Article By Bogdan Krstic
Fact-checked and written by a human ✔️
If you’re on this page, you’re probably wondering how to come up with a good water damage marketing strategy.
In this post, we’re going to show you 5 digital marketing strategies you can use to start generating water damage leads online – today.
Let’s go!
1. Local Services Ads
The strategy on our list is local service ads, LSAs for short. This is one of the best – and at the same time, easiest – digital marketing strategies for restoration businesses.
They show up at the top of the Google search results for most local keywords.
LSAs are incredibly convenient both for advertisers and users. The user has a chance to tell exactly what job he needs and where he needs done.
And the advertiser only pays upon receiving that information, which means that you only pay upon receiving a qualified lead.
LSAs enable you to easily build confidence with the user because of the Google Guaranteed program.
Google Guaranteed is a certification program where Google goes through your business and verifies your legitimacy.
If the user is unhappy with your service, and your business is Google Guaranteed, then Google may or may not repay up to $2,000 in compensation costs to that user.
Why Use LSAs
First of all, LSAs appear right above the normal text ads in Google. Once a customer clicks on your LSA, they will view your business profile and you will only pay for verified leads.
The customer can either call you or message you and can view all of your leads inside one dashboard.
The additional information you can see is their full name, job type required, location, and when do they need the job completed (in the next three days, before the next week, etc)
Emergency services are generally easier to sell through LSAs. However, customers need their job done right at the moment of calling you. Make sure you follow up with the customer quickly.
Note that LSAs may not be available in your area. Google is rapidly expanding on these ads, adding them to new locations.
So if LSAs aren’t available in your area, they probably will be very, very soon.
Okay, let’s continue.
2. Call-only ads
Call ads are a type of ads that show up in Google search results and enable users to directly call a business by simply clicking on their ad.
Call ads can only be seen on mobile devices and are great for emergency services.
Why Use Call-only Ads
These ads remove one step from the conversion process – visiting your website.
Usually, the conversion process involves a user seeing an ad, clicking on an ad, landing on your website, and then calling your business. Call adds remove the third step, allowing people to get in touch with you more quickly.
In today’s world, the average person’s attention span is pretty low – about five to six seconds.
That’s why you want to make it as fast and easy as possible for the user to reach you.
3. Text ads
While LSAs and call ads are incredibly useful, that doesn’t mean that text ads don’t have their place.
These ads show up in Google as well when users type relevant keywords like water damage restoration, mold removal, etc.
With text ads, not only can you display your website and business information, but you can also display your location, phone number (people can call you directly from text ads as well by tapping on the phone number on mobile), special offers, etc.
To display this information, you need to use so-called Google Ads Extensions.
Why Use Text Ads
While call-only ads are incredibly convenient for some users, other people need more information.
Water and fire damage repair are costly services, people need to trust you and be convinced that you will do their job well.
Having an ad that directs to your website enables a user to learn more about your business and then call you afterward.
This is all up for testing. You need to test different things and see what works best for you.
Like what you see? Book a free 30-minute consultation call!
4. Create listings on directory sites
The fourth strategy on our list is to create listings on websites like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and others.
These sites have millions of visitors every single month. And most of these visitors are looking for services like yours.
These directories are free to sign up for, but they can take up a lot of time.
This is why you should outsource this process. It’s pretty cheap to do so.
Why Create Listings
Listings could bring numerous positive effects to your business.
You can use traffic Yelp and other directories are already getting. So if your website is currently not getting any traffic, you can create listings and display information like your phone number, email, and website.
Listings can also help your website rank higher in Google.
Now, they will not have the same effect as, for example, a link from a big website could have but they definitely will help.
4.1 Google My Business
Google My Business, GMB for short, is a free service offered by Google that allows you to list your business information in form of a listing.
Your listing would show up for searches relevant to your business.
You can list your website, location, phone number, reviews, and more.
Your GMB listing has a chance of becoming a very powerful asset for your business.
If you set it up right and get enough reviews, your listing will eventually appear in the search results.
If you have a GMB listing that ranks high in the search results, the website associated with that listing will also rank higher.
So make sure to set up GMB. It’s free, it’s easy, and it doesn’t take a lot of time.
5. Rank locally
We’ve mentioned ranking high in the search results numerous times throughout this article. Let’s get a bit deeper into that now, shall we?
Why SEO
The reason why you should include SEO – Search Engine Optimization, used for ranking websites higher in search engines – in your strategy is that once you rank, you’ll start receiving free leads from search engines.
This is how it works. You have 3 GMB results showing up right below text ads and then 10 normal results below.
If you rank both your GMB listing and your website on page one, you’re taking up 2 out of 13 spots. Note that 25% of people click on the first normal organic result alone.
The focus here is ranking for search results in your local area, not nationally.
Even if you own a national brand, you should have a page for every local area you’re targeting – mold removal San Diego, mold removal San Francisco, etc.
Your goal shouldn’t be to rank for just “mold removal” because it’s both too generic and too difficult – it may take a very long time because you’re competing with the biggest brands from your industry (and health industry in general) and government websites.
So go after keywords like water damage restoration Brooklyn, mold removal Washington DC, etc.
Note that while ranking on page one sounds great, it’s very difficult, especially in bigger cities. It takes a lot of work and patience.
If you combine your ranking strategy with LSAs and call or text ads, you can build a powerful marketing system that could seriously increase the volume of leads your business is getting.
Ninja Tip:
Use as much of Google’s assets as possible.
Create a GMB profile, run ads on their platform, and optimize your website for organic results.
The more of Google’s assets you use, and if use them the right way, the more you will be rewarded in the end.
Your website will rank higher, you will get cheaper leads from ads, etc.
That’s it! Hope this article was helpful. In case you need more help, make sure to schedule a free 30-minute consultation call with us by clicking the button below.
Bogdan is a restoration SEO expert with over 3 years of experience helping businesses grow. He is passionate about the restoration niche because of how underserved it is, and RepairSprout is the business he started and works on with joy every day. When he is not helping restoration companies grow, he works out, takes long walks, and watches Suits, which is completely ironic given how rarely he dresses up in a suit himself.