Wow, that’s one headline that I thought I would NEVER write. But, apparently Behr Paint (Behr Process Corporation) is now offering search engine optimization and search engine marketing services to registered BehrPro professionals. Local businesses can now get their paint and their search engine optimization and search engine marketing services from the same company.
According to BehrPro, “registered BehrPro professionals now have access to new and enhanced features, including better search engine optimization (SEO), Google+ Local registration, paid search campaigns for Google AdWords and ready-to-customize direct mail templates to support offline marketing efforts.”
If you are a local painting contractor or have your own painting business, you can register with BehrPro and get additional marketing services:
— Search Engine Optimization
— Google+ Local registration
— Paid search campaigns for Google AdWords
— Direct mail templates to support offline marketing efforts
As a part of the BehrPro Web service, their online tool has a step-by-step process that allows painting professionals to create a website. The website comes equipped with a project gallery, request-a-quote feature, and enhanced SEO—all fully customizable, without web design or hosting fees.
I applaud Behr Process Corporation for helping their customers this way. I really think it’s really needed, more local businesses need to get online. And any tools that will help them get online is welcome. I’m very hesitant, though, to recommend a service like this to local businesses, though. You see, SEO is not something that can be automated, in any way. It takes a highly skilled SEO professional, and it’s so easy to screw up your website’s SEO nowadays that you could ultimately hurt your business and its reputation if it’s not done right.
I’ve reached out to BehrPro to see a sample of one of these optimized websites, and will update this post when I hear back from them.
Besides, it’s not like BehrPro is a company that knows a lot about SEO. The site is built entirely in FLASH. I spoke with Mika Carter, the Senior Professional Marketing Manager, eBiz and channel at Behr Process Corporation. she indicated that they’re currently working on a new site that won’t be entirely build in Flash. That’s a good thing.
Mika also told me the benefits of the contractor sites that they’re building. The site are entirely in HTML5, and very mobile friendly. The ultimate goal of these sites for contractors is that they’re very easy for them to implement. They can include photos, such as before and after photos of the work that they’ve done. There are even tutorial videos “behind the scenes” so those setting up the site knows some of the terminology that’s being used and understand why keywords and titles, for example, are important.
The new contractor sites have click to call functionality if their potential customers are on a mobile device. There are links to the contractor’s Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Google+ accounts if they have those set up. Google Maps is fully integrated, as well. Google+ Local listings are ‘automatically’ set up when the user sets up their site. And, Ms. Carter explained to me, that they don’t have to already be registered with BehrPro in order to get their own site, they can go register now and sign up.
“These sites are all about the contractor’s business, and not about Behr or Behr’s products,” said Ms. Carter.