Building Your Online Presence to Help Grow Your Business

By Alan Rice, SVP of Sales, Angie’s List

With the start of the new year, it’s a great time to take a fresh look at your business development tactics. What’s working? What is no longer bringing in the business you deserve? As you look at ways to grow your business in 2021 and beyond, here are a few tips to help you get where you want to go:

1. Casting a Wider Net – Your business may be just what homeowners need to get the job done, if only they could find you. Angie’s list is committed to helping our members find the best service pros for their needs so, by showing up there, you can get your business and your name out there to millions of real homeowners looking to do real home improvements. They can search for local pros to do specific jobs, matching you with more real project opportunities than ever before.

2. Earning Legitimate, Non-Anony-

mous Reviews – Your online reputation is critical to your business. Earn high ratings on finished projects and build credibility through verified reviews and feedback to draw in new customers and grow your business. Our reviews can only come from real customers so homeowners can trust them – and you.

3. Receiving Third-Party Business

Validation – Top-rated pros on Angie’s List are recognized as Angie’s List Super Service Award winners, which demonstrates that they have both completed recent projects and done them well enough to earn high ratings and positive reviews. This badge is further proof to your potential customers that you are worth doing business with. able, and you’d probably prefer to spend it talking to people who are more likely to turn into real customers, right? Once homeowners are at the point of reaching out for project quotes, they’re much more likely to actually hire someone to complete that project. You can provide a quote directly to the homeowner and make sure it’s competitive by checking out cost ranges in our Project Cost Center.

5. Complete, Comprehensive On-

line Profiles – Before deciding on a pro to use, the first thing most people do is look them up online to make sure they’re legitimate. A complete profile on Angie’s List includes a description of your business, verified reviews, business highlights, service categories and licenses, as well as the ability to showcase finished projects with real images. This profile will help earn the trust of potential customers and make them more comfortable taking the next step.

6. Responsiveness and Fast Service – As soon as you find out about a project opportunity, it’s important to be quick to act. When homeowners are ready to get work done on their home, they appreciate realtime responses, clear and accurate estimates and reliable service. These will all make a difference in your ability to win business, strengthen customer relationships and gain positive reviews and referrals.

Isn’t that a lot of work?

It can be work, but it takes work to build your business. Fortunately, pros who advertise with Angie’s List can use our mobile app to build and send quotes, request payment on the go, integrate with QuickBooks, manage and communicate with homeowners, and get notified with new opportunities in real-time. We’ll even provide business metrics so you can measure the value of Angie’s List for your business and gather insight into customer behavior.

You can also specify exactly which specific services you want to provide and where – down to the zip code.

Sounds great!

We think so too. That’s why creating a profile for your business is free and you can ask your customers to start adding positive reviews right away. Once you have enough positive reviews, it will be up to you whether – or how much – you decide to pay in advertising to increase the number of prospective customers coming your way.

If you’re interested in joining Angie’s List and growing your business, give us a call at 1-866-843-5478 or visit us online at www.angieslistbusinesscenter.com.

“We are very review focused. We had 6 reviews when we started advertising with Angie’s List; we now have 4,213 reviews and over 40 employees. When booking an appointment, we let the homeowner know we are going to send them a link requesting a review after the job is done. Reviews are discussed in every company meeting. The number of Angie’s List reviews received are included in my technician’s quarterly company reviews. After 10 positive reviews our technicians get a $50 bill.”