Creating perfect content for your roofing website can be hard and time-consuming. It can be also challenging sometimes even if you have been working as a roofing contractor for a long time.
But how do I know?
Well, this is what I found while working for my clients. I have one client who had been using totally garbage content from 2010 to October 2023.
In this post, I will explain the two main aspects:
- How can you write the perfect copy for your roofing website?
- Mistakes you should avoid at any cost.
What you’ll get after reading this post?
Here are the benefits you can get from this post:
- You’ll understand the process of writing and getting your copy.
- Your visitors, prospects & customers will understand what actually you do.
- You may get a better ranking on search results if it’s done correctly.
Let’s get started.
How can you achieve perfect copywriting for your roofing business website?
Content generally refers to the text for the pages & posts, pictures, graphs, charts, infographics, etc. But in this post, I exclusively mean text or copywriting. So keep that in mind as you go through this post.
Some of you may think, hm I can get copywriting only for a few bucks or hiring a cheap writer or using AI (artificial intelligence) tools like ChatGPT, Surfer, etc.
Yes, you can get your copy using any of these methods. But if you do, you’ll make your website another piece of garbage on the internet.
Using AI to generate content is always a useless concept and a bad idea. Don’t waste your time with it. For more information, see why most websites fail.
Do You Need Help Putting Things Together? Roofing Web Design Service →
Also, even if you hire professional copywriters in the first step, you won’t get the expected result.
Why should you avoid hiring copywriters at the beginning?
You know the line of your business and no one knows better than you. Even if it’s the same niche and other experts are working on it. You know about what are the tiny fields you are best at. Moreover, this is a field that requires a technical background and most importantly it needs practical experience to write about.
So if you hire other people who don’t have experience working in your field and those who are general writers who write about anything on the planet, the following thing will happen:
The writers will perform a generic search and write content based on their findings that already exist on other websites. To be more specific, they will take the concept from your competitors and similar businesses.
There is nothing wrong with taking concepts from external sources. But without having any practical experience in your niche, the content will be based on assumptions.
By doing such writing, it does not add any extra value to your copy. Also, it does not focus on your expertise, past works, and what actually you do. Moreover, it can include off-topics in your copy. That’s why you should avoid hiring copywriters at the beginning.
How to avoid these mistakes and the process you should follow?
You know the problems. Now what?
To get around this and to write a perfect copy, you have to start yourself. Even if you’re way too busy and don’t have time to write, you must start writing yourself. That’s the main key to success and the first step of getting perfect copywriting.
As a roofing contractor you don’t have experience in copywriting and a copywriter doesn’t have experience in your field. So you need to make a combination of these two and the order does matter. That means you have to start at first and then your copywriters will start after you.
Main topics you should cover in your first draft and before hiring a writer
Luckily, you don’t have to complete the writing if you can’t. You can only write the main points & short descriptions in plain English.
However, it should clearly provide an overview of what actually you do but these are not limited to:
- The main & key services you have to offer
- Your main strengths
- What makes you different from others?
- What problems do you solve?
Your first draft should also provide an overview of cost estimation. Because you’re the only person who knows your actual rate and no professional copywriters can calculate it for you. So you have to point them out first.
Why cost estimation is important in the line of your business?
The cost estimation is important because your target customers want to know the price before hiring. They won’t start a project with an unlimited budget.
If you need help brainstorming, see the following cost estimation examples that could be based on:
- Types of projects such as residential, commercial, story levels, etc.
- Required materials such as rubber, roll, tar, gravel, metal, shingles, etc.
- Types of services such as roof installation, repairs & maintenance, replacement, etc.
Based on the above examples, you can calculate the price based on certain square feet. From there your clients get an assumption and evaluate prices. Even they can contact you if they need further explanation according to their unique requirements and if the required materials were not included in your copy.
If you want to take it to the next level, you can build an automated cost estimation calculator that will generate the price based on the customers’ input. This is also a great idea to get more leads for your business.
What is the next step after writing your first draft?
Until this point, you got the idea to write the main topics and a rough copy. That’s most important thing you did. But how can you make it more user-friendly, easy to read & understand, and simplify for your customers?
This is the step where you can allow copywriters to play & mess around.
Now it’s time to find professional writers. When hiring a copywriter to rewrite your first draft, make sure the writer is:
- Professional & dedicated
- Has a proven track record helping previous clients
However, avoid the cheap freelancing platforms and those who don’t have track records.
Also, do not choose or judge writers by their reviews & testimonials only. In many cases, those reviews are fake, received from friends, families, or in exchange for money.
Anyway, this is not a post about the process of hiring a professional writer. But I gave you the key points you should look for and things to avoid.
After you hire someone, share the first draft you wrote and give them instructions to rewrite, extend, and simplify it.
What to do after you receive the final copy from your writer?
Do not just copy & paste from Word documents that your writers sent to you. Use your own intuition, and read the copy several times to check if you need to exclude or include anything. Finalize it yourself.
I don’t know about you but if I were you, I would hire multiple writers to compare the copies and make an outstanding one. Also, I would try to see if they copied anything from the internet or if their any exact match among writers.
Anyway, do not just depend on the plagiarism tools to spot out the crap. Because those people who steal content, also reorganize words & sentences before delivering the final copy to you. They make it harder for the tools to find out the plagiarized sentences.
This statement is also true about those who generate content using AI tools and claim themselves as writers.
But if you hire a professional, you don’t even need to check for any plagiarism.
Check for keyword stuffing and ensure the readability
Keyword stuffing includes the same phrase over & over without any necessity. It makes the content harder to read, boring, and unhelpful.
Its intention is to rank bad content higher. It’s gaming the search engine ranking system.
Luckily, it does not work anymore. Even though this type of bad trick was working in the old days. For now, search engines have become more than smart.
An example of keyword stuffing
For example, you want to rank for the “Best Roofing Contractor” keyword. If you use this term/phrase excessively will be considered keyword stuffing.
Sometimes, it could be an honest mistake and not intentional. Either way, you have to read your content before uploading it to the website and remove any excessive use of keywords.
Bonus: If you need inspiration and want to get started quickly, I have a free HTML template for roofing websites. You can see the details and download the template in this post. This is a one-page website template but it can be extended or converted into WordPress.
Conclusion
Roofing contractors’ businesses are a technical field. All these contractors have the uniqueness of their expertise and the small area they want to focus on.
The main problem with writing for this type of website is it will require practical experience. But the copywriters don’t have experience in this field. As a result, they will do generic research and start to write that already exists somewhere else & not all these will fit your business. It’s another big problem.
To get around all these problems and to get perfect copywriting for your business/website, you must have to start writing first. Even if you do not have any writing skills, you can still do it by summarizing the key points. From there, you can get help from a professional writer to extend & simplify it.
Many contractors use AI or writers in the first place to avoid these hassles. This makes their website unhelpful, untrustworthy, and ultimately difficult to land new clients.
