Marketing Coordinator: Kelli Cronmiller

Annual Cost: $10,000-$15,000 annually

Cronmiller’s Take: “We want to show customers we are a reputable company with a real interest in taking care of their indoor comfort. As a small family owned and operated business, Burkee takes pride in providing its neighbors and colleagues with dependable service at a great price, every time. We recently unveiled our new updated website and really like its simplicity and the ease in navigation it offers. It provides the customer with a lot of information that can lead him or her in the right direction as far as choosing us as his or her trusted provider. It also has a distinct call to action in several locations on the site, prompting a customer to contact us.”

Professional Opinion: Overall score: 76

Burkeeinc.com is a clean, professionally designed site that’s easy to navigate. The site features a responsive design that looks great — regardless of the device used, such as a desktop computer, smartphone, etc. The site would benefit from search engine optimization (SEO), additional trust builders, and speed improvements.

For findability, I’d give Burkee a 60. For a set of more than 325 geographically targeted service-specific keywords, Burkeeinc.com ranks on the first page of Google’s organic search results less than 1 percent of the time. I’ve analyzed thousands of local/regional HVAC and plumbing contractor websites. Contractors investing heavily in SEO often appear on the first page of Google’s organic search results more than 20 percent of the time. Although other aspects of the site are fantastic, when it comes to SEO, they have significant room for improvement.

I would give Burkee an 85 for accessibility and content. The site earns points for a clean, professional layout with very clear calls to action. Whether a visitor is viewing the site from a desktop computer or smartphone, the site is easy to read and navigate. The site loses some points for not having a blog and for its overall speed.

In the identity and trust category, Burkee gets a score of 83. The site earns points for having its phone number and physical address where visitors expect to find it. It also benefits from displaying testimonials prominently on its homepage. The site would appear more trustworthy to consumers if it included the Visa and MasterCard logos in the header section of the site near the phone number. They might also consider adding other trust builders such as the Better Business Bureau (BBB) logo.

— Ben Landers, president and CEO, Blue Corona

Publication date: 11/24/2014 

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