So, you’re looking to build a site for your pest control business. That’s a good idea, as it will help people discover and contact you at their convenience, which means more jobs for you.
Now you just have to decide what to put on this site, from information to pictures, and how much information you need. It may be a bit overwhelming at first. Hopefully, this article will help you figure out what you need and stay organized.
You’ll learn the basics to include and why you may want to consider at least one of the listed extra categories. By the time this article is over, you’ll know exactly what to include on your site and why.
Once your website is finished, why not seek out a good marketing firm for pest control companies? Their expertise will give you an edge over the competition and they may even have more ideas for your website. For now, though, let’s cover the basics of your site.
The Basics
There are things every website needs to have. Once you’ve decided on your domain name, or the link that leads to your site, made your security decisions, etc. you’ll need to decide on a logo and color scheme. You need eye-catching colors that aren’t abrasive.
For example, using a black background with yellow text would certainly grab someone’s attention, but it may be too difficult for your customers to look at. Discretion is required here.
You also should include your contact information which includes both an email and a phone number, in a few places to make it easy for customers to reach you.
Another balance you’ll need to strike is including the contact information in enough places to make it easy to reach you while also not shoving this information in the customer’s face as this will have the opposite effect. A good strategy for deciding how often to place contact information is to look at the websites of our competitors and take notes.
Of course, not all of the information on your webpage will be visible to the public. You also need to ensure that you have access to search engine optimization or SEO information, analytics about who is visiting your page and other important statistics. Much of the time, this comes down to choosing the correct website host or all-in-one designing platform.
Other basic information to include on your website would be an “about us” page, FAQs, photographs of you, your team, jobsites, etc. and things like that. This will not only make the page interesting to look at, it will also tell the customer how hard you work and give them an idea about yourself, which may lead to more work for you.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of what basic information you need to include, many sites online provide free checklists and articles to consult. Looking at a few different ones will both give you new ideas about what to include and ensure you don’t miss any critical information.
Local Pest Information
A good auxiliary page to include is information to identify local pests. This will include pictures of the pest, at multiple life stages if possible, descriptions of appearances, preferred habitats, weather, food and anything else that may help a potential customer determine what their issue is.
For example, maybe your area is plagued by a specific type of rat. Showing pictures of these rats and explaining why they are prevalent will help as the customer will be more confident about their analysis and you will be able to spend less time inspecting and more time on control.
This information is especially important when dealing with insects as it can be hard to get a good look at them, let alone catch them. Including preferred food sources, weather conditions, prevalence and more will make it much easier for a customer to identify that they not only have a problem but its source as well.
Prevention Information
This will seem counterintuitive, but consider the facts. If a customer is only having a minor pest problem, they won’t contact a pest control agency for assistance.
They may visit the site to collect information about their problem before taking action themselves, though, and providing pest control information on your site will not only keep them there for longer, it may also increase their confidence in you. Increased confidence means that, should they ever have an issue too large for themselves, you’ll be at the forefront of their mind.
You can also use this space to advertise yourself a bit more when appropriate. For example, you could explain what a small infestation looks like and how to deal with it before explaining the signs of a larger infestation that may need your professional expertise to deal with.
Customers may handle, say, one or two mice on their own, but may hire you should they use your information to discern that there are more that they can’t handle. Providing these webpages may also boost your SEO, as many people will try to solve the problem themselves before contacting a professional.
Newsletter or Blog
You may want to consider either a newsletter or a blog for your website as well. Deciding which is right for you is a difficult decision, but it can have some major benefits.
An unobtrusive newsletter would keep customers up to date on your business and may keep your name in their minds. You could share positive experiences, advertise your products and services, and more every so often.
A blog would allow you to do a lot of things. You could showcase the before and after of your job sites, go more in-depth about certain pests, answer questions and more with a blog. However, having both would not only be stressful, it might be overkill. The best thing to do is to weigh the pros and cons of each and decide which one you want to include.
Your website needs to have a lot of information and hopefully you now have a clearer idea of what your pest control website needs.