Why Most Contractor Websites Don’t Convert (FastSite Webinar Replay)

In this special episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors, hosts Caitlyn Noble and Meredith Medlin share a replay of their recent FastSite webinar, where they break down a problem many contractors face: websites that get traffic but fail to generate leads.

If you're investing in SEO, Google Ads, or Local Service Ads but not seeing the phone ring or forms come in, the issue may not be your marketing — it could be your website.

During the webinar, Caitlyn and Meredith reveal the three biggest conversion killers on contractor websites, including:

• Missing trust-building elements like reviews, credentials, and testimonials
• Weak or generic calls-to-action that don’t motivate homeowners to act
• Too few opportunities for visitors to convert

They explain how today’s homeowners compare multiple companies before choosing a contractor and why your website has just seconds to establish trust and drive action.

The episode also introduces FastSite, FatCat Strategies’ website framework designed specifically for home improvement contractors. Built on WordPress, FastSite focuses on:

• Faster website launch timelines
• Conversion-first design
• Mobile-first lead generation
• Integration with SEO, PPC, and digital marketing campaigns

Whether you’re planning a new website or trying to improve your current one, this episode offers actionable insights to help you turn website traffic into real leads.

To watch the full webinar and view the slides, visit:
 fatcatstrategies.com/webinar

Want to find out how we can create a custom digital marketing game plan for your contractor business? Schedule a call with us at fatcatstrategies.com.

Transcript

Caitlyn Noble 0:01

Hey everyone, welcome back to Digital Marketing for Contractors. Today's episode is a little different. We're sharing something special with you. I'm Caitlyn Noble, and I've got my beautiful business partner with me, Meredith Medlin.

Meredith Medlin 0:13

Hello! Yeah, we've got something special for you guys today, not our normal. Um, on February 24th, just yesterday from when we're recording this, uh, we did still live webinar all about our website product, which is called Facide. Um webinar was yes about that, but mostly looking at why contractor websites don't work, uh what's broken, and how many fix yours in 30 days.

Caitlyn Noble 0:38

We had a great turnout, tons of engagement, and honestly, the content was too good to not share with our podcast audience.

Meredith Medlin 0:46

Absolutely so treat. Um, instead of re-recording it, we're just gonna bring you the full webinar replay right here on the podcast.

Caitlyn Noble 0:54

Oh yeah. And if you prefer to watch the slides and see everything visually, because the slides are actually pretty pretty. Pretty pretty, pretty pretty, pretty pretty. And uh there's a live demo of Fast Site that you can watch unless you want to listen to Meredith dictate what that looks like.

Meredith Medlin 1:10

And um maybe you can fast forward through the walkthrough because it's uh eight minutes, and maybe it's just me not to my desktop, but you actually get to see FastSite, um, see it on desktop, see it on mobile, and um get a good idea of what we are talking about. So yeah, if you're listening to this, maybe go check it out.

Caitlyn Noble 1:29

Yeah, I would still say check it out, but listen to this, you're gonna definitely pick up some things about uh how to improve conversions on your website. Conversions meaning phone calls and form submissions. To find that web uh that webinar, you can go to fat catstrategies.com backslash webinar.

Meredith Medlin 1:46

And I mean, right now, I don't know, maybe you're driving between appointments on the way to the office. Um, you know, so you're in for a treat. Go ahead and listen. All right.

Caitlyn Noble 1:55

Okay, we're gonna jump on into that February 24th Fast Site webinar. Enjoy. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's webinar on why most contractor websites don't convert and how to fix yours in 30 days. Yes, 30 days. We can do it. I'm Caitlin Noble, the managing partner here at Fat Cat Strategies. I also have Meredith Medlin with me. Meredith and I are both honored to have been with Fat Cat for almost a decade, both from client-facing roles to web development, Meredith more so than me, to creative concepts, now owners. We're both very familiar with this industry, specifically the home improvement industry, and we are so proud of the work that we've done to support contractors for so many years. In fact, we're so proud of the work that we've done. We actually have our dogs on job sites learning the trades. No, we just had to share this because it's so funny. Um, Janet, who founded the company uh back in 2002, recently retired. We're so grateful for her. She had a fat cat at the time because that's what everybody asks us. And now we have fat dogs. So um, Beasley, Ellie, and Watson, we're really, you know, loving them. And I'm sure they'll be happy that they were featured in this presentation. So I promise before we get started, which we're about to give me two minutes, I'm gonna tell you a little bit about who we are, other than the history of our name. So, as I mentioned, Meredith and I have been working together on the home improvement industry for almost 10 years. Fat Cat Strategies has been specializing in marketing, now specifically digital marketing, since 2002. Some of our largest clients have gone on to exceed$30 million, sold to private equity. They're just some of our small but huge success stories. Um, there are just a few of the many manufacturers that we have listed on the screen that we work with on our day-to-day lead generation efforts. Um, so we're we are very familiar with all of these manufacturers. We're very familiar with this industry. And speaking of lead generation, this is our bread and butter of what we do for contractors from SEO to PPC to conversion rate optimization to obviously web and now AI and GEO. We are so passionate about driving form submissions and phone calls to your business. That's the hint of today's presentation and this new tool that we have built and we're so proud of to make sure that keeps happening. We complement these strategies with our lead nurturing services. Those include email marketing, SMS campaigns, review generation, social media content, print design, video editing. We have an amazing person on staff who really helps our clients with their brand and so much more. So, sure, we sound like your typical agency in many aspects of it. But what sets us apart is really this boutique approach. We are a small team. We're here in-house in Raleigh, North Carolina. There's 10, 11 of us. Um, we're so invested in this, and we all specialize not only in the home improvement industry, but in those um strategies that I just mentioned. So you're gonna always get a uniquely tailored strategy to fit what your company's goals are. Yes, we've learned a lot from the years of experience in this industry to apply to our clients, obviously, but we can't, nor should all of those strategies be the same. So, because of this, our client tenure is something we we will brag about. We push three to eight years for a lot of our clients. They like their results, they like our approach, and they love our transparency. If you take nothing else away from today, I hope that you take away that Fat Cat prides itself on education. Yes, we have an amazing website builder that we're eager to share with you all, but our most successful relationships come in the form of understanding what we do, why we do it, and just know we're not hiding anything from you. Everything we build, everything we generate is yours to keep. I would challenge you to ask your current agency about their deliverable retention policies as well as their same market dual representation policies. Fat Cat does not work with your competitor, and we do not share your leads with anyone else. I hope you're getting the same treatment. So we talked about housekeeping, chat away. If we have time, we'll try to get to those questions. If not, we will email you guys responses. This is recording. We're gonna email this recording to you, um, along with a couple of awesome offers, along with who is going to get that free fast site at the end of this. So, Meredith, why don't you kick us off?

Meredith Medlin 6:45

Absolutely. Um, thanks, Caitlin. Uh I first want to start by saying um thank you guys for popping on. And in the spirit of the transparency factor that we um, you know, value so much at Batcat, I want to start with just a little bit of ground rules or ground level education about um websites. Um, again, we pride ourselves on being transparent and educating our clients about everything they might need to know about when they're discussing their marketing efforts. Um, so the first thing I'm gonna talk to you guys about is a CMS. It's not just an acronym, it stands for Content Management System. Think about your CMS as the tool, the engine, the software that allows you to actually build your website. It's what helps you build your pages, add your content, add your images, showcase your before and afters, your featured projects. Um, it's everything on the back end that powers your website, essentially. Now, we have a couple of the most common CMS platforms that you may or may not have heard of. We've got Shopify, Webflow, WordPress, Wix, or Squarespace. I'm sure you've heard at least one or two of these before. Um, but WordPress and Webflow tend to be the most common that we see our contractors working with, especially if they care about SEO, scalability, and being able to customize. And again, I want to remind you of why I'm explaining this to you. It's basically me just trying to make sure you understand what makes your website your website. It really is the foundation of your entire digital presence and what it's built on. So specifically, I want to touch on WordPress really quickly. Our agency specializes in WordPress. We love it because it is part of what helps all of our clients truly own their marketing. We believe in that fullheartedly, owning your ad accounts, your content, your social media, everything, you know, even if we're doing it for you, you own it. And a big part of that is your website. Um, some agencies build websites on their own custom or proprietary CMS, and they have benefits, and it's really great when you're still a customer. It can be hard, sometimes impossible to leave and take your website with you. And even if you can take it with you, sometimes it can be hard to find vendors or agencies that can work on it. Um, so all of this, again, just pointing back to why we love WordPress. Um, it's what our FastSite that we're gonna talk later is built on because it really is simple to transfer ownership. So many people work on WordPress websites, there's a great support system. Um, and really at the end of the day, the goal of us using WordPress for FastSite is so that you don't have to stress about who's gonna be able to work on your website, if and when you have to leave. It's really so that you can do what's best for you and your business whenever you need to. So thank you guys for hanging with me on that. I know now we have a little foundational knowledge about websites. So um, Caitlin, let's get into the real reason why we're here today.

Caitlyn Noble 9:57

Yes. So the real problem why contractor websites don't convert. Let's talk about the thing that most contractors don't want to admit, but you're obviously here, so you kind of are maybe admitting it. Your website probably isn't broken, it's just not doing its job. Here's what's happening right now: you're paying for Google Ads, you're paying for SEO and GEO and you name it, web development, etc. Maybe LSA, maybe Meta. Traffic is coming in, but your close rate isn't where it should be. Everyone blames the leads are bad. Google sucks. Homeowners are price shopping. All of that is also kind of true, but 80% of the time it is the website. And today we're going to fix that by showing you three conversion killers on contractor websites. We're gonna talk to you about how to change that in the next 30 days, and we're gonna turn your website into a booked appointment machine. I promise you we're gonna do that like within the next 30 minutes or so. So the three biggest conversion killers, first and foremost, no trust building elements, weak or missing calls to action, and then not enough opportunities to convert. So if your site has these issues, traffic from SEO and ads just aren't going to turn them into leads.

Meredith Medlin 11:24

Absolutely. So let's dive into the first conversion killer. And we are talking about no trust builders. So customers need to be able to easily see why they should go with you for their project as soon as they hit your website. Um, we're talking about what truly sets you apart from your competitors. Generic claims like we're the best or we're your go-to, that language just isn't convincing anybody. And people that don't trust you are not going to hire you. Um, you know, people are gonna trust and hire contractors that they see evidence for in terms of reviews and social proof and messaging. So let's take a look at how we fix that lack of trust builders. The first thing we're gonna want to focus on true to being a marketer is your messaging. Something super important to remember outside of just your technical SEO on a website is your messaging, because at the end of the day, you are trying to connect to your audience. So the biggest goal is trying to match your messaging on your website to your audience's fears, their needs, their goals, why they're even out here looking for a contractor. So think about what your audience value and what are their pain points. And when you're building your website or auditing your current website, try to match those things with programs and offerings and characteristics of your company that match up with your audience's values and how you're going to solve their problem. So, one example is thinking about if your audience is older and they're thinking about aging in place. We know that this is a huge market and a huge need. Um, and say this audience needs a bathroom remodel for aging in place. This audience tends to value trustworthiness and a good hard work ethic, but they're also worried about the safety that they have in their bathroom, being able to keep their independence for as long as they can in their home. Um, so these are a couple of headlines you might use to make your audience trust that you get where they're coming from and understand what they need. Um, using words like careful craftsmanship, um, safer bathrooms, your home should support you, not challenge you, really focusing on that safety, stability, and trust. So when you have messaging that matches the needs of your audience, you're building that trust. Um, throughout your website, you should have those, but the goal is really to show your audience you understand them immediately from the first time they land on your website. So the next way that you can build and fix some of those lacking trust builders is credibility. Honestly, um, hiding your credentials just on your about us page is not going to cut it. Um, you need to be showcasing your certifications, your certificates, um, you know, accreditations and all of your accomplishments that you and your team have worked really hard to build over the years. Um, one quick way that you can do this is pulling the accreditations and all of your credentials and putting those somewhere super pertinent and easy for your users to see quickly. Absolutely put those on your key pages. You can see on the slide we have those under the headline on the home page. Um, so you know, if we're taking our bathroom remodeler example and they're focused on aging in place services, add that aging in place certification and BBB A plus accreditation logo. Add those under your headline or you know, near your form where if somebody's thinking about taking an action, you can push them over the edge with that trust that you're building. A really great bonus point way that you can make sure that you're including these credibility adding logos is to make what we call a global row on your website. This is something that's gonna appear on every page of your website. A really great way to think of this is kind of like an extended footer at the bottom of your website. Try adding a row that is in your footer so it's on every single page that has all of these trust building badges. That's just an easy way to make sure no matter what page your users are on, they're gonna come across this. So the next issue we're gonna learn how to fix is how to build social proof. I can't say enough about social proof. Um, it's it really is huge when we're talking about building trust with your potential clients. And I'm talking about reviews, I'm talking about testimonials. Um, just having a single reviews page isn't gonna be enough. A lot of times your users aren't gonna even make it to that one reviews page. Um, so please make sure that you're adding reviews to anywhere that you can on your website, honestly. Um, think about yourself as a consumer. You know, how often do you look up reviews for something before you buy it? Or ask your friends or your families for their referrals before you even start your own research if you're looking for a company. Um, so make sure that you integrate real customer reviews and testimonials all throughout your website. Um, a couple of really easy ways that you can do this if you're not already, is there are great plugins, especially when it comes to WordPress. A lot of them are free that you can add to your website, and it's going to dynamically and automatically pull five-star reviews onto your website from Google, from Meta or Yelp or BBB. That way you always have these real-time social proof reviews on your website. Um, and again, if you want to add something as a global element, just like you did your credentials and that row, that's always going to be in your footer. You can do the same thing with your reviews. So adding a row with a carousel or slider of these new reviews is always going to help when you have that on every page. And um, something that is increasingly more important and really pushes this over the over the edge is video testimonials. Um, video testimonials are like social proof on steroids. Reading reviews is great and it builds that trust. But when somebody sees an actual video of somebody, their neighbor, and their community talking about their real experience they had with you, that really does take trust building to the next level. So get these videos, these video testimonials, um, post them on your YouTube, share them on social media. There's so many uses for them, but absolutely add those to your website. Um, so those are some of the really um strong ways that you can fix this lack of trust when it comes to your website. Because if you don't have it, it is absolutely killing your conversions.

Caitlyn Noble 18:15

Thank you. I um think that's one that maybe hasn't been talked about enough. These next two are kind of no-brainers, but we'll go into a little bit more detail. Uh, trust building elements are so critical and becoming more and more critical with AI and what's happening on that front. I mean, I remember, you know, when BBB used to, you know, there was like that this huge push where we had to embed this BBB, you know, snippet of code onto everybody's website. And now, like, that's not even enough. So yeah, thank you, Meredith. I think that's huge. Um, I think those are lots of great opportunities there. Weaker missing calls to action. Um, again, it's like duh, but you don't really realize it until we're talking through it. So it's great to tell your users and your future customers why you're great, but if you aren't prompting them to take action and reach out, then why are they even on your website? So, some of the common problems that we often see are there's only one contact us button on the website. Like, really? I mean, like the come on, like put the contact us button in multiple places, or there's a form buried at the very bottom of the page. Um, you know, that's great because then maybe by the time somebody scrolls all the way to the bottom of the site, they are like, cool, I know who they are and they fill out the form. But what if they don't want to? You know, give them up multiple places to um connect with you. And then again, I mean, this generic, uninspiring language, we'll talk more about that in a second. But like, I mean, we know what submit or click here, you know, means obviously, but what can we do to spice that up? So contact us, submit a form. I guarantee all your websites have that. I mean, if you went to Fat Cat site right now, we probably have that as well. Or just a call button. That's awesome. But why not tell people what they're going to be doing when they do give you a call, when they do submit that form? I mean, I'm talking about things from like, hey, we know that the moment I submit this form, I'm gonna be talking to somebody about my free estimate. Or I know I'm gonna be talking to somebody about a future kitchen remodel, or I'm gonna be talking to somebody about a special offer that interests me. Let's make those buttons a little bit more sexy. It's not gonna be confusing. I think the more clarity that somebody knows when they're submitting the form on your website or giving you a call about what to expect, the more likely they are to convert and close. So another thing to do in terms of increasing, you know, that call to action throughout your site is use offers. I mean, again, you're like, duh, no-brainer, but this is something that definitely is gonna keep somebody around and interested. Um, a lot of you may be thinking, like, well, you know what, I don't really care about an offer. I don't want a price shopper, but it shows, you know, even if it's like a neighborhood special or like an offer that's related to maybe an ad that they ran that you ran, that's gonna be super important to somebody. Have that offer throughout the site, have it on a standalone special offer page. Uh, a lot of the times, like through meta-ads and so forth, those special offer pages that just stand alone, you know, allow somebody to take an action immediately and not have to dig and learn more about you guys. Um, also, you know, we encourage offers in all of the form language on our websites. So, you know, you're you're going everywhere and you know that you've got a financing offer or have. Cloth installation, no matter what, have that follow around like the website with you or with your customer. Another thing that we love, and you know, Meredith mentioned this in terms of that global setting, but we can have a global setting that like has an offer that no matter what page somebody's on, maybe they're reading a blog post, you know, they can still see that offer over on the side of the page. So that's a nice, you know, easy thing to do with that global setting. Also, you probably see this too. I don't think they're obnoxious, but I think there's a nice way to have an alert bar or a sticky header that just follows you as well, no matter where you go, telling you about, you know, we've got this March savings going on, limited time. Um, I mean, you could even say this March only or have a countdown. That's something that we love as well, is just having this countdown ticker. The time is running up for you to get this specific offer. So people don't hit your website and they're like, oh, okay, just another financing offer, it doesn't make a difference. Let them know there is a sense of urgency. You can do all of that on your forms on your website.

Meredith Medlin 23:14

Absolutely. And you know, you started to touch on it a little bit. So you started with, you know, week or missing CTAs, and um, towards the end, there started talking about um other places to add them when we're talking about special offers, and that touches on the third conversion killer that we see is that there's not enough different ways and places for people to convert. I mean, we all know that speed to lead is one of the most important factors when generating leads and turning them into sales after somebody submits the form, but you should also be thinking about the process of them reaching out to you, should also be speed to lead as well. They should be able to quickly reach out, quickly submit a form, give a call, book an appointment. Um, and there's a couple of different ways that we can do that. Um, something that we see is uh no forms or call to action buttons above the fold. Um, think about your hero section. And when I say hero section, again, time for a little education. If you don't know, it is that section when you land on a website, it is what you see without having to scroll anywhere. So again, above the fold means when a user lands on the page, um, have a hero form, so form right there, or a call to action button that you know is a pop-up form or takes you to a get a quote page. Basically, put that right there when you land on the website. Um, that way they have a quick way to convert. Um, Caitlin talked a little bit about sticky bars as well for special offers. You can put a form in that bad boy, um, an inline form. So you always have a form visible when the user is scrolling. If they see that before and after, that really does it for them and convinces them, or they watch that video testimonial. The next thing they see when they look up is that form. That might be the selling point that pushes them to go ahead and fill out the form and just making sure that we're providing that opportunity. Um, another easy one to miss is on mobile not having click to call for your phone numbers. This is some low-hanging fruit that should absolutely be addressed. So take that note down and just make sure that your phone number on mobile is click to call. And a bonus point for anybody who is already using the live chat or SMS texting feature, um, this is becoming more and more popular. We know that everybody wants instant gratification these days, and not everybody wants to pick up the phone and call. So having a live chat option has shown across our clients to be extremely successful more and more as time goes on. Um so, really, at the end of the day, when you're thinking about this, just remember at any moment, at any point on your website, your user should be able to reach out via phone, form, or chat.

Caitlyn Noble 26:10

Boom. Three biggest conversion killers: no trust building elements, weak or missing calls to action throughout your site, and then not enough places to convert. Why does this matter now? Homeowners aren't just calling the first company they find anymore, they're comparing three, four, five companies at a time. So if your website doesn't instantly build that trust, you're not even gonna make the short list. And if you're running ads, you're paying more for every click, ever, every click than you ever used to, which means every visitor that doesn't convert obviously hurts more. So if your site isn't built to turn traffic into calls, you're basically just paying people to leave. You have seconds, not minutes, to make the right impression, literally seconds, five to be exact. In five seconds, your website needs to answer. Can I trust this company? Do they do what I need? And how do I contact them? If that is not immediately clear, they're going to leave. So here's the reality: most contractors don't struggle with this because they don't know what to do. Again, you guys are on this call. You're struggling because they don't have time, their website company is slow, or they're stuck on an outdated platform. This is why we built FastSite. We built FastSite because we kept seeing the same problem over and over again. Contractors are waiting four to eight to almost a year, four to eight months to almost a year for a brand new website. Even after waiting, the site's not performing. They look nice, but they're not generating calls. We said we got to make a stop to this, and we're so excited about this change. So, Meredith, I'll let you do the honors.

Meredith Medlin 28:02

Absolutely, absolutely. So the FastSite framework is basically the ideas behind this tool that we made, which is basically a WordPress website that we have custom built with three things in mind speed to launch, the conversion architecture, and SEO and ads compatibility. Um, because a website shouldn't just look good, it should go live quickly, it should generate leads consistently, and it should support your entire marketing engine. So the first thing we focus on the framework is speed to launch. Um, there's the old way of building a website, and then there's the fast site way. If you've ever built a website or been in the process of it with a vendor in the past, I'm sure a lot of you have, um, that process could be slow, very design first, um, lots of revisions, but with FastSite, we have completely flipped that around. So we start our FastSite web build with a conversion first, and then we build around it. And we really focus on time to live because it matters a lot more than you might realize at first blush. Um, every single month that your website isn't live or it isn't optimized, you're missing leads. You're delaying the ROI that you could be getting, you're slowing down your ad performance because your pages aren't performing and converting well, and you're pushing the revenue you could be making further into the future. So the speed that we talk about in getting these live isn't just about rushing, or it isn't about rushing at all. Um, rather, you know, it's about quickly getting your lead engine running and doing that sooner. So, um, what is the reality of speed to launch? The reality is that I missed that last slide. But it's a good point. Yeah. Um the reality is um when you're waiting on those websites to be built, um, you're you have endless revisions, there might be delays, you're missing the missing seasonal demand. So your competitors are running ads, they're ranking, they're generating leads. Um, but FastSite was built pre-built for conversions, and we've built out this conversion architecture, meaning the layout and the structure already tested and proven to convert and turn your traffic into leads. So instead of reinventing the wheel, we can launch your new website in weeks instead of months that border on a year in some cases.

Caitlyn Noble 30:35

Yeah. Thank you. I know, sorry about that. I we did this yesterday too, and I missed this slide again. But it's so important. Yeah, you're spot on though. Speed equals faster lead flow and faster ROI, and that's the whole premise behind FastSight. So another part about this architecture, about why we built FastSite is obviously creating the ability to make sure somebody can convert. Uh, this is where most websites fail. They're built only for aesthetic design and not for conversion. FastSite flips that. And I promise you, these sites are still gorgeous. Everything is structured around building a visitor journey that's going to reach them to an action. The strategic layouts, the clear contact paths, trust are layered throughout. Um, and then, of course, that mobile first approach. Every section of your website has a purpose. So we talked about the hero section again. We'll say it, say it once more. That is where the most real estate is on your entire site. Where somebody looks before they even have to scroll. And I said the same thing on mobile, you know, like how what are they learning by looking at your phone without even having to scroll? When someone lands there, they're asking those questions. We just talked about them a second ago. I'll say them again. What do you do? Is this for me? Can I trust you? And how do I contact you? If your hero doesn't answer those immediately, and I know we're talking about the whole site, but if your hero doesn't answer those immediately, you're gonna lose people. So you've got to include a strong headline, a clear value proposition, a form, and a clear call button above the fold. And of course, those trust badges nearby. No confusion, just clarity. So now that we've we know what we need to do on the hero part of the page, this contact strategy that converts. So, one question we're gonna always ask, and we've always been thinking about, is at any point in this user journey, can they contact you easily? Or do they have to go hunting? Fast site is eliminating that friction. Like we said, sticky call buttons, forms placed strategically throughout the site, click-to-call functionality, multiple conversion points throughout. If someone is ready to reach out to you, we're just not going to make them work for it. It's right there. Of course, we talked about trust stacking and how important this is to be built into every page. It shouldn't just be that one page. You've worked hard to get those reviews, those certifications, those badges. My God, those project photos have taken a probably an act to get and to make sure there's not a thumb in them. Um, before and afters, all of that's important. You need to highlight and showcase that throughout the site, not just on a reviews page that you hope somebody's gonna go to or a project gallery page that you hope somebody's gonna go to. We call this trust stacking, it's layered throughout the site. So by the time that they reach out, they should already have confidence that you know what you're doing. And then, of course, mobile first lead flow. This is probably the most important, if not the most important. And again, it's probably not new news. Most contractor leads are coming from mobile. We're getting younger, we're sitting there at our phone and we're doing all of our research. Homeowners are just like, that's the way we do research now. This was different five, 10 years ago when Meredith and I started doing this. You know, we had an older audience who would obviously, you know, maybe look at you guys on mobile, but then they would go to their desktop or their, you know, their laptop or even their tablet and dig a little bit more and then convert. The site has to be designed mobile first. It has to tap to call, short forms, fast loading, simple navigation. If it can't convert on a phone, it's just not going to convert.

Meredith Medlin 34:33

Absolutely. And that is something we absolutely focused on for a good part of the development phase when we built FastSite was how can we make sure mobile is optimized and going into it with that mindset? Um, another thing that we made sure was top priority because we're digital marketers and our goals to generate leads, um, is making sure that your website is SEO and ads compatible. Um, so when we built FastSite, that was a huge part of the framework. Um, FastSite and any website shouldn't exist in isolation. It should support your entire marketing engine, and we have structured FastSite to work seamlessly with your Google ads, your LSA ads, Meta, Bing ads, your SEO campaigns, any of your local SEO efforts or community events, anything that is generating traffic, we have designed your what your FAST site to support that. So the structure behind the traffic is what is going to create leads. Just bringing traffic there isn't going to be enough. Um, part of the way that we have um attempted to make this a reality is through two completely different structures. We have our regular website pages, um, and this is an important distinction. The website pages that we've built are truly building trust, they're supporting SEO, they're educating the potential customer. Whereas your landing pages are designed specifically to convert traffic from very specific campaigns for specific keywords, offers, events, whatever it is that you're driving to that landing page. They're focused and they're optimized for higher conversion rates based on the topic or the service that they're driving traffic for. And a website can't exist with one or the other, so FastSite was built with both. Both of these structures are supported and built throughout your FastSite. Um, and that really gives your marketing a place to land that's actually built to close. We also want to note that FastSite allows you to have those landing pages on your own domain, not on an external domain where maybe a vendor has built a landing page that they're gonna send traffic to. Sending traffic away from your main domain and your core website is a really quick and easy way to lose data and analytics that are going to help you improve on your campaigns and help increase your conversion. So FastSite allows all of those conversion optimized landing pages to live on your domain. Um, and you know, we talked about analytics, and one of the biggest things about marketing is the tracking and the analytics. Tracking that actually works. Um, this is where things get really serious. If you are not tracking your calls and your forms, you're essentially flying blind. Um, the way that we built FastSight is to track all of your leads, all of your calls, um, the attributions from those leads, the sources, the mediums, you want to know exactly where that lead came from. Um, all of that is in an effort to be able to answer the most important questioning that marketing companies have and that you should have as well, which is what is the best source for my leads? Where are my best leads actually coming from? Um, once you know that, and you can know that with the specific tracking that we integrate, um you're gonna be able to put more money into those sources so that you can scale and grow in a really smart way that you get the most ROI out of. Alrighty. I think it's time we talked a bunch about this infamous FastSite. So I have got a live walkthrough of a desktop and mobile experience. Hang with me. There's nothing like hearing your own voice on a recording, but um let's take a look at one of our actual live sites and um walk through what that experience is actually like for a user. All right, let's take a walk through a real fast site example. This is a bathroom remodeler client that we have in Alabama, and then this is their homepage. Uh we've got uh a nice big headline here, we've got a special offer, eye catching over here. Um, as you continue to scroll, we've got right next to the fold some trust building elements, which are reviews. Um you can continue to scroll these, you can go to the reviews page as well to read more. But we're really hitting your users with the trust of social proof right off the bat. Um as we continue to scroll. You can see over here we've got a live chat bot. Um, this is one of the ways that people can always convert when they're on the site, no matter where they are. As you can see, we're scrolling in the menu and header bar stay sticky. We've always got a get pre pricing button up here, and we've got an alert bar. Because they've just launched a new location, we have that as the messaging. But a lot of times we'll have a special offer up here so that as you scroll, your users always seeing the special offer. And instead of a phone number, we'll have a button there. So let's keep going, and you'll see we're starting to really continue to build that trust. Um, we're showing that these are real people, this is a real company, your neighbors, um, talking about accreditations, why they are a trusted business, and again, hammering that home with reviews from across multiple platforms, not just as we continue down. Fast site has a way to explore different projects in an aesthetically pleasing way that's easy for users to toggle between to explore not just the services, but some examples of what they provide. Again, we're hitting home on that community first values that this company has and hopefully relates to some of their customers valuing the same thing. So keeping on going down, we've got some different call to actions here, um, filling out a form, getting inspired by exploring a gallery, and taking a look at some before and afters to help people get ready for their remodel. Um, we also like to include a service map so that it's easy for people to know exactly where the company is servicing. And we can't forget a good testimonial and especially a video testimonial. We're tapping into the local customer base and making sure we build that human connection. We've talked about global elements. This is one of those. So on every page from here down is a global footer that's going to show up no matter what page you're on. We've got social proof here, we've got a limited time with a timer here for a special offer. Um, we've got that so that you can visit on any page. As we keep going, we've got some more examples of their work and finish out with the header. Now, this is the home page, and that is all good and well. It's what gives your customers and your potential customers a first look at your company. Let's take a look at one of the best service pages. You can see as we click from the home page to this page, it is super quick to load, hence the name Fast Site. So we're looking at the bathroom remodeling page. We've got again our special offer on the form. This is a call to action that's convincing customers that if they go with your company, they're getting a great deal. Um, continuing to scroll down, we've got some movement on the page that's really eye-catching. Um, and our first call to action is something other than a contact us. Let's talk. It's something friendly, it's something that is less cold and more personalized. As we keep scrolling, we're going to highlight the products that they offer, their main services, and make sure it's easy for them to get to those if that's what they're looking for. Continuing to come down, you can see that we've got more variations of our call to actions for bathrooms for seniors. We talked about aging in place, um, secure your safety. We're trying to hit home with what their pain points are and what they're interested in. Bathroom accessories, customize your bathroom. We're really honing in on what it is that we're offering and how the call to action matches that. Then we've got upgrade your bathroom. Again, just variations of more eye-catching, more interesting calls to actions, um, and finishing it out with a nice FAQ section. We're answering questions that homeowners might have to make sure they have all the information they need on this page without having to go further. Then we're going to hit the customer with some interactive before and after sliders. These are used on all of our fast sites so that users can get a real idea of what the transformation could look like for them. And again, you'll see this global footer. We have our customer reviews, our special offers, and our inspiration gallery. Next, let's take a look at the About Us page. This is something that we love to customize for each and every website and file site that we build to be specifically. We are really talking about who we are as a company, why it's so important to be local, and really honing in on that trust. Making it a position from the owner of the company as like a note to the customer is a great touch. And then we also make it a way for the customers to see any of the other about us information that might be pertinent and push them over the edge to want to go with him as their contractor. All right, now we are taking a look at the mobile experience from the FastSite website you just saw on desktop. As you can see, we've got our headline, we've got a CTA with a special offer that's enticing for our users the second the page loads. They can go ahead and fill out a form, they can give them a call. They also have a mobile responsive menu that they can use as they navigate. Again, we've still got the live chat feature to continue to make it easy for them to reach out. As we scroll, you'll see the alert bar stays at the top. So you can change that out for any special offer or call to action. We've got our reviews up here on the slider, our company story, CTAs, we'll continue to build that trust. All the sections format really nicely on mobile as well as desktop. We've got, you know, the different product selectors, the accordions still work on mobile. Of course, we love to have those product selectors in an aesthetically pleasing module. All the rest of the sections you've already seen, but you can just tell that on mobile it still looks great because it was a mobile first design. We've got all of the elements that we need to continue to build a trustworthy conversion-friendly website on the mobile experience. Take you through just a few more pages on mobile. Let's take a look at the bathroom remodeling page that we looked at on desktop. You can see it loads super quickly. Even on mobile, you've got that same featured special offer up here. As you scroll, we've got the form or we've got the header, sorry, up here saying sticky. We've got the same sections with different call to actions. We've got our product selectors down here so users can easily get to other products if needed. As we continue to scroll, we've still got the motion effects for each section, adding that sense of elegance. We've got our different call to actions to make sure that we're always hitting home with whatever the section is about, and it is tailored to the customer. So as you can see, it's really a very similar experience to the desktop in terms of the elements you're getting. They're all formatted to be mobile responsive, and it's something that you shouldn't have to worry about when you're going from desktop to mobile on your website. And FastSight makes sure that you don't have to. No, but really. An award's coming, I promise. Beautiful. So that is a live experience of walking through one of our real FastSight websites. Um, wanted to give you a little bit of a taste or a lot of a taste of it. Um, but if you have any specific questions, you want to see other pages, anything like that, please don't hesitate, shoot us an email, reach out, and we will get back to you. Um in all, if you are a contractor who needs leads right now, um, you have been investing in ads and you need to see ROI on that. And if you're just ready to grow, FastSite is a website that is absolutely for you. Um, we can help fix your website if it's slow, clunky, just not converting, and we can do it quickly. Um, we're here to deliver conversion-focused, clean website design so that we can help you increase your bookings and grow as a company. Yay.

Caitlyn Noble 48:01

So I promised because you sat through that YouTube video, um, which was great. We needed to see it. So we did cover a lot today. There's a special offer though. Um, we talked about why websites don't convert, we walked through the fast site framework, obviously, and hopefully you're already thinking about areas that your own site could be improved. So here's the thing: it's one thing to learn the principles, it's another thing to know exactly where your website stands. And that's why we want to do something special for everybody who's listening. So, for a limited time, we're gonna offer a free fast site conversion audit. It's almost$500 to do this, but we're gonna do it for free. Um, when we conduct your audit, we're gonna review your mobile lead flow because that's where most of your leads are coming from, obviously. Your call to action placement, are you making it easy to anybody to contact you at any point? Your trust signals, are there credibility gaps that are costing you conversions? Your page speed and load performance because flow sites are no leads. Um, and your SEO and ad compatibility is your site structured to support Google Ads, LSA, and organic traffic. That's a lot. But at the end of it, you're gonna receive a clear prioritized action plan to increase calls and form submissions. The goal is simple. We're trying to help contractors stop leaking leads. So some of you may be listening and you're like, that's awesome, audit would be great, but I don't need an audit. I already know that I need a new website. If that's you, we have an option for you too. If you're ready to move forward with a fast site and skip the audit step altogether, we are opening a few number of website rebuild spots right now. I mean, I'm saying like maybe two because we're gonna give away one. We're intentionally only going to um take just a few of these projects at this time so we can move fast, of course, and give each launch the attention that it deserves. So, because of that, these spots tend to fill quickly. Here's the best part though. For anybody who is going to sign a fast site agreement by February 28th, that is this Saturday, we're gonna commit to having your new website live by April 1st. Now, if you all sign up and you all want a new site, we're gonna have to do some work around the order of how that comes in. First come, first serve. So April 1st, that's gonna have you set up for uh hopefully a much warmer spring than what we're facing right now. Um, and a great summer ahead on into the fall. So you're gonna be capturing more leads, like I said, by the spring season on a site that's built to convert. If you want to activate either one of those offers, obviously the free audit is a no-brainer. But then if you do want to go ahead and get ahead of the game and get that site built, visit fatcatstrategies.com backslash fast site. As I mentioned, we're all about education. So no matter what, here's what you need to do. You probably were doing it as you were watching Meredith's video. Audit your homepage, count how many calls to action you have throughout your site. Um, check your load speed and then look at the mobile experience. Be honest, and if you realize that your site isn't helping you win, let's fix it. So we mentioned we're gonna give away a fast site to somebody who attended today. We're gonna email that winner as soon as we jump off this call so we can get things rolling right away. And then, of course, we've got the form open to anybody else who's ready to get a new site built for them. Thank you so much. Um, we really appreciate this. We're gonna send the recording out, we're gonna send the answers to the live chats, and like I said, we're gonna let you know if you're the lucky winner of our free fast site. Follow along, we've got a great podcast, we're gonna have more webinars to come, and I hope you guys got something out of this. Thank you.

Meredith Medlin 52:12

All right, well, that wraps up our FastSight webinar replay. Uh, hope you found it helpful and walked away with some practical ideas that you can actually implement for your own website.

Caitlyn Noble 52:23

If this sparked questions about your own website or made you realize it might be time for an upgrade, we'd love to talk. And don't forget, you can always watch the full presentation at FatCatStrategies.com backslash webinar if you want to see the slides in that awesome live demo.

Meredith Medlin 52:41

Awesome live demo, can't recommend it enough. Yeah, we are gonna be hosting more of those live webinars throughout the year, covering all kinds of digital marketing tips and strategies, topics, lead generation, conversion optimization, and honestly, just what's working for contractors right now.

Caitlyn Noble 52:58

Definitely. And we keep having special offers. If you were listening to this and you heard that special offer that we did give away um during that webinar, and you're still interested in, you know.

Meredith Medlin 53:13

This one, I mean, we can make something work out. We can reach out, we can't.

Caitlyn Noble 53:17

We can't mention this podcast episode and we'll talk. But yeah, we did already give away that free webinar or free webinar, that free website. But we can we we can make something work. Just reach out to us.

Meredith Medlin 53:29

Absolutely. Well, um, make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and on our email list so that you don't miss the next episode. Um, thank you guys so much for listening.

Caitlyn Noble 53:38

We'll see you next time on the next episode of Digital Marketing for Contractors. Bye.