Urbandale Home Remodeling Contractor Builds Inbound Lead Engine
A family-owned Des Moines-area home improvement contractor scored 46 out of 100 on its digital presence. Six years later the site produces 35 tracked conversions a month and a 4.9-star review profile.
A family-owned home improvement contractor in Urbandale wanted more bathroom remodels. The problem was the competition: national bath remodel companies with big budgets and hard-sell tactics had flooded the Des Moines market. Their own website, built by a friend, was not attracting traffic or converting the visitors it did get.
In business since 2006, the company handles siding, windows, roofing, bathroom remodels and basement work across Des Moines and the surrounding area. A pre-engagement scorecard put their digital presence at 46 out of 100, with zeros for calls-to-action, blog content and key phrase optimization. They came to us in early 2020 needing a site that built awareness, looked the part, made it easy to get in touch, and tracked every lead — the same gaps we see across Windows Siding Contractor Marketing.
Key Takeaways
- The ChallengeA friend-built website that neither attracted nor converted traffic, no lead tracking, no review process, and national bath remodel advertisers dominating the Des Moines market.
- The ApproachA custom website with layout and copy written around keywords for their top services, conversion tracking on forms and click-to-calls, Google Business Profile setup, and a review request system where none existed.
- The Target ImpactA steady baseline of 8 to 10 solid new leads every month from online sources the owner could actually measure.
Competing against national bath remodelers is a different fight than ranking for siding, so the strategy leaned on what a local shop has that a call-center operation does not. This contractor likes smaller fixer-upper projects, runs a real showroom, is family owned, takes no money down, and focuses remodels on bathrooms and basements rather than kitchens. Those differentiators shaped the messaging, while the build itself followed best practices for layout and keyword-driven service copy so the site could attract the right searcher and then convert them.
Project Summary
| Client Profile: | Family-owned exterior and interior home improvement contractor serving the Des Moines area since 2006. |
| Project Location: | Urbandale, Iowa |
| Primary Objective: | Grow awareness for bathroom remodeling and exterior work with a Conversion-First Website Design that captures and tracks every inquiry. |
| Proposed Strategy: | A comprehensive inbound program pairing keyword-mapped service pages with SEO for Contractors, local search setup and ongoing content. |
| Target Outcomes: | 8 to 10 solid new leads per month, measured through completed contact forms and click-to-call conversions. |
Diagnosing A 46/100 Web Presence
The scorecard numbers told the story in two columns. Web design scored 20 out of 31, dragged down by a zero for calls-to-action. SEO scored 14 out of 32, with zeros for blog content, key phrase optimization and heading tags.
Day to day, that meant a contractor with 14 years of local reputation was invisible to anyone who had not already heard of them. There was no process or tool for requesting new reviews, so years of satisfied customers left no public trace. Meanwhile national bath remodel outfits were buying their way into every search a Des Moines homeowner made.
Building The Site And Review Engine
The new website launched around June 22, 2020, built with layout and copy written specifically around keywords for their top services. Lead capture was designed in rather than bolted on: completed contact forms and click-to-calls were both tracked as conversions from day one.
Local search came next, starting with Google Business Profile setup so the business could be verified and surfaced for Des Moines-area searches. A review request system was put in place where none had existed, backed by Automated Review Requests that turn finished jobs into fresh public proof.
Google Ads were added in 2023 to run alongside organic, weighted toward siding at the owner's request because the siding crew needed work at the time. That split has held based on client feedback and preference, and Paid Ads for Contractors now runs in parallel with the organic program rather than replacing it.
Six Years Of Compounding Lead Growth
The launch month set the baseline: 85 sessions and 10 goal completions — eight contact forms and two phone calls — against a goal of 8 to 10 leads a month. Organic search drove 66 of those 85 sessions.
This past September the site recorded 234 new users, 790 page views and 35 conversions, split 20 contact forms and 15 phone calls. Organic search produced 129 of those new users and 25 of the conversions; paid search added 52 users and five more. On the ad side, 3,926 impressions produced 162 clicks and 15 conversions at a blended $71.27 per conversion, with the windows campaign converting best at $22.86. Roughly 93% of ad conversions came from mobile.
The review profile grew from nothing to a 4.9 rating across 87 Google reviews. The content approach has shifted too — away from adding blog articles and toward copy that supports both traditional search and AI Engine Citations, which is where a growing share of homeowner research now starts.
Build An Inbound Engine You Can Measure
We build custom websites and inbound programs for home service contractors who are tired of guessing where their leads come from. Every form fill and phone call gets tracked back to the source that earned it, so budget decisions stop being arguments and start being math.
Are national advertisers crowding you out of your own market in Des Moines or Urbandale? Talk to us about a strategy built on your real work and your real differentiators.
Call 651-321-0578 or Schedule Online
Frequently Asked Questions
How long before a Des Moines home improvement contractor sees inbound leads?
We typically start to see consistent results on a new strategy between the six and nine month mark. How fast it moves depends on whether the contractor had an existing website and marketing strategy before we started. A company coming from a site with no rank and no prior SEO has further to climb than one with an established footprint.
What does a contractor have to contribute to make this work?
Partnership. That means contributing new content through expert studio interviews, requesting reviews online consistently, and sending over project images, project details and feedback on the leads coming through the site. If a client does not picture us as their internal marketing department that shares the office with them, it hinders results, because the information a strong strategy runs on never makes it to us.
Should budget go to paid ads or organic search for siding and window leads?
Both, and the split should follow which crews need work. This contractor asked for more siding leads when their siding team was slow, so the keyword weighting leaned that direction and has stayed there on their preference. Organic still produces the larger share of conversions, while paid search fills gaps and gives faster feedback on which services are in demand.