Your commercial cleaning website is a vital part of bringing in new clients. But it could cause you to lose business if you aren’t careful.
Your commercial cleaning website is often the place where potential clients get their first impression of your business. Whether someone refers them or they find you through an online search, your website is almost always the first place people go to learn more about your company.
That means, for better or worse, your website carries a lot of weight. It tells your story, lets people know what they can expect from your cleaning business, and it’s your first line of customer service.
A well-crafted and user-friendly website can do wonders at marketing your business and getting business prospects excited about talking to you. Unfortunately, the opposite is also true. Your commercial cleaning website can drive people away. It can turn excitement into disappointment. It can tell people that your business is a poor choice for what they need. And the worst part is that you may never even realize what’s happening.
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Is your commercial cleaning website working for you or against you? 10 questions to ask yourself.
If your commercial cleaning website is turning potential clients away, you can’t ask them what the problem is. Even if you could, they might not be able to articulate it. Some of the most significant issues with websites aren’t always obvious.
That means it’s up to you to take a hard, objective look at your website and try to understand what other people experience when they look you up. This brings us to the first item on the agenda.
1. Do you have a website? You do have one, right? And you have a domain name not attached to a free website? Free websites aren’t the end of all things, but ABCleaners.com looks much more professional than ABcleaners.freewebsite.com.
2. Have you looked at your website? When was the last time you looked at your commercial cleaning website the way a customer would? Better yet, have you asked someone to review your site and give you honest, critical feedback? This can be an eye-opening experience and give you a good understanding of what may or may not be working with your current site.
3. Is it mobile-friendly? A surprising number of websites are not mobile-friendly, also known as responsive. You’ve probably run across a few of them. You have to scroll side to side to read all the information, or pop-ups block the screen entirely, and you can’t click out. Responsive sites are set up to adapt to phone screens, ipads, and computer screens. That means your users get the same website experience no matter what device they’re using.
4. Is your contact information obvious? It should be clear to visitors where you’re located, and how to reach you. Location and contact information are generally available as part of the website footer, as well as through a contact page. Many businesses also list this information as part of the header. Here’s one example from Cleaning Concierge in the New Orleans, La, area. Right at the top, there’s a phone number and email address. They also have a clear contact page tab. In other words, they’re easy to reach!
5. Is it clear what you do? Your potential customers don’t want to dig to determine if you’re the right business to clean offices or other commercial spaces. Here’s another example from Cleaning Neauxla LLC, making it clear from the home page image that they take on commercial cleaning clients. (In case you’re wondering, southern Louisiana has a history with France; hence the French play on words such as neaux for “no.”)
6. Is your site up to date? Does it look fresh and new, or has your site been the same since 2010? Your commercial cleaning website will impress people with your professionalism, care, and attention to detail, but only if it seems more like a modern website and not like a history lesson.
7. Is your site optimized for search engines? This one is a little complicated, but it’s also very important. When your customers go to Google or Yahoo, or any other search engine, they type something in the search bar like “commercial cleaning near me,” or “office cleaning Seattle,” or “green cleaning Memphis.” The first results that come up are those that have those search terms, whatever they may be. For example, Jones Boys Maintenance Network is on the first page of results when you search for “office cleaning Seattle.” Why? They don’t have the search phrase crammed in at every opportunity, but they do have a headline that reads, “Quality commercial office cleaning in Seattle,” and another that reads, “Seattle office cleaning.” The point? To repeat an earlier point, make it clear what you do and where you do it.
8. Does your site have a contact form? Remember, we want to make it easy for people to reach us. Along with your phone number and email address, make sure your commercial cleaning website has a contact form that your prospects can fill out. And again, keep it simple. As an example, here’s what our contact page looks like. We only ask for your contact information, then there’s a drop-down menu for your market and the number of employees you have on staff (so that we can respond appropriately).
9. Do you respond to your contact form? Here’s a big one that you can’t overlook. A perfectly designed website with an easy-to-use contact form does absolutely no good if you don’t respond. And! Sometimes these things get clunky. It’s always a good idea to have an employee or friend fill out the contact form every now and then to make sure everything is working okay.
10. Do you have a call-to-action (CTA)? When prospects come to your website, you want them to take an action, but what is that action? Do you want them to call you? Email you? Click a link for a free download? Watch a YouTube video? While it might seem obvious to you that your prospects should call you for a quote, it may not be obvious to them. Don’t make them work to figure it out. Here’s an example from Green Clean Commercial Cleaning Services in Las Vegas, with a clear CTA that takes you to a contact page.
Your commercial cleaning website may not be your only source of clients, but it is a very prominent marketing tool. And the sad news is that a poorly functioning site can turn people away from your business before they ever have a chance to talk with you. Many of the issues here are easy to fix, if not on your own, then with the help of someone with even a moderate amount of website design experience. And these updates can change the way your website works for you!
If you’re ready to increase the professionalism of your cleaning operation through better organization, easy access to important data, unparalleled tracking, and more, schedule a call with Janitorial Manager today!