Houzz has emerged as a popular online channel for homeowners to research and find nearby home services contractors that service their area. A unique characteristic of Houzz is the flexibility it offers as a platform. It’s used as a search tool by potential customers. A social media platform by homeowners and neighborhoods. A business listing site by local businesses offering residential home design and building services. A review site for local businesses to add to their online reputation.
As you can see, Houzz’s versatility makes it a great platform for a local home service business to add to its online presence. The ways in which we as a society search for and consume information has changed. We prefer the convenience of being able to get everything we want to know immediately and in one place. Being able to search for a home services business, read about their unique business story, view photos from other customer projects, read their reviews, and even connect with a business directly offers a complete experience.
In this sense, Houzz can be seen as an extension of your website. Because your online presence is now so much more than just having a website these days. A strong online presence also encompasses:
- Business name
- Phone numbers
- Address/Location
- Online reviews
- Content like photos, videos, blog articles
- Online profiles like business listings and social media profiles
It’s on these other sites (not your website) that the majority of engagement (73 percent) potential customers have with your business before they become a customer takes place.
Let’s dive into the ways you can get started with marketing your local business on Houzz.
Creating a Houzz Business Listing
It’s easy and free to get started on Houzz if you don’t already have a listing. Similar to Facebook and other social media channels, there’s no cost to create and claim your listing.
Here is a quick checklist to help you get started. If you already have a business listing on Houzz, feel free to jump down below to where we discuss 10 surefire tips for getting the greatest ROI out of Houzz.
- Step 1: Visit houzz.com/pro and click on “Create Free Professional Profile”. Then enter your company name, category, city/state, and phone number.
- Step 2: Select all the services you provide to enable Houzz to display your business in the correct search results.
- Step 3: Select all the cities/markets you serve to further increase your visibility and local reach on Houzz
- Step 4: Complete your listing by adding in information for your website, company description, awards, and your logo or a team photo. You can also choose to add an average job cost.
- Step 5: Add any projects you wish to share of past work by upload photos
Optimize Your Photos to Increase Local Reach
When you upload photos to Houzz, you have the ability to add the following information:
- Category
- Link to website
- Location
- Description
- Keywords
- Budget
You’ll want to make sure each image is optimized with complete information. Doing so will help to increase your online visibility and local reach because each photo you upload can get found in Houzz search results. If you don’t add in the Location, for example, Houzz doesn’t know which city/market that particular photo was taken and so it can’t show your business for that location’s search results. The same can be said for Category.
Get Reviews to Increase Local Reach
The same principle applies to online reviews. Each review your business is able to get on Houzz, the greater visibility you can garner in search results both on Houzz and Google. Your average star rating will show alongside your business listing so potential customers can get an instant snapshot of how credible your business reputation is.
The Houzz platform makes it easy for businesses to request reviews and also equally as easy for customers to submit reviews. Houzz does not require you to have a Houzz profile in order to submit a review of a business. This is always one of the biggest deterrents of why customers don’t write reviews when asked, so it’s great to see Houzz remove that barrier.
With the Get Reviews tool as part of your listing, requesting reviews is as easy as adding the customer’s email address, writing a personalized note along with the review request, and hitting send. Once that review gets approved by Houzz, it’ll show up on your profile. Houzz, as a platform similar to other review sites, will monitor and analyze reviews prior to them publicly appearing on a business listing as a way to help protect a business from spam or fake reviews to destroy their reputation.
Now, let’s shift focus to actionable steps you can take to improve ROI on Houzz and build towards a more comprehensive online presence.
10 Surefire Tips to Improve Your Houzz Marketing ROI
- Encourage customers to use the Houzz Google Chrome Extension. This extension enables you to quickly save any photo you find online so if a homeowner has a particular look in mind but are not sure how to articulate it, you can ask them to search online and share a photo to encourage conversation.
- Stand out on Houzz by sharing your unique business story. As with other listings and your website, you’ll want to clearly communicate your story and what sets you apart from the other businesses serving your same area. You can highlight your experience, years in business, employees, diversity, and awards to name a few things.
- Personalize every review request you send. Doing so can help you break through the noise and increase the odds of a customer writing a review about your business. You can include something personal that happened during the project so the homeowner knows it’s a request coming from you, and not something automated which carries less value to a customer.
- Add location, category, and other descriptive notes to every photo. Proximity, relevancy, and recency are a few of the major search ranking factors Google and other search engines look at when determining the visibility a particular business has. By adding in a location, category, description, and date, you’re building these ranking factors into your online presence and that gives search engines the confidence to increase your local reach.
- Use Houzz Ideabooks to get customers engaged and involved. You can get your customers to take part in the early stages of the decision making process by asking them to create an Ideabook that shows what their ideal home looks like. Then, you can establish what’s realistically possible, set expectations, and can work together from the very start of the project to make sure you’re both on the same page. The more a customer feels like they have a say in the matter and are heard, the happier they’ll be.
- Check out the discussion boards for continual learning. Keep a pulse on the industry and best practices by taking note of what others are discussing, seeing, and finding success with by monitoring the discussion boards.
- Add association badges and awards to your business listing. Further add to your credibility and reputation by showcasing any industry associations you’re a member of and any local recognition or awards you’ve earned.
- Make it easy for customers to review you anywhere. Add links to the email signature used by your employees that help customers easily locate your Houzz listing, and others like Google, Facebook, and Yelp so they can easily jump over from the email to review you. Then, each time you or your team sends an email, it can act as a gentle reminder to review your business.
- Connect your website and Houzz listing together. Part of a strong online presence includes having a “connective tissue” of sorts that help signify to Google and other search engines that this Houzz profile and this website accurately represents your business. Accuracy of information is a big distinguishing factor in determining online visibility.
- Create and publish content. Help educate your customers and potential customers about potential issues and general awareness around caring for their home. Similar to writing blog articles, you can share content on Houzz and engage in conversations with people.
Maintain an Active Online Presence with the Surefire Local Marketing Platform
Surefire Local provides the industry’s most complete marketing platform designed to help local businesses attract lifetime customers, grow revenue, and broaden reach in their local markets. The Surefire Local Marketing Platform serves as an all-in-one solution for local marketing and enables you to easily maintain an active online presence.
Request a free demo to learn how you can easily manage your business presence on 70+ sites, including Houzz, while also gaining visibility into your marketing and transparency of ROI.
