YouTube is commonly referred to as the second-largest search engine in the world after Google. This appears to be almost true. According to SparkToro, Google image search is more likely second - with YouTube coming in 3rd with an estimated 2.9% of all Internet searches. This puts YouTube ahead of all other search engines on the Internet including Yahoo, Bing, and Amazon.
Creating and updating a company channel on YouTube needs to be an extremely important part of your overall garage door marketing strategy.
As the third-largest search engine, your customers are here. Having a presence where your customers are looking for services you provide is an obvious reason - but there are other compelling reasons to start taking more video and posting it to YouTube
In the screenshot below, the search for "fixing a garage door spring" you'll notice that there are 4 videos beneath the Local Services Ads and the Google Ads section. Google is showing YouTube videos in search results more and more - up to 26% of search results now contain YouTube video thumbnails according to BrightEdge Research
These YouTube videos are prominently placed for a couple of reasons:
a) People find the videos informative and are highly likely to click on them
b) Google loves to feature YouTube videos because when people click on YouTube, they're staying on Google-owned web properties, and Google can continue to show ads (and generate revenue) from people who are viewing videos on YouTube
By having a YouTube video, you get to show that you're a garage door repair expert. This isn't your first rodeo. You get to show before and after videos of your work - as well as how competent and professional you and your garage door technicians are.
By taking videos and uploading them to YouTube, you can potentially help with garage services SEO. You can take these YouTube videos and embed them on your website.
Visitors to the pages with videos may watch the videos and stay on video-enabled pages longer - and perhaps be more likely to view other parts of the site. Generally, Google looks favorably on websites that have engaged, active visitors, and embedding YouTube videos can help to achieve that goal.
If someone clicks on one of your videos from the search results page, they will be taken to your video on YouTube. Unlike paid ads, these clicks will cost you nothing (because Google is able to show ads on YouTube). The result is that you get your message in front of your audience at no cost to you.
Having an active YouTube video and using video to promote your Garage Door services will likely set you far ahead of your competitors - who most likely
It can be helpful from a branding and SEO perspective to have a home page for your business on as many different Social Media platforms as possible - including LinkedIn and Facebook. You can set up your YouTube channel to effectively and interactively promote your garage door services to your customers.
First, you'll have to sign up for YouTube with your Google Account. For information on how to do this, check out my post on YouTube Channel Creation for Contractors.
Absolutely not. You can use a selfie stick or set your video on a relatively inexpensive tripod while you work to get started. If you're really into video, you can upgrade your equipment over time, but don't let the lack of expensive equipment hold you back.
For the previous search that I did - "fixing a garage door spring" - the video below shows up #1 and has over 1.2 Million views. Despite the fact that the production quality is iffy in the video. He's in a garage so the sound echoes and the lighting is far from perfect. None of that matters. People want to see the content and the video must be doing well for their parts company.
Just start shooting video now...
There are many, many types of videos that will work best on YouTube. Here are some video ideas - and the pros and cons of each.
Of all the types of videos, these videos will be most likely to show up in the Google search results. You'll shoot a video of replacing a garage door spring, setting up a garage door opener, setting up the garage door tracks - any and all of the services that you provide.
People like to see how-to videos to know how much work is involved in maintaining or upgrading their garage to determine whether they can do it themselves or not.
If I show people how to fix their garage door, won't they just do it themselves?
No. At least not the good prospective customers. The video that you put on YouTube - even if many parts are sped up in a time-lapse fashion, will deter most homeowners from trying to do repairs on their own. They'll understand how complicated your work really is.
In your video you'll not only about the years of training and experience that you have, but the potential for things to go wrong and how there are serious safety concerns with some fixes (like torsion springs).
These videos are much less likely to show up in Google searches. It is possible that they may sometimes show appear in the search results when someone searches for the name of your garage door company - which would be great, but it isn't the overall objective.
The purpose of welcome videos is to introduce you and maybe your staff to prospective customers. You'll talk about your years of experience and the fact that you're local to the service area. You can showcase some of your jobs in your welcome video.
A welcome video is a great differentiator because your competitors probably don't have one - and the thin garage door leads sites definitely won't have them.
You'll put the welcome video not only on your YouTube Channel but also in various places on your garage door company's website as well - like your website's home page and about page.
Take videos of jobs that you perform. It doesn't have to be every garage door call, but aim for a couple of jobs per week (as long as the homeowner approves). Doing so will result in an amazing video portfolio that showcases not only the types of services you provide - but also the locations where you provided the service.
Here are some example video topics that you could have on YouTube (and on your site):
Testimonials are extremely important proof to prospective customers that you've been there and done that.
Text testimonials like the one below are almost worthless:
"Steve fixed my garage door fast - he was amazing"
- Sue R., Aurora, CO
Anyone can type that onto their website. They're extremely easy to fake. If you had a photo of Sue along with her last name, it can certainly be a bit more powerful, but....
The ultimate way to do a testimonial is to get consent from the customer and get them on camera talking about what a wonderful job that you did. You can do before and after video shots detailing the work that you performed and then get the seal approval from the homeowner.
The great thing about collecting videos is that you can put them in sooo many places around the Internet to engage potential customers and even do it yourselfers.
Here are some places to consider embedding or posting your videos.
Obviously, your videos should all be uploaded to YouTube. You can create separate playlists within your YouTube channel that correspond to services you provide - or even build out a testimonial playlist of your happy customers.
Once your videos are uploaded to YouTube, you can embed them almost anywhere on the Internet.
Services Pages
What better way to showcase your work than having a video of completed jobs on each of your services pages? Customers will know the quality that you provide and your skill will be evident in the videos.
Blog Posts
As mentioned in the previous section, blog posts that contain video detailing jobs that you provided in locations that are part of your service area is a good idea. Again, you demonstrate your skill to prospects, but you also
Home Page
A welcome video - as well as a service video or two, would work well on your garage door repair company's home page.
About Page
A welcome video as well as a video about how you work, the services you provide, years of experience, etc. would be a great fit for your About Page
Contact Page
A video here explaining that you appreciate them reaching out - along with what to expect after they make contact is extremely professional and properly sets customer expectations.
You can use videos that you take from YouTube and embed the videos on the Facebook Business Page for your garage door services business. While I don't generally recommend running Facebook Ads for garage door companies, you could also use the videos to run Facebook Ads to generate leads.
This may only apply to garage door services companies that focus on more commercial clients, but if you're networked with building owners, HOAs, or property owners, you can display your garage door services videos as LinkedIn posts.
Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram...
You'll probably get less value from posting your videos on other social media platforms, but there are ways to automate the process making it very easy. You could syndicate a blog post from your main website out to these platforms so that people could check out your garage door services.
Email Newsletter
If you have a periodic newsletter that you send out to previous customers (always a good idea), you can not only showcase your work but send out helpful maintenance videos periodically to help homeowners maintain their garage doors.
YouTube is an extremely powerful search engine with the capability to drive more garage door leads to your business. By taking more video and uploading to YouTube - then embedding in other places around the web, you have an amazing differentiator from your competitors that promotes the high-quality services you provide and serves as an amazing marketing tool.
