Who we work with · 01 of 07
Custom home builder marketing for builders with nothing to list.
A production builder has inventory to put on a portal. You do not. There is no address, no move-in date and no listing, so the channels that carry a tract builder do almost nothing for you. Your buyer is searching plans, costs, lots and process for months before they contact anybody, and the firm that answers those questions is the firm that gets the call.
Custom builders also compete against architects and design-build firms for the same early searches, which changes the keyword set considerably.
The program is normally Community Reach at $325 a month. A custom builder rarely needs 100 keywords, but 20 is usually too few once plans, costs and areas are covered.
What your buyer searches, and when
Nine months of searching before a single call.
Custom buyers research longer than any other segment. By the time they fill in a form they have read dozens of pages, and most of those pages belong to somebody else. Each stage below is a different keyword set and a different page.
- Month 1 to 301
Is this even possible
Cost per square foot, land, financing basics and whether a custom build is realistic. No builder is shortlisted yet.
- cost per square foot to build
- custom home cost calculator
- buy land or lot first
- Month 2 to 502
What could it look like
Plans, styles, square footage and room counts. The longest stage, and the one most builders publish nothing for.
- 4 bedroom house plans
- modern farmhouse plans
- single story plans under 3000 sq ft
- Month 4 to 703
Who builds here
Now the search is local and the shortlist forms. Three to five firms get looked at closely.
- custom home builders in your area
- best custom builders near me
- luxury builders by county
- Month 6 to 804
How does this work
Process, allowances, selections, draw schedule, timeline. Answering these plainly is what separates a shortlist from a contract.
- custom home build timeline
- what are allowances
- design build vs bid
- Month 8 to 905
Is this firm any good
Name searches, reviews, warranty terms, parade of homes entries and completed work. Reputation searches decide it.
- builder name reviews
- builder warranty period
- parade of homes
Why the same program does not fit both
Custom and production are different search problems.
If you do both, and many builders do, the program covers both keyword sets and the pages are kept separate. Mixing spec inventory language into custom pages weakens each of them. See the production builder page.
Custom home builder marketing strategies we actually run
Six pages that do the work.
Cost content, written honestly
Cost per square foot for your market with the variables named. It is the highest volume question in the segment and most builders refuse to answer it, which is why somebody else ranks.
Plan and portfolio pages
One page per plan or completed project, with square footage, configuration and the area it was built in. These become the entity a buyer searches later by name.
Process pages
Allowances, selections, draw schedule, timeline, change orders. Written as explanation, not reassurance. These pages carry the most qualified traffic in the set.
Area pages for where you build
The counties, submarkets and school districts you actually take work in. No city pages for markets you do not serve and no implied local offices.
Comparison content
Custom against production, design-build against bid, spec against presale. Buyers search these comparisons and the firm that explains them fairly gets credit for it.
Reputation surface
Your name plus reviews, warranty and awards. This is the last thing searched before a call, and it is usually the thinnest part of a builder site.
The arithmetic
One additional closing pays for eleven years.
Modeled scenario, not a client
A custom builder closing 12 homes a year at an $850,000 average
Illustrative scenario using the stated assumptions. Not a client result, forecast or guarantee. Run your own figures in thecalculator.
$325/mo
2 domains · 40 keywords · 30 guest posts · 30 Web 2.0s · 10,000 amplification links · 14 to 16 days turnaround
Forty keywords covers plans, cost intent, process content and three or four build areas. Builder Portfolio at $575 is the step up if you work more than one metro.
Build this program →Content is priced separately through Content writing, from $26 a month for four 500 word posts to $480 for thirty 2,500 word posts. For a custom builder, eight 1,000 word posts a month at $80 is the usual starting point.
Your buyer spends nine months reading before they call anybody.
Questions
From custom builders.
We only build eight to fifteen homes a year. Is this worth it?
Usually yes, because the margin per home is large. One additional closing at an $850,000 average and an 18% margin is roughly $153,000 in gross margin against $3,900 a year for Community Reach. The calculator will show your own figures, and if the number comes out small we will tell you to start at Project Reach instead.
Our work is all referral. Why bother with search?
Referral buyers still search your name before calling, and what they find decides whether they call. Beyond that, referral volume is not something you control. Search adds a second source that compounds, which matters most in the years when referral volume drops.
Should we publish our prices?
Publishing a cost per square foot range with the variables named tends to attract better qualified inquiries and it captures the highest volume question in the segment. We can write it as a range with conditions rather than a fixed number. It is your call, and we will not advise on contract or pricing terms themselves.
Do you also handle architects?
No. Architects are served separately and we do not target architectural search terms from this site. If your firm operates as design-build, that is a different page and a different keyword set. See design-build firms.
How long until this produces inquiries?
Plan and process content usually starts drawing traffic within 60 to 90 days. Inquiries follow later because the buying window is long, so a page indexed in March may produce a contract in the autumn. We do not promise a date or a volume.
We do not have plans to publish. Every home is bespoke.
Then the portfolio is the plan library. Each completed home becomes a page with its square footage, configuration, style and the area it was built in, which is what a buyer searching for ideas is actually looking at. It works the same way and it has the advantage of being genuinely yours rather than a stock plan anybody can buy.
How do we compete with the big plan libraries for plan searches?
Not on their terms, and you do not need to. A national plan library will hold the broad plan searches indefinitely because that is their entire business.
What they cannot do is attach a plan to a place, a builder and a completed example, so the winnable version of the query is the plan style combined with your build area, or the plan attached to a home you actually delivered. Those searches convert far better anyway, because the person making them has already narrowed to your market.
See which plan and cost searches you already own.
Five questions, no call required. We check your plan names, your build areas and the cost questions buyers ask in your market, then send back what ranks today.
Month to month · Dedicated account manager · No ranking guarantees