Get Your House in Order
Build Your Online Presence Today or Watch Consumers Surf on By
Have you put all your energy into becoming a skilled home inspector, but not yet created an online presence for your inspection business? If so, you may find consumers passing you by in favor of a competitor who has.
An August 2004 report, “The Internet and Daily Life,” released by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, found that the Internet plays a role in the daily lives of 88 percent of Americans. That’s more than 247 million people who can be found Googling, surfing and eBaying each and every day.
From online shopping, to information gathering, to the use of e-mail, today’s consumer has come to expect businesses to have an online presence. A Web site not only provides important information on location, services and costs, but also offers something that every home inspector wants and needs: credibility. A business without a Web site in the year 2004 would be like a business without a fax machine in the 1980s – out of touch, out of date and easily dismissed as not “with the times.”
Of the nearly 6,200 individuals who hold some level of membership in ASHI, there are 735 who have not reported an e-mail address and 3,583 who have not reported a company Web site. This means, besides missing out on the opportunity to receive e-mail communications from ASHI HQ and losing out on the opportunity for a link from the ASHI site, consumers who locate these professionals on “Find an Inspector” at www.ashi.org may be passing them by in favor of the next person on the list who has one.
The important thing when developing your company’s Web site, research suggests, is to determine the purpose of the site and gear all content and design to feed that purpose. In the case of the ASHI Web site, the goal is clear.
“When the redeveloped ashi.org site was rolled out in early 2004, it had three
primary purposes: serve as a resource for consumers and real estate professionals looking for the best home inspectors in their area, offer a way to increase membership satisfaction by making association resources easily available, and provide detailed information for individuals looking to pursue a career in the profession,” said Rob Paterkiewicz, ASHI executive director. “With visitor sessions to our site now topping more than 80,000 per month, there are many opportunities for a consumer to connect with an ASHI Member or a Candidate with logo use.”
When a typical consumer finds an inspector on the ASHI site, how are they making contact with that inspector? There were nearly 152,000 “Find an Inspector” searches done between February and September 2004. ASHI reports 18,237 direct contacts were made from these searches via e-mail during this same period. Were the other contacts made via telephone or perhaps through the inspectors’ own Web sites or did the consumer simply give up because some inspectors had neither a Web site nor an e-mail listed?
Since many consumers are visiting the ASHI site during the workday (the peak hour for visitors in October 2004 was during the noon-1 p.m. lunch hour), many of them may not have the time to make a phone call, but they easily can send an e-mail asking the inspector to contact them later at home.
For consumers who visit the ASHI site after hours (and some 29,413 did so in October between the hours of 7 p.m. and 8 a.m.), an e-mail and Web site allowed them to make contact electronically without the fear of waking the inspector with a call in the wee hours of the morning. Some may have skipped those with a telephone alone, assuming the office was likely closed anyway.
If an inspector wants to establish e-mail, free services exist. For a list of providers, visit www.emailaddresses.com. When you have e-mail, be sure to check it at least two to three times per day.
For a true Web presence, you may want to establish your own home page. This usually involves hiring a hosting service with a minimum monthly fee, and connecting with a designer to assist with the creation of the site. Web developers, some with experience in developing home inspection sites, can be found on the ASHI Web site under “Products and Services” or in advertisements in this magazine.
Consider this: the more contact choices you offer consumers the more likely you are to hear from them.
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