How to Make Angie’s List Suck Less And How to Setup Your Angie’s List Page The Right Way

Whether you’re an old hand at this contracting business, or just starting out, the chances are pretty good that you’ve at least heard of Angie’s List. But do you know how to setup your Angie’s List page to get real jobs?

For those of you who have been living out in the woods, far from human civilization (and wifi signals), Angie’s List is a place where your customers (both current and potential) gather to find and rate local professionals in a number of fields, including home repair and renovation. Unlike HomeAdvisor, creating a profile with Angie’s List is free for businesses.

Visibility and search results are based on merit, not your ability to pay extra to rank higher. In addition to this, all of the reviews come from real people, and Angie’s List members can get exclusive discounts from service providers like you!

So, knowing this, it is definitely in your best interest to set up and optimize a business profile with Angie’s List.

How to setup your Angie’s List page:

Write Your Business Description

Ensuring that your business description is both accurate and engaging is an important first step. That goes for making certain that all of your information like address, phone numbers, and email are all up-to-date and accurately typed. None of this will do you any good if you’ve mistyped your phone number!

Make sure that your business description highlights your experience, services, and any products you may offer, as well as mentioning any specialties or areas in which your company excels. You can even make mention of your certifications here, as well as any awards or commendations you’ve achieved.

Finally, don’t forget to proofread!

You may not see a misplaced comma or misspelled word as a big deal, but all of those things can lend you a sense of credibility—or take it away! Just because grammar doesn’t matter to you, doesn’t mean that your potential customers aren’t paying attention. Prove to them that your attention to detail applies broadly, and they will assume that you’ll take the same care in repairing and restoring their home.

Add Photographs

This is good advice for any profile on any website—but especially true for places like this!

Displaying several high-quality photographs will give you a chance to show off what you do best to potential customers. By showcasing some of your best work, you will likely attract work contracts wanting similar things, so choose wisely.

If you and your team don’t enjoy renovation work, don’t post exclusively about that one time you remodeled a basement—stick to your strengths! Photos can make a critical difference to customers browsing for the best possible service. Make sure that your photos are sized correctly, crisp, and appropriate. It won’t matter how well written your business description is if all of your photos are sideways, so spend some time getting it right!

Post Setup

Angie’s List is not one of those “set it and forget it” sites. Like any other site that relies on reviews, there is going to be some maintenance involved if you want to keep your business showing up in their searches. Here’s our best advice to get to the top of the pile and stay there!

Reviews, Reviews, Reviews

The best way to show up in any search engine is to get a lot of reviews—and keep them coming! The more reviews you are able to get, the better.

The trick is to employ a solid strategy involving your employees and the customers they serve. Once their task is complete, encourage and train your employees to ask for reviews from your customers. This can be done in a number of ways and can be a little hit-or-miss at first until you find the strategy that works for you.

Don’t give up.

Keep adjusting your strategy until it works, and you will get those reviews. Be sure to start to get positive reviews as they are better than word-of-mouth, so definitely make this a priority. You might try offering incentives (not punishments!) to the employees who receive the most/best reviews. Also, don’t forget to reply to your reviews—good or bad!

Discounts, Discounts, Discounts

Using Angie’s List gives you the opportunity to offer special discounts to their members.

The first way is simplest: just choose a discount (such as 25$ off your first service call or whatever) and add it to your listing. A simple discount like this is an investment on your part. Don’t think about it as losing money, but gaining the customers who might have otherwise passed you by!

Angie’s List offers a second way to offer a discount called the Big Deal. It works a bit like a Groupon, allowing a certain number of people (be sure to limit it!) to receive a selected service at an extreme discount (at least 50% off). The customer then has the ability to get that deal directly through Angie’s List.

This is great advertising and a good way to get new customers, even if you’re not making as much money as a regular service call. These ads typically get superior placement, increasing your exposure on the site.

Money, Money, Money

Angie’s List may claim that businesses can’t pay to be on the list, but there’s a bit of a loophole to that statement. It turns out that you can pay to be seen on the list. What does that mean for you? Well, for a fee, you can increase your exposure on the list, guaranteeing that your listing will be shown to more potential customers.

As with anything else, it may be good for you to experiment with this and see what works best for your business.

After all, even if you pay for a top spot, if you’ve only got a couple reviews you will not be able to compete with other contractors that have twice as many reviews. This tactic should only be employed after you have taken the time and effort to increase your reviews. New listings should wait until they’ve gained some traction, in other words.

If your business already has between 10-20 reviews and an A rating—this tip is for you!

As you can see, there are a lot of incentives to use Angie’s List, however, the only thing holding you back is knowing how to setup your Angie’s List page. Not a bad trade, if you ask me!