Roofing clicks are not cheap. Searches like "roof repair near me" and "flat roof replacement" are competitive, and every click costs money. Yet most roofing firms we look at lose more enquiries after the click than they ever lose to a competitor's ad.
Here are the five leaks we see most, and how to fix each one.
Leak 1: the page is slow on a phone
A homeowner with a leak is usually searching on a phone, often in a hurry. Google's research found that 53% of mobile visits are abandoned if a page takes longer than three seconds to load.
What to check:
- Load your page on a phone using mobile data, not office wifi, and time it.
- Compress big photos. A drone shot does not need to be 6 MB.
- Remove sliders, pop-ups and chat widgets that load before the content.
Leak 2: no reason to trust you
Roofing is a trade people worry about. Before they call, homeowners want to know you are real, local and good at it. If your page opens with a stock photo and "welcome to our website", they leave.
Put these above the fold:
- Your star rating and number of reviews, with a link to read them.
- Accreditations you genuinely hold, such as a competent person scheme or TrustMark.
- Photos of recent jobs in the area, with the town named.
- The guarantee you offer on your work.
Leak 3: the phone number is hard to find
A big share of roofing enquiries still come by phone, especially for urgent repairs. If your number is in the footer, or is not a tap-to-call link on mobile, you lose them.
- Put a tap-to-call button at the top of every page.
- Use a tracked number for each campaign so you know which ads make the phone ring.
- Add WhatsApp. Homeowners can send a photo of the problem, which helps you price it.
Leak 4: the form asks too much, too soon
Long forms kill enquiries. A better approach is a two-step form. Step one asks for name, phone or email, and the type of job. Step two asks a few useful questions, such as the type of roof, roughly how big the job is and when they want it done.
People who finish step one are far more likely to finish step two, and you get enough detail to decide whether the job is worth driving out to quote.
Leak 5: nobody replies quickly
An enquiry sent at 8pm on a Tuesday tends to go to whichever roofer replies first. The well-known Lead Response Management study, from MIT and InsideSales, found that contacting a lead within five minutes rather than 30 made it 21 times more likely to qualify. It was a US study of business leads, but anyone who has lost a job to a faster competitor will recognise the pattern.
- Send an instant text or email confirming you have the enquiry and when you will call.
- Get a WhatsApp alert for every new enquiry, so someone sees it straight away, even on a roof.
- Call back the same day, and keep a simple log of how fast you reply.
Three tests to run this week
- The phone test. Open your page on a phone on mobile data. Can you see your reviews, a recent job and the call button without scrolling?
- The out-of-hours test. Send an enquiry through your own form at 8pm. How long until someone replies, and what do they say?
- The tracking test. Look at last month's jobs. Can you say which ad, search term or page each one came from? If not, you are spending blind.
Fix the biggest leak first. A roofing firm that tightens its page and its reply time often wins more work from the same ad spend before it needs to spend a penny more.
If you want a second pair of eyes, ask us for a free review of your pages and ads. We will show you where the leads are leaking and what to fix first.