normal, just like
(16:45):
you said, well, everybody doesthat. How do you know that but
this guy called it out. And as aresult, we hired them.
Ian Messinger (16:51):
Yeah. And that goes back to what you're talking
about with on the websitehighlighting those USP. So it
doesn't have to be you know, 10%off or you know, free this, it
doesn't have to be anythingmonetary, it can just be right
we clean up after ourselves. Or,you know, the other example you
shared, we will return calls inan hour. Maybe that standard.
Maybe everybody does that inyour industry, maybe in your
(17:12):
neck of the woods. Everybodydoes that. But it doesn't mean
they all pointed out. And thatcan be a big, big deciding
factor in whether someone picksup the phone or goes back to the
search results.
Paul Altobelli (17:22):
Or they wear booties on their feet when they
are house and they don't trackin tracking dirt or that the the
technicians are all theirbackground checked in. And and
drug screened. You don't youknow, I'm letting somebody into
my home. You know, this isstating I mean, it's a simple
thing, maybe a very standardpractice. But the fact that
they're saying that out loud,that could help seal the deal
(17:45):
for me, and I'm going to callback.
Lauren Schenck (17:47):
Over communicating every simple
feature that they have, whichanswers the user's questions
before they even know they havethat question.
Paul Altobelli (17:58):
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it is no, there's
no problem with putting morethan you need. There's overkill.
I mean, in terms of the theamount of content, we're talking
about content, content content,you want to make sure that it's
the necessary content specificto that topic. You don't
necessarily need to go on andstart talking about family
history and things of that. Sothere's other places that can go
(18:19):
learn about our history andlearn about this or see our our
Project Gallery or things likethat, you can link to other
places. But yeah, don't don't beafraid to add more than you
need.
Ian Messinger (18:30):
Well, and I'll just kind of springboard off of
that and put on my my Hibu hatfor a second here. I mean,
everything we've talked about upto this point, is part of our
consultation process. You know,this isn't stuff that you have
to know, as a small businessowner to do yourself, this isn't
stuff that Paul, you know, inyour position you've defined,
(18:50):
but it may not be what you get,when you actually engage with
us. This is all part of what wewalk a small business owner
through. And you know, if wesay, well, what sets you apart,
and they say, good enough, andI'm like everybody else, we
don't just go okay, likeeverybody else and move on, you
know, we really engage with youand, you know, try to kind of
impart this lesson during thatconsultation that well, that's,
(19:11):
you know, that may not be enoughto convince someone you know,
let's talk through this andfigure out you know, what we can
highlight on the website to makesure it's something where
you're, you're really gettingthe best bang for your buck.
Paul Altobelli (19:21):
But content itself also has to align with
with ways that traffic's findingyou and by traffic, meaning the
the potential customer, that youmight be finding you because of
an ad they saw in the flyer, orthat mailer that they got, they
might be finding you because ofa pay-per-click ad. If I do
search, they might be finding itbecause of a social something in
(19:43):
social. There's an ad inFacebook, and they expect that
battle has to align as well. AndI think that's one of the great
things I love about our companyis this solution sync, where it
all connects. Three years agowhen we first had this
conversation... there hasn'tbeen a lot that's changed three
years. 10 years ago, is a hugechange from 10 years ago to now.
(20:05):
And that 10 years ago, you couldjust have a website, you just
didn't need anything else. Now awebsite all by its lonesome
isn't enough, even if you checkoff all the things that I just
said, what makes a good website,you need, you have to assume
that people aren't just going togo to google and type something
in. They're going to, they'rekind of, (sorry, the cats
(20:26):
leaving), so it was my turn togo, they're gonna go on
Facebook, and they're gonna seesomething there, they're gonna
ask a friend, they're gonna getsomething in the mail, they're
gonna just not even type my orvisit my webpage through Google
organic search, they're going toclick the Google My Business
there, there's all sorts of waysthat people can visit and find
your website. So you have tospeak to all of them. Do that,
(20:47):
again, through those those bitsthat we talked about in the
beginning, specifically with thethe motivating factors, and then
that clean design that we talkedabout. That's important. It's
got to load fast, too. I'dmentioned that. As far as specs
go, I did some research beforewe started, you know, we're
looking at about 60% people arelooking and converting on phones
(21:07):
over over desktop, there's a lotof times we add things to
websites that because it looksgood on desktop, you can't
assume anyone's ever gonna seeothers things it has to adhere
to. This is in key to make yourwork.
Ian Messinger (21:21):
Right. Well, that's even assuming they're,
you know, searching on theirphone, you know, they may just
be picking up their phone andsaying, you know, hey, Google,
or Hey, Siri. And you know, atthat point, they're not even
seeing your website. But youknow, Google is crawling that
site looking for the answer toyou know what, I forget if I
mentioned this before, but lastlast Fourth of July weekend, our
air conditioner didn't turn on.
So is this mad dash to we needair conditioning repair not
(21:44):
nature experts, and specificallyair conditioner repair that
works holiday weekends? Thatmight be something I say, hey,
what air conditioning repairpeople are open Fourth of July
weekend, and Google is going tolook and if it can find that
information on your website,it's going to serve that up as
Hey, check these guys out. Youknow, I may never see the
website, I might just call rightfrom there, I might see some
(22:05):
other kind of listing and checkit out.
Paul Altobelli (22:08):
So yeah, something as simple as we never
close, call us anytime, day ornight, even at 3am. Something
that's simple. Could be thedifferentiator between going
with HVAC guy A or B.
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Lauren Schenck (22:49):
And we're back talking about local business
websites with Paul Altobelli,Hibu's website product lead.
Ian Messinger (22:56):
You had mentioned a week or two ago that you were
looking at a bunch of HVACwebsites for small businesses
went across the country or...
Paul Altobelli (23:05):
I looked at I wanted to look to figure out
what is the secret sauce? Whatdo HVAC companies do that? We're
not doing it? I do. Because as Iwas saying earlier, you know,
websites are constantlyevolving. As part of my role, I
got to see what are the trends?
What are what are other peopledoing that we could be
incorporating into not only ourwebsite, but the consultation,
(23:25):
it could be questions that we'reasking.
So my criteria was... I added, Ityped in the words AC and then a
geographic area. So AC repair,Houston, AC repair, Baltimore,
AC repair, Portland, AC repair,St. Louis, etc, etc. And then
whatever showed up naturally,that's what I looked at the
(23:48):
general theme that I foundamongst the 100 sites that I
looked at, goes back to some ofthose points that that I brought
up in the beginning, they allhad a presentation that told me
congratulations, you've arrived,we can fix your air conditioner.
I came I visited, I was directedto a page that was specific to
(24:09):
AC repair. I didn't land on anyother page that had anything to
do with heating or services ingeneral, the pages that showed
up in Google were specific ACrepair. So that goes back to the
content content content, makesure you have a page dedicated
to that the pages themselvesthis is cool. I'm looking at my
notes to the pages themselvesweren't just air conditioning
(24:29):
services that include Bum BumBum Bum bum. They took air
conditioning services, and theybroke it into five pages. Most
of them did this not all of thembut most of them. There was a
general sort of air conditioningpage. We do air conditioning,
repair and maintenance andreplacement and we have a 24/7
emergency service. And then theywould link to individual pages
(24:50):
that were unique to those fourtopics. repair, maintenance,
replacement or installation andthen 24/7 and then they repeat
it this same sort of process orformula for heaters, they can
buy pages dedicated to heaters.
And that's something else that'scool too is you got to make sure
that and here's a little tip, asyou build your website, you're
(25:12):
using the words that peopletype, use the words people type.
So in some parts of the of thecountry it was furnace. So it
was 24/7, furnace repair andfurnace maintenance and furnace
replacement and furnace, etc.
Sounds like okay, well, that'sgood to know. So if I want to
build the perfect HVAC site, I'mgonna have those five pages,
(25:32):
there's 10 pages out of thegate. And then when it got into,
into plumbing, for thosecompanies that have plumbing,
well, there's a lot of differentplumbing, you know, and I'm just
gonna rattle off some of them,there were pages dedicated to
appliances and fixtures anddrain faucets and garbage
disposals and leak detection andreverse osmosis, whatever that
is. But they had a pagededicated to it. In some pages,
(25:56):
it's, you know, if there wasfive pages for air conditioning,
there were 20 Pages forplumbing, you got into indoor
air control, or air quality, youmight have 10 different pages
there. So they all have a lot ofcontent. They all have dedicated
pages for all the services thatthey provide. 68% of the
websites I looked at its help...
(26:18):
getting into that... offered afinance option. So sometimes
they go, "Oh, yeah, well, we dothat, yeah, I got a guy or we
got something." And they mayonly mention it as a bullet
point. But if they had adedicated page for that, think
about if I had, if I know thatmy AC is on the fritz, and I
gotta get x, that's seven,eight, ten, $12,000 out of the
(26:40):
gate. If they have a financeoption, I might hire them versus
somebody that doesn't have that.
Yeah.
Additionally, many of the sites,as we talked about earlier, had
FAQs to a lot of them, because Ihave different questions for
different things that they offerdifferent things that they do.
So that was that was somethingout of the gate that I feel like
okay, well, as far as Hibu goes,as far as how we're going about
(27:02):
building our websites, or forwhatever that future sort of
website may be. As our websiteevolves, I'm gonna make sure
that we're incorporating FAQquestions on all those specific
pages, they were some of the bigtakeaways from from looking at
all those sites,
Lauren Schenck (27:17):
It just sounds like you know, the key, just a
successful website is answeringall the, you know, customers
questions before they even pickup the phone.
Paul Altobelli (27:26):
And you might even be sort of qualifying them
out. Sure, looking for somewindows recently, and I found
this company and they kind ofchecked off all the boxes, and
then I realized they're probablyoverkill for what I'm looking
for. And I that was okay,because they wouldn't want me to
call if they knew thatultimately, I was gonna go now
you're too big for what I what Ineed, I need smaller.
Ian Messinger (27:47):
And that's, that's probably a caveat to how
many times I've talked about,you know, phone calls and leads,
it should be qualified phonecalls and leads, you know, you
don't want whoever whoever theperson is that, you know, takes
those incoming calls, whetherit's someone in a back office,
whether it's, you know, a lot oftimes with the clients that Hibu
has, it's it's the owner, it'sthe guy on the roof, and the
(28:08):
cell phones are getting, youknow, you don't want to spend 10
minutes on a call, let alonehalf an hour an hour, and then
realize this isn't the rightfit, you know, and and you could
have cleared that up by makingit clear on your website that,
you know, you don't offer thatservice or you don't, you know,
do financing or, you know,whatever the case may be.
Paul Altobelli (28:25):
You can do that too, as well. You don't have to
necessarily state it. But as faras website is optimized, you
don't want to just generally sayI cover all of New Jersey, when
in reality, I'm only coveringSouth Jersey. And then within
South Jersey, it might only betwo counties, yeah, within those
two counties, that really is thesix cities. So then with Hibu,
(28:49):
we have a product called LocalRanking, where we could focus on
those this very specificgeographic areas. And then
that's what's showing up in theSERP in the search engine result
page in Google. Additionally,when you get in a lot of people
that do pay-per-clickadvertising on their own. They
don't think to get that granularwith the geographic and where
(29:11):
they're focusing where that doesthat ad show up. I do offers
that I know I'm sending like acommercial for it. But but
that's that's how you do it.
That's how I do it. And that'swhy if you came to somebody that
knows what they're doing, if youcame to a company that gets it,
then you're gonna get the betterquality leads, you're gonna get
the leads, because the websiteis optimized with that campaign.
And more importantly, it's goingto be a qualified lead, because
(29:33):
it's in the area and it's forthe for the service that I'm
looking for. And that's what I'mcalling about.
Lauren Schenck (29:39):
Yeah, I think there can sometimes be a
tendency to want to hit thebroadside of the barn. That's
gonna bring in the most amountof leads, but you know, what
we've learned as being hyperspecific to what you do where
you serve, and what you offer isactually going to bring in the
most successful leads.
Ian Messinger (29:55):
This has been really good. I think we covered
a lot of ground that we didn'tthree years ago, so you know,
Despite, I think, all of ussaying like not much has
changed, like, it's same maybenot changed, but kind of
refined. And what's next threeyears from now is not what was
next three years ago. So I thinkwe've, I think we've covered a
lot here.
Paul Altobelli (30:14):
We are always learning and that that learning
is what Hibu does, it plays intothe the evolution of our
products, just yet anotherreason why somebody might want
to call up Hibu and say, "Hey,take care of me. I want to know
what your solution is."
Ian Messinger (30:28):
All right. Well, great, Paul, thank you again for
for joining us and sharing someof what's going on now and what
you're seeing and what's comingup next and sharing the good
word as it were with the localbusinesses who are who are
listening to this, and to all ofyou they're listening, be sure
to visit hibu.com. See how Hibucan build you an effective
digital marketing solution thatgenerates leads and customers
(30:51):
and delivers the kind of resultsyou want.
If you liked what you heard onthis episode, be sure to
subscribe. And please if you canleave us review let us know what
you'd like to hear next, whatmakes sense what you want us to
elaborate on? It really doeshelp. Until next time, this is
Small Business Small Talk... out
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Business Small Talk powered byHibu. Hibu is a leading provider
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