Most people think of web design as something that is only necessary for businesses with an online presence. However, even construction companies can benefit from a well-designed website. In fact, your website is often the first impression potential clients have of your business. Here’s some tips and examples to help you create a website that reflects the professionalism and quality of your construction company.
15 Tips on Construction Website Design
Designing websites is already a difficult process, but it becomes even more complicated when the website needs to establish trust with potential customers. Use these fifteen tips to make sure that your website has visual appeal and solid performance.
1. Remember Your Audience
It is important for a successful website to identify the target audience. Is the site going to be for homeowners or general contractors? The last thing you want is a cluttered page full of unnecessary information that confuses potential customers.
If you have multiple audiences, consider creating separate sites with different focuses. This will help you make your websites more personalized to the users you are targeting.
2. Review Your Competitors
It is always a good idea to review your competitor’s websites and marketing techniques. This can help you get a better understanding of what types of advertising works and how customers interact with the website.
After reviewing your competitors, be sure to create a list of elements you would like to recreate on your new website. Every construction services company is different, so you don’t need to recreate your competitor’s website exactly. Just use their website for inspiration to make your website even better.
3. Include a Blog
A blog can help you connect with customers on a more informational level. It is also a great way to let your customers know what you are currently working on and how it will affect their lives.
If you’re a contractor, a blog is a perfect place to post before-and-after photos of some of your projects. In addition, you can use your blog as an opportunity to explain frequently asked questions to your website visitors.
4. Use High Quality Photos
Remember that a website is a visual representation of your construction company. Photos convey a lot about what you do and can provide. Try to use high-quality photos for each section of the webpage to make sure the user gets an accurate idea of what they will be receiving if they choose to do business with you.
5. Add Promotional Videos
Everyone loves videos. Including a few promotional videos on your website can help you explain services you offer in greater detail than just text. It also makes it easy for customers to see the quality of your construction company right from their home or office computer.
Consider using a video background to improve your website’s visuals and attract more attention. Video backgrounds can help set your website apart from competitors and generate more customer trust. If you need help producing a video for your business website, consider reaching out to our team for help!
6. Be Mobile-Friendly
It is important for construction websites to be mobile-friendly. More than 50% of all web traffic comes from mobile devices and Google prioritizes websites that are mobile friendly.
If you aren’t sure whether or not your current website is mobile friendly, try navigating it on your phone. If you struggle, then it is probably time to consider updating to a mobile responsive website.
7. Promote Your Website
Creating a website for you construction company is only part of the battle. Planning the website’s marketing strategy is essential to find long term success. The two major digital marketing areas to consider are search engine optimization and paid ads.
Paid Ads
Using targeted paid ads is one of the most effective ways to make sure your website appears on search engine results. Paid ads are scalable and effective, but can be significantly more expensive than other digital marketing methods.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Creating a successful SEO strategy will make your website easier for customers to find and use. Search engine optimization is also significantly cheaper than paid ads, but often takes much longer to see results. Even after the initial investment in SEO, you’ll continue to get organic traffic from search engines like Google and Bing.
8. Use Social Media
Every construction business should have a presence on social media. Social media can help you engage with current customers and drive leads to your website.
In addition, posting pictures of your work to Instagram or Facebook is another great way to let customers see the quality of your business before they even consider hiring you.
If you don’t think social media has a place in making your construction website more effective, than think again. Home service buyers are highly engaged on social media and it is an easy way to get your work out there.
9. Add a Portfolio of Your Work
Adding a portfolio of your work on your website is a great way to show prospective customers what you can do. It also gives the user confidence in hiring your construction company since they have seen some of the quality of work that you produce.
Besides the benefit to your website’s visuals, adding a portfolio of photos can boost your website SEO efforts. This is because photos can provide additional information through alt attributes.
10. Make Contact Information Easy to Find
Contact information should be evident on your website. Make sure that the contact information is at the top of every page, but also prominently displayed in header or footer areas.
Having numerous places your customers can enter their contact information is important to making the most of your construction website design. Don’t make your website visitors struggle to reach your business!
11. Do Maintenance & Improve
It may be tempting to put up a website and leave it alone, but this is the best way to make your website design ineffective. Constantly updating site content like blog posts, videos, and images can keep customers engaged on your website.
Not only that, but failing to maintain your website can lead to loading and security issues down the line. Be sure to regularly maintain your website or work with a managed hosting solution to keep your website up to date for your visitors.
12. Use Secure Hosting
When you’re building a website for your construction business, security should be at the forefront of your mind. When you are planning your new site, be sure to plan for a good hosting solution. It is important to only use secure web hosting so that the page data is safe from any potential hackers.
Using an SSL certificate also ensures that all of your web traffic will be encrypted and therefore more secure. Not only is this useful for security, but Google uses SSL certificates as a ranking factor.
Overall, remember than your website security is an important part of making your business appear trustworthy. Don’t let potential visitors be dissuaded by warning messages about unsecured websites!
13. Track Your Visitors
Make sure to track your website visitors and their behavior. Using Google Analytics is a quick way to start. As you begin to track the behavior of your website visitors, you can better optimize your website design.
Tracking visitors provides invaluable data on the types of pages that are most popular. You can then adjust your website to lead visitors into taking the actions desired by your business.
14. Consider Website Navigation
Keep your website navigation straight forward and intuitive. Having a simple website navigational system can improve your conversion rates and user experience.
Choose an easy-to-use navigation system with drop down menus and clearly visible text will ensure that your web users find exactly what they are looking for in an instant.
15. Simplify the User Experience
When designing a website for a construction business, it is important to limit the amount of distractions on your site. Don’t overwhelm users with too many choices or features.
15 Examples of Great Construction Websites
Below are some example of good construction websites. Each one is slightly different, but they follow the general advice of simple and clear website navigation.
Bachmann’s website is clean and easy to read. This makes it easy for visitors to find what they need. As you scroll further down the home page, the large blocks help grab a visitor’s attention and direct them to interior pages.
MK Construction’s website features a content slider featuring high quality photos of their work prominently on their homepage. Their menu’s are neatly organized allowing visitors to navigate to their service of interest easily.
Findorff’s website features a website header video, which is a popular homepage feature. As you continue scrolling, you’ll see the homepage break into blocks for easier navigation.
IRPINO has a great construction website. They prominently feature their contact info on the top menu. In addition, they make great use of a content slider to showcase their work.
Palace Construction like Findorff uses a header video on their homepage showing construction workers. Then their page breaksdown their services will icons to help users digest the page information quickly.
L&D’s construction website is a great example using a button with a call to action. This helps users quickly take the intended action without needing excessive navigation.
The Kingston Group uses a simple more traditional construction website design. No fancy videos or sliders, they get to the point quickly and the copy isn’t difficult to read.
Midsouth Construction does a great job trying to capture customer info with their pop up quote request. Their site prominently features customer testimonial videos to help provide social proof.
Sellen Construction is another great example of construction website design using a header video. Their dropdown menu choice looks great on mobile devices.
Balfour Beatty uses neutral colors to make viewing the website easy on the eyes. Their organization is also excellent. Each heading uses a submenu to make navigation a breeze.
Gateway Building overall has a good website. They use a content slider to display their work and have a promotional video on their homepage below. They only thing that stuck out to us when we reviewed the site was the black font on a dark background in the website footer. This could be revised for easier reading.
Cocreations Construction and Design like many other construction company websites uses a slider to display their work prominently. They also do a great job of showing their contact info at the top of the page for easy access.
Alto’s construction website design is similar to L&D Construction minus the button. The site does a good job using a call to action and driving action with their prominent contact info.
Onsite Construction like L&D Construction uses a call to action with their page buttons to drive visitor actions. They also use blocks to help breakdown their services.
Last, but definitely not least, KD Construction uses an elaborate header video featuring their work. Their menu is also well done. Each option is easy to read and navigate.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here’s a list of frequently asked questions that people often ask about construction website design. If you didn’t find what you were looking for above, hopefully we answer your question here. If not, be sure to email us your burning questions and we will post an update!
What is the most important element of web design for construction company?
The most important thing is to make sure that your website presents a professional image and provides customers with the information they need. Make sure to ask yourself if your website would make you want to do business with it before launching it.
Outside of curating a professional image, be sure that everything is functioning properly. If your phone number is out of date, frustrated customers will leave for a competitor. Thouroughly check every link and information listing for accuracy before going live.
Do construction companies need a website?
Yes, construction companies should have a website. Even if your website isn’t going to be your companies primary marketing channel, it is important for all businesses to have a website.
A company website allows you to maintain a professional appearance and opens the door for potential customers who would otherwise not know about your business. Not only that, but many consumers will not trust a company with no website.
As the younger generations start to purchase more goods and services online, having a website is becoming even more important. If you don’t have a website for you company, there is no time like the present to get one!
What types of pages should be included in a construction company website?
Every business website should have a homepage, about page, contact page, and service/product pages. If you are looking for more in depth information on what pages your construction company site should have, consider consulting with a website designer that has construction industry experience.
Every construction website is different. Depending on your needs, construction websites can range from a few pages to several dozen. The smaller your team, the less work your website will likely require.
How do I know if my website is effective?
It is important to track the effectiveness of your website. Before making changes or adding new pages, make sure that you are tracking your website’s performance by using analytics software like Google Analytics. This will help you determine where people land on your site and what they do while they’re there (and where they go afterwards).
From there, you can use this information to help make decisions about your website. For example, if you are finding that people are not clicking through to your contact page, you may want to consider reworking it.
Is it possible to create my own website for free?
Yes, it is possible to create your own website for free. However, it can be difficult and may not provide the results that you’re looking. Unfortunately, many free websites limit what you’re allowed to do and the number of pages that you’re able to add.
If you want to save yourself a lot of time and effort, consider hiring a professional web design company to build you a quality website. Often this is the cheapest option in the long run and can prevent the most issues for your customers.
How often should I update the content on my construction company's site?
As often as you like! It is important, however, to make sure that there is always some sort of fresh content on your website. If potential customers see the same thing when they visit your site month after month, they will likely switch to a competitor who seems more engaged.
In addition, be sure to try and post on a regular schedule. A strong editorial calendar can help you plan out your future website content so that you are always providing something new for your customers.
How important is social media for my website design?
Social media is important for every website design. Sites like Facebook and Google+ allow you to reach a wider audience and provide easy ways to share your content with others. When combined with a high quality website, social media can be an asset in helping you reach your full customer base.
The best part, the more active you are on social networks the more organic traffic you can recieve. This is because when users share your content on social media it helps generate backlinks for you domain! Google uses backlinks as one of many factors to determine what to show users.
What are the top 3 mistakes to avoid when designing a new website?
There are numerous mistakes people make when designing a new construction website. However, the three mistakes below are easy to fix and can make a huge difference.
Not Creating Enough Copy
Be sure to write enough information for your customers and Google. Without enough content, you can end up with very little SEO value and not rank very well.
Not only will it be difficult to rank, but without enough contnet your visitors probably won’t convert into customers. You have to make sure you’re providing enough information on all of your page for it to be useful.
This includes the homepage, subpages and individual pages. You don’t want to overwhelm visitors with too much text, but you also want them to be satisfied when they leave your site.
Poor Color Choice
Color has a huge impact on how your website is perceived. Avoid bright neon colors or wonky color combinations, as these will have a negative impact on the design of your site and may even prevent users from purchasing from you.
Be sure to choose clean colors that look great together and are easy to read. If your color choice makes text hard to read, many users will simply leave for a better website. There are too many competitors out there to let your website cost your potential business.
Not Mobile Responsive
Responsive websites adapt to different screen sizes and help you maintain a high ranking on Google. If you don’t have a good smartphone version of your website, you’re missing out on countless new visitors who are searching for your services on their phones.
In fact, Google prioritizes websites that are mobile responsive since the majority of search traffic is now on mobile devices. Don’t get left behind with an old website that can’t display on mobile.
How do I used my website to target local customers?
The best way to target local customers is making sure that your website design is optimized for city and state searches. Be sure to learn about local SEO so your business can appear on Google’s local results.
If you are selecting keywords for your website, be sure to include local variations such as “construction companies Chicago” to help target your local market.
Are there any other tips you can share about web design for construction companies?
Be sure to understand where your customers are coming from before you design a website. It’s important to know what keywords they’re using and even the type of device they use to access your site.
Use this background information to create an amazing website for your construction company. Be sure to consider every little detail to help provide the best user experience.
Hiring a Web Designer for a Construction Company
In the construction industry, it’s no surprise that a website is now required for those who want to be successful. In the past, small construction companies could get by with only word-of-mouth business. However, those days have passed.
If you need construction website design help, be sure to contact 608 Media for a free website consultation. Our team helps small businesses design websites that generate results for an affordable price!
Wrapping Up
Building a great website for your construction company is essential to your success. If you are looking for inspiration check out your competitors or get in touch with a web design team that can help make your website.