7 Proven Website Hacks to Increase Home Improvement Sales

September 17, 2024

When it comes to marketing your home improvement business, your prospects’ first instinct is to check out your website. That digital first impression can make or break whether you convert that prospect into a full-fledged customer. With “near me” mobile searches growing by 136% in 2023, there’s a huge opportunity to make more home improvement sales with your website.

But what actually makes a website high converting? The truth is, you don’t need a degree in marketing or web design to build a website that leaves your phone ringing with prospects all day. Whether you’re making your website for the very first time, or you’ve been online for several years, this blog will help you turn more curious eyes into loyal customers.

After analyzing hundreds of home improvement websites, we know what makes customers click. By following the 7 proven website hacks in this blog, you’ll perform better than 80% of your competitors - a lot of them have gaping holes in their website lurking right under their noses!

Increase Home Improvement Sales With A Tagline

A tagline is a short and catchy phrase that communicates your business’ unique value proposition. It’s an instant way to grab your prospect's attention, and distinguish you from other brands - especially ones that don’t even have a tagline. Your tagline should sit above the fold (what you see before you scroll) of your home page. It should be memorable, likable, and imply a certain benefit for your users.

Here are some examples of great taglines:

  • Renovate Right As Rain.

  • Work Hard, Correct Harder.

  • Your Trusted Partner for Renovation Projects.

  • The Smarter Way to Remodel.

  • Because Your Home Deserves the Best Roof.

Where the tagline really makes you home improvement sales are for customers who are deciding between a few different brands. According to Qualtrics, around 60% of global consumers prefer to purchase a new product from a brand they recall rather than change to a new brand. You can also consider a tagline related to your area. Ex: “Miami’s Premier Estate Builder.” If you want some help creating or rebranding your tagline, check out Column Five’s guide on How To Write A Great Tagline According To Science.

Here’s What Home Improvement Customers Are Really Looking For

For customers in a pinch and need a project or repair started as soon as possible, they need your contact info/send an inquiry. Now here’s what a lot of home improvement websites do wrong: Their navigation bar is filled with a ton of links, making it hard for users to actually find the contact page they clicked on this website for.

(what not to do)

How do you fix this? It’s simple. Only include 3-4 links in your navigation bar. Too many links can overwhelm your users and they could end up leaving your site altogether. We’ve seen a ton of home improvement businesses lose out on hundreds of potential customers by blasting their navigation bar with random, unnecessary links.


Bonus tip: Highlight your primary link (usually your “contact” button) to make it clear and obvious for users to click it.

An Easy Way To Win Home Improvement Sales

Now you might think that once they land on your contact page, they’ll fill out the form… right? Wrong. It isn’t guaranteed they’ll fill it out, especially if it’s confusing. 

So how do you make sure they actually fill out the form? Make your copy and the contact form simple and direct. Instead of saying “Send us a message and we’ll be in touch!” Get specific. Tell them exactly what to say: “Fill out this short form and let us know how we can help you!” This increases the likelihood of your home improvement customers filling it out, because you gave them clear instructions.

Another Bonus Tip: Keep the contact form simple. You should only need their name, email address, and a message box. These short forms receive about a 25% conversion rate, which only decreases the more fields you add. You want to make the customer experience as seamless as possible.

All Home Improvement Websites Need Brand Colors

Now this one may seem self explanatory, but we’ve seen a ton of websites that blast 5 (or more) different colors. The unnecessary red text, colored social media icons, flying neon yellow pop-ups, the whole lot. You want to avoid looking like a scammy website as much as humanly possible, or you risk losing out on a ton of home improvement sales…

And to do that, sticking to 2-3 colors works best. Just make sure all your text is easy to read. The right colors and the right use of them can make users feel secure when choosing your home improvement brand. If you’re coming up with new brand colors, use color psychology to evoke specific emotions.

(Psst! Check out our post we made on color theory, here)

Sure, you can’t measure whether your brand colors will lead to more sales, but a website that looks like it was put together in 2008 definitely won’t give you any results either.

The Proof Is In The... Proof

Have you ever bought something because you read good reviews about it? Everyone and their mother has, and home improvement customers are no different. In fact, 73% of customers are more trusting of businesses with online reviews. It’s another indirect website hack that will push your prospects to book a consultation.


When it comes to digitally marketing home improvement, you want to include social proof as much as you can throughout your site. Dedicated review pages are a good start. But if you want to go the extra mile, place them in areas where users need reinforcement, like service pages and your contact page. Just make sure you’re using good reviews, and they’re from real customers…

Home Improvement Sales Are Made Here

Similar to the point we talked about with reviews, having high-quality images can boost the conversion rate of your home improvement website. And if your site is littered with pixelated images of off-angled kitchen sinks, users might be leaving your site before you even realize it… They can read your compelling copy all you want, but home improvement customers need to see it to believe it.

The truth is, home improvement sales are also made on the portfolio page. It’s not rocket science - in the digital age, your work needs to look professional. Blurry photos won’t cut it anymore, no matter how good the flooring of your last basement renovation project went. But, that’s also the beauty of digital marketing in home improvement. The better your photos and videos are, the more sales you make. 

Bonus SEO Tip: Make sure all your images have alt attributes.

Home Improvement Sales Calls (To Action)

Call-to-Actions (CTA’s) are short snippets of copy with a button/link that push users to check out their other pages, visit their social media, book a call, etc. To make more home improvement sales, you should insert multiple CTA’s throughout your website that prompt users to book a call (These work really well in tandem with social proof, too).

The CTA should relate to what users were reading throughout the page. Take a look at this CTA on a service page for kitchen remodeling:

“Is your kitchen in need of a modern facelift? Click here for your free consultation.”


Get how it works now? It doesn’t have to be groundbreaking copy, just simple and direct (notice a theme, here?). Our Business Essentials packages come complete with a website audit that provides you with tailored insights on how your website can improve, and what key fixes can be made to drive more conversions. Check it out, here.

Conclusion

See how simple that is? A website doesn’t (and shouldn’t) need to be overcomplicated and full of technical jargon to produce home improvement sales. Yet, we see that circus all the time in our competitor analyses… 

Here’s a recap of our key takeaways:

  • Your main goal is to get prospects to the finish line (your contact page). Make that process as easy as possible by optimizing your navigation bar.

  • Simple beats complex. A nice color palette, branded tagline, and visible text are all you need to nail that first impression.

  • Home improvement customers need to see it to believe it: Use social proof and high-quality project images to push them over the edge.

Congratulations! You’re now ahead of most of the competitors in your area. And you don’t need an entire marketing department to implement it! Say hello to more emails, calls, and conversions.

From here, it’s a matter of increasing your web traffic to get more users on your site. If you want more long-term results to grow your web traffic, check out our other blogs!

You’ve got them on your site, now how do you convert them into customers?

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