Construction company website content: 5 tips to make sure you nail it

If you run a construction business, you excel at building many things—but maybe not websites. While word of mouth is great, there’s no denying the fact many of your ideal clients will head to the internet to find a contractor, real estate developer, engineering team, or design firm.

Your construction company website sets the stage for your online presence. A well-designed website can increase traffic, generate leads, and boost sales so you get more, higher-quality projects. It helps establish trust and sets you apart from other construction companies that offer similar services in your area.

Whether you’re a general contractor or a speciality commercial builder, you want to nail your website content. The good news is there are several relatively easy things you can improve on your construction website that will instantly put you a step ahead of many others in the construction industry.

In this post, we’ll give you 5 things you need to nail your construction company website content.

Why do we care about construction company websites?

At Drio, we work with amazing women and men in many different industries. But we’ve got an extra soft spot for women business owners in male-dominated fields like construction, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

That’s partly because our co-founder, Rachel, spent the first 10 years of her career working as a civil engineer. Before she was planning, designing, and developing websites…she was planning, designing, and developing roads.

These days, we’re proud to work with a wide variety of STEM service-based businesses including construction companies and organizations that support contractors. From the Electrical Alliance to the Mechanical Contractor’s Associations of Metropolitan Washington and Maryland, we’re constantly inspired by the passionate people behind these organizations.

They’re community-driven, incredibly skilled, and always making big strides. Since they’re so busy, marketing often falls to the wayside. That’s where we come in.

There’s a lot that goes into a strong website: copywriting, design, development. This post will help you identify five of the most important things you should improve on your existing construction website so you stand out from the crowd—and reel in more clients.

Keep your construction website current

This might sound simple but this is one of the most important elements in building a better construction website. It must stay up to date. If your website has outdated services, pricing, references, or processes, it can quickly leave a negative impression on visitors.

For example, are you still talking about COVID lockdown? Are you advertising the wrong hours of operation? Have you retired a service that’s still living on your website? Or maybe you have some super old photos and graphics that could throw people off… (2012 nostalgia anyone…?)

Your first job is to go through your website and sweep it for dated information and visuals. Make a list of elements that need to be changed in order of priority. Then get to work!

Going forward, if you have limited capacity and can’t constantly update your website, be strategic about adding time-sensitive information. Does it really need to live there? If so, schedule time to update it before it’s irrelevant. Alternatively, you can bring on a team to handle website maintenance.

Optimize your headline—the words and the visuals

Research shows you only have 10-20 seconds to convince visitors to stay on your website. So you must hook them quickly. The key to this is crystal clear, benefit-driven copywriting combined with striking design.

Instead of using a generic headline like “Welcome” or something vague like “Excellent construction solutions for optimal results,” get specific. Your potential customers should know what you do, who you help, and how you help them as soon as they land on your construction company website.

For example, are you a general contractor or a speciality builder? Do you work on residential projects, commercial projects, or a combination? Where are you based? Is there something unique about how you design and build your clients’ projects?

These are all questions you should consider answering in the top part of your website. The words are just half of the equation, of course. The visuals are also crucial for capturing what you do and setting your business apart from competitors.

This can be done in a variety of ways. Perhaps you pair your headline with a captivating video of one of your construction projects. Maybe you showcase a happy contractor shaking hands with a client. Or perhaps it’s simply a clean, modern design—to match the clean, modern projects you build.

Whatever the direction you go in, you want to be super intentional with the headline area of your website. If your website looks and sounds professional from the get-go, that helps build trust and set you apart from other construction company websites.

Make your website easy to navigate

Don’t make your visitors flounder around your construction company website. There’s nothing worse than a prospect having to click through many links to find what they’re looking for. It should feel seamless as visitors explore your services and eventually land on your Contact page.

Here are a few tips to make your construction website easy to navigate:

Have a clear, minimalist navigation bar. You don’t need 25 tabs. Get simple and focus on the most important pages (e.g. Home, About, Services, Work, Contact).

Add a section on your homepage that gives a quick overview of the construction services you offer. Depending on your goals, this can then direct readers to a general Services page with more detail on them all, or to individual service pages. If you’re focussing on search engine optimization (SEO), it’s recommended to create a service page for each specific service.

Make your Contact form SUPER easy to find. Add clear call-to-action buttons on your homepage and make the Contact tab stand out on your navigation bar. This is where you want potential clients to land after all.

There is a lot that can be done to improve your construction website’s user experience. But start with these and you’ll be leaps ahead.

Showcase your work, reviews, and achievements

The proof is in the pudding. Unfortunately, we’ve noticed many construction businesses aren’t using their websites to showcase their spectacular work and impressive achievements. We’ve got three recommendations to help you do so. All of them help build trust in your construction firm.

Showcase past work

The best construction websites have a way for visitors to view past projects—kind of like an artist’s or writer’s portfolio. This allows visitors to see first-hand what’s possible for the project they have in mind.

Take some time to curate your best work. We recommend you also include information about the goals, challenges, and outcomes associated with that project.

Showcase impressive clients and awards

Be loud and proud about any achievements your business has earned. You can talk about awards you’ve won and milestones you’ve hit on your About page. You can also showcase media mentions, awards, or high-profile clients with “proof bars” throughout relevant parts of your construction company website.

Here’s an example:

Showcase client testimonials

Let your past customers do the selling for you by showcasing customer reviews throughout your website. 93% of people search for reviews before they purchase something. The odds are very high that your ideal clients will be looking for reviews before hiring you, too.

Your prospects will probably look at Google reviews but you should also showcase client testimonials on your construction website. This provides some nice persuasive proof while users are navigating your website. Pro tip: Add testimonials to each of the projects you feature in your portfolio!

Get personal on your About page

We often find business owners in the construction industry shy away from showcasing themselves on their websites—especially women leaders. We get it. It can be hard to put yourself out there. But this is your reminder to be loud and proud about who you are.

Your About page should keep your ideal client’s desires at the core. But it should also be a place where customers can learn more about you and what matters to your business.

Don’t be afraid to showcase yourself as the CEO and your employees, if applicable. It doesn’t have to be a huge life story. A photo and a few lines/paragraphs about why you started your business and your values will help you stand out from a sea of faceless construction firms.

Remember, your clients are people who want to hire people. So you should use your construction company website as an opportunity to spark a personal connection.

Is it time to re-design your construction company website content?

First up, if you’re not sure if now’s a good time, check out our blog How often should you redesign your website?

If it’s time, we can help. At Drio, we design creative, strategy-driven websites that solve problems and make your brand the obvious choice. If you’re looking for a website that matches your business’s growth and does more than look pretty (though it’ll certainly do that too), we can help you get there.

Learn more about our website design services.

We took about 3 minutes to review a women-owned construction company’s website. Take a look to find out if they nailed their website content: