An HVAC contractor’s website should be a hub for sales and lead generation. When should it be redesigned and how do business owners accomplish this goal? The ACHR NEWS sat down with Ben LeDonni from www.creativemms.com to help us find the answers.

Here is a portion of that conversation:

ACHR NEWS: How does a contractor know if they need a new and better website?

LeDonni: We see a couple of key things that prompt people to say I need a new website. Most contractors say it is good enough and I am getting business from it and we don’t need it to do anything else. But some of the things that prompt the need for it is if a competitor elevates their brand online and a contractor sees that. It always triggers a little bit of movement in that direction which is good. But that is a more reactive approach and we like to be more proactive.

One thing is the ability to edit things on the back end of your website yourself. If your website was built a long time ago and you can’t edit in the back end or you can’t create a new page - that is usually a trigger that it is dated.

Secondly is just usability. Usability best practices change over time. If the website does not work good on mobile devices that is a big red flag. Especially since more than half of the people who go to a website these days are coming from a mobile device or a tablet.

ACHR NEWS: The days of going to the website and seeing a phone number in the upper right hand corner and calling it are probably long gone. What should HVAC contractors be doing to convert web visitors to customers?

LeDonni: I would say it is way more about how you plan to respond than it is how the user is going to want to reach out for this specific audience for a few reasons. We have seen people put a chat box on their website and then don’t pay attention to it. The worst thing you can do is to put an opportunity for a user to submit something and then it goes into a black hole with no response. Ideally, users can connect with you in any way they want to. But for a lot of contractors, you are out busy and working. Whatever the system you have in place to respond to leads is, that is what you start with as the entry points on your website. If you only take phone calls, make sure you are pushing people to phone.

ACHR NEWS: How often should a contractor be looking at their website to review it?

LeDonni: There are various ways to do it. It depends on how important the website is to you. To me, the website is the foundational hub of the business and the best salesman that you have out there. So if you think of it from that perspective, if it is driving the most amount of sales then you would treat it as you have one-on-ones with a sales rep. You would check on it weekly or monthly and make sure it is performing at the level that it should.