How Contractors Can Turn the Slow Season Into A Head Start

You're probably feeling it already. The phone is ringing a little less. The cool breeze is coming in, and major jobs are wrapping up. If you run a contractor or home service business, you're probably thinking two things:

• How do I squeeze more juice out of what's left of this year?
• I want to start next year strong instead of crawling back from a slow winter.

The good news is that there is still plenty of opportunity right now. And if you're serious about getting more leads and more sales, Q4 is a good time to invest money and real effort into marketing. You can be building the foundation that carries you into the new year while the competition is coasting.

I've been seeing this for more than 15 years, and every year tells me the same thing: preparing in the last quarter is the best thing you could do to start strong in the first quarter of the following year. Here's how I would approach it.

Audit What You Have

Before you spend a dollar on anything new, take a look at your current digital marketing. Grab a notepad and answer these questions.

Your website

• Do you have one?
• Is it mobile optimized? Most of your customers are finding you on their phones.
• Is it optimized for search?
• Does it have high intent pages, meaning pages that answer the questions that turn a looker into a buyer?

Your consistency

Is your business name, address and phone number the same everywhere? That means your Google Business Profile, Google Maps, social media, Yelp and every directory or partner site that lists you.

Here's a simple example. If you're "ABC Concrete Anaheim" in one place and "ABC Concrete OC" somewhere else, that's a problem. Search engines see two different businesses, and they don't know which one to trust.

Your ads

• Are you running ads on Google?
• On Meta (Facebook and Instagram)?
• Anywhere else, like YouTube, LinkedIn or TikTok?
• If you are, are they bringing in jobs?

Your reviews

How many reviews do you have compared to your local competitors? Do you have enough happy customers to beat their review count? This one is a big deal, and it deserves its own post on how to collect reviews consistently.

Once you have those answers, you know where the gaps are. Let's fill them.

Fix Your Website for Google and AI Search

Your website is your home base on the internet. Not your social profiles like Facebook. It's the one place nobody can take away from you, and it's where people go to get their questions answered, see photos and videos of your work, and meet you and your team.

If your site is outdated, poorly designed, or doesn't position you as the solution to your customer's problems, it's time for a redesign.

And you need to optimize for two things right now:

1. Google. It's still the number one search engine by a long shot, and with Gemini built into search, Google is becoming an AI tool too.
2. AI search tools. More and more people are asking ChatGPT and similar tools who to hire. Some people call this AEO or GEO. I just call it optimization. Showing up.

This is what local SEO and AI search optimization is all about: making sure you show up wherever your customers are looking.

Clean Up Your Listings and Build Good Backlinks

Now's the best time to clean up everything around your website while it's being built.

Stick to one phone number. We've worked with businesses that had up to five different phone numbers floating around online. That confuses search engines. If you use call tracking numbers for ads, that's fine, since ads aren't indexed. Just have someone who understands call tracking set it up, and use your main number everywhere else.

Get rid of spammy backlinks. You don't want your business associated with anything flagged on the internet.

Build legitimate ones instead. A few of the best:

• Your local chamber of commerce. If you serve four or five counties, start with the chamber in your main city or primary market. Memberships run anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to around a thousand, and the backlink has real authority for a local service provider.
• Free business directories. There are plenty of reputable ones that will list you. Every quality listing helps you move up.

Why does ranking matter so much? Search for something like "concrete near me" and look at what comes up. Ads sit at the very top. Below them are the organic results. The goal is to get you on page one organically, ideally at the top.

Treat Your Google Business Profile Like a Social Channel

Your Google Business Profile is one of the most important tools you have. Post on it the same way you would on Instagram. Share your expertise, photos of your work, and invite people to visit your site or give you a call. Every post tells Google you're active.

Pair that with a steady stream of 4 and 5 star reviews. The more positive reviews you have, the more often you show up, and the more likely people are to call you and book. A fully optimized Google Business Profile is a fast win for a local contractor.

Run the Right Ads While Your Site Is Being Built

You don't have to wait for the new website to start bringing in leads. Ads can trickle in customers right away. Which platform you lean on depends on your trade.

Google Ads for high intent work. If someone needs concrete by next week, they're going to Google it. Concrete, general construction, roofing and most home services fit here. Somebody with a leaking roof right before the rainy season wants to hire you today.

Here's something interesting. When someone sees your ad at the top, skips past it (like I usually do), and then sees you again in the organic results, that's a strong signal to call you.

Meta Ads for visual work. If you're a landscape designer, a painter or a roofer, before and after photos and videos are incredibly effective on Facebook and Instagram. Meta has been perfecting its ad platform for nearly 20 years, and it's very good at putting your work in front of the right people in your area.

Launch a Site That Captures Leads

A great, fully optimized website should take no more than two weeks to build, as long as you and your team help with photos, content and details. Once it's live, make sure it works hard for you:

• Put your phone number and contact options front and center on mobile.
• Add a cost calculator. Everyone wants to know what a job will cost. A custom calculator collects the visitor's name, email and phone right before it shows their estimate, and sends it to your CRM, email or text. They get a number, you get a lead.
• Call those leads back fast. Speed wins! There's a high chance that the first contractor to call back gets the work, and sometimes a customer or partner for life.
• Add case studies. One before, one during and one after photo with a short story is enough. "We did a job in Costa Mesa, the customer wanted this, here is how we completed it, the customer is thrilled."
• Show off social proof. Put your best reviews and the logos of companies you work with right on your homepage.

After launch, keep building citations and directory listings. That off-site work doesn't stop.

Show Up Consistently on Social and YouTube

Post once or twice a week. Make it educational. Pick one small piece of your work and explain why you do it a certain way and what the benefits are. Mention that you've been doing this for 15, 20 or 30 years. People want to hear it from the pro.

The more you do this, the more viewers feel like they know you before they ever call. That's how you stay top of mind.

And remember, it's not about going viral or gaining tens of thousands or even millions of views. Virality does not equal money. The focus here is educating a high-intent searcher who's looking for a solution. If you are that solution, you're likely to get that lead. This type of content may have low views, maybe in the hundreds at best, but those are laser-focused, high-intent views.

A few tips:

• Skip the phone number splashed across your images and videos. In my experience, posts heavy with text and contact info get shown to fewer people. Keep it clean. Interested people will tap your profile.
• Never spam.
• Use YouTube. It's a gold mine most service businesses ignore. And there is a good reason: it's hard. It's especially hard to put ourselves in front of the camera. My suggestion is just do it. Let go of any preconceived ideas or fear of being in front of the camera, and put yourself out there. It will make you money.

Publish helpful five minute videos about what makes you different, how you work, your team and where you serve. Then cut short clips for Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Start Now

Q4 doesn't have to be a slow fade into the darkness where you have to crawl back up in the new year. Audit what you have, fix your website, clean up your listings, lean on your Google Business Profile, run the right ads and show up consistently. Do that now, and you'll start next year with momentum instead of trying to build it from scratch.