When it comes to the built industry, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity in digital marketing. After all, the average mid- to large-size construction company tends to be on their third or fourth website iteration. That’s a remarkable average considering how quickly technology becomes outdated and how often a website needs to be updated to maintain its functionality and usefulness.

In reality, a business founded circa 2002 should probably be on its seventh or eighth website. A website should be edited and maintained on a quarterly basis, at a minimum, with major revisions and overhauls planned every two years. If you think about how quickly your smart phone becomes dated, you begin to see where these suggested milestones come from.

Given all of the above, the built industry is still very much behind the digital marketing curve. For those companies looking for a strategic advantage, the web presents some of the greatest opportunities to outshine competition, hire the best talent and generate leads through converting website visitors to prospects requesting project quotes and new business meetings.

The biggest oversight construction industry companies make when finally embarking on a website development effort is failing to value how realistic it is to generate leads for new business through the web, and how important the website’s content, including written copy, photography and other consumable data, really supports this goal.

Many of us have heard the phrase “content is king.” Visitors search the web for websites relevant to their queries. Their goal is to land on a website that provides them the content in which they are interested. By taking time to focus on the content being provided to the visitor on the website, optimizing how it reads for the relevance of their search and with the intent of leading them down a path to contact, contractors can funnel the visitor right to its phone line or email inbox. The practice of optimizing content in this manner is called “content strategy.” Content strategy aims at connecting content efforts with your business goals and visitor needs. Everything related to content should map back to those requirements, which in this case is new business development and lead generation.

“My clients and prospects have needs that are highly nuanced. They do not search the web to hire a company like ours. We land our new business through a referral network and word of mouth.”

The above statement is a common mindset in the built industry, leading to website integration projects taking a backseat to traditional marketing and/or lack of focus on content strategy. What these companies do not realize is the very first place a referral will go to find a phone number, email or relevant project work to prequalify is a company’s website.

The referral uses Google to find the company they are looking for—even if they know the company name they are searching for. If the website is outdated, lacks mobile compliance and effective content, the prospect will be more likely to exit the site without taking action and converting to a lead. But when the prospect visits a website with an intelligent and deliberate content strategy at play, the prospect quickly finds what they are looking for and will be more likely to send an email, pick up the phone or submit a form with their needs and desire to set up a meeting.

When it comes to new business development through the web, it’s largely about local geographic search. A contractor is not competing with the world, it is competing in its geographic reach and is optimizing its web presence for those who know the company or may have heard of it, as well as for those who do not know it. In each instance, both prospects types are entering keywords into Google to find the contractor, even if those keywords include project names, team member names or a company name. When executed with a sound content strategy and user experience, it is very realistic to receive one to five prequalified leads through your website each month, without the need to purchase search engine advertising.