The first step of marketing a new service offered by a business is typically adding it to an existing website.
Two common mistakes that home inspectors and property management companies make when adding commercial property inspections to their existing website include: only adding a bullet point, small paragraph, or picture indicating that they offer commercial property inspections; and/or only adding a separate “Commercial Property Inspection Services” page with minimal content, and calling it a day.
Both of these mistakes inadvertently advertise commercial property inspections as a trivial or subordinate service that the business may only occasionally offer, which isn’t likely to gain the confidence of prospective commercial clientele.
Especially in the case of adding commercial services to a website that advertises residential inspection services, the commercial services should be advertised with the same emphasis as the residential services. Consider this: If one of your inspection clients takes you to court, would your first choice for legal counsel be an attorney who advertises primarily divorce and family law? Of course not. You’re going to search for the lawyer who specializes in the type of representation you need in order to be assured that you’re getting the expertise you want.
Thus, an existing residential inspection website requires quite a bit of revamping to add commercial property inspection services in order to appeal to the specific clientele you’re after. For this reason, many inspectors choose to separate their commercial services from their residential services altogether by registering a DBA and building a free commercial property inspection website through CCPIA. It’s not robost, but enough to get you started or aid in building your online presence.
How to Add Commercial Property Inspections to Your Existing Website
For the best results and highest traffic, create a separate webpage dedicated to commercial property inspections and add plenty of information about it to your homepage (i.e., text, images, and videos). The goal is to establish commercial property inspections as a primary service.
Another common mistake people make is simply adding “Commercial Property Inspections” to existing headers and text without adding any additional information.
This may undermine your commercial business in two ways: It still does not give your commercial clientele the confidence they need to hire you because commercial property inspections appear to be squeezed in as an afterthought; and it hinders your SEO efforts because of the way search engines skip over “stop words.”
Here are some additional tips to keep in mind when making changes to your website yourself or when discussing changes with your webmaster:
- Separate your commercial services and your residential services on the homepage. For example, have one section about “Home Inspections” and include sufficient verbiage and a relevant image of a house. Then, below that, add a “Commercial Property Inspections” section and include the same amount of verbiage and a relevant image of a typical commercial structure that you’d inspect in your service area.
- Spotlight the separate “Commercial Property Inspection Services” page. Make sure it’s easily findable in the main menu. Don’t hide this page in the “Services” tab along with mold testing, radon testing, WDO inspections, etc. Instead, utilize a tab just for your commercial property inspection services, and, if applicable, add any commercial sub-services in a drop-down menu in that tab (even if they link to the other pages for your residential ancillary inspection services).
- Provide ample information on the separate “Commercial Property Inspection Services” page. This page can look incomplete if you upload only one picture and a few sentences about your commercial property inspection services, which ultimately gives the impression that you’re new to the commercial sector of the inspection industry. Add the CCPIA logo, along with information about the International Standards of Practice for Inspecting Commercial Properties (ComSOP) that you follow, as well as any other relevant information.
- Incorporate two different call-to-action (CTA) buttons throughout your website, including on your homepage, your “About” page, and your separate commercial services page. One button should be for your home inspection services (“Schedule a Home Inspection”), and one button should be for your commercial property inspection services (“Schedule a Commercial Property Inspection”), even if both buttons link to the same page for your contact information.
- Add your qualifications for performing commercial property inspections to your “About” page. This frequently gets overlooked by the inspector when they revamp their website to add new services, so be sure to add your relevant qualifications that are specific to performing commercial property inspections. For example, in addition to your general background, state that you are a member of CCPIA and have attended hands-on training.
The Bottom Line
Adding commercial property inspections to your existing home inspection company website requires quite a bit of time and money for restructuring, which is why some inspectors choose to take advantage of creating their free commercial property inspection website through CCPIA to get started. However, it’s still important for inspectors to build a brand with consistent marketing material (website, business cards, and print material).
Keep in mind that the main goal of adding commercial property inspection services to your existing home inspection website is to make it appear as a primary service, which should give your prospective commercial clientele more confidence about hiring you. Your business can go from receiving a handful of calls each year from people wondering if you perform commercial property inspections to receiving more calls from people who specifically want to order a commercial property inspection. Convert those calls by having a website that stakes a claim in the commercial property inspection market.
Additional Commercial Inspection Resources:
Commercial Inspection Website Guidance
How to Manage Your Online Reputation as a Commercial Property InspectorCommercial Inspectors: Claim and Clean up Your Online Directory Listings
Do Online Business Reviews Matter?