Google Search Game JUST Changed for Roofers (Do This NOW)

Google search just changed the game. And in this interview with Mike Goldenstein from Roofle, and actually he's the one who sent me the screenshot that I'm about to show you. Well, we're gonna share with you what you need to know and how to take action so you can capitalize on some search traffic that your competitors are missing out. Thanks for being here with me. Now let's get started. Mike, you sent me this text and it right here, it is, it says roofing companies in Minneapolis, and then Google added this new search feature called online estimates. And then you put, Google just put Roofful subscribers in the pole position. Dude, I made a post in the RSRA community sharing this, 'cause that's what we do. We share the, uh, inside the community. And I said, Google just changed the search game and it is there. And I said, everything that Marcus Sheridan shared with us, 'cause I had him come and run a private training session for our community. As well as having them on YouTube, on showing up in LLMs with a pricing page is very, very important. So the game is changing. Let's talk about it. Yes. Yeah.

I mean, everybody thinks that we asked for it and they answered, right? So we're like, hey, can you put this call to action for an instant online estimate? And they did that for us. Really. And I know, I mean, obviously for us, it's a huge deal because we've been talking about it for 3 years. Marcus Sheridan has been talking about it for 10 years. This is coming and it's not because we're bringing it, but because the consumers are demanding it.

Yeah.

And so I want to kind of first say there was not one call to action. It wasn't just about online estimates. It was also two other very important things. Are you open and are you highly rated? So clearly those three things Google has decided these are really what homeowners are asking for. And by clicking on either one of those, any number of those 3, it actually amends the homeowner's search with one click of a button.

Let's do this. And I just did roofing companies in Dallas because Dallas has the highest concentration of roofing contractors in the United States that I'm aware of. So as you scroll down, oh, look at this. How to tell if a roofer is lying. That's people also ask. That is priceless. This is why we exist as an organization. So anywho, I don't know what the answer to that question is, though.

Let's just answer it. Their lips are moving.

Let's find out. Their lips are moving. That was a good one. Storm chasers and door knockers. Lack of great reviews. Not licensed. Anyway, I'm going to suck us into a rabbit hole. But when I click online estimates again, that's going to filter. And look at this. You can get online estimates in companies like Burt Roofing, Beyond Roofing, roofer.com, and Infinity Roofing. So they're already pulled up top. So right away—

that's your Gemini, right?

Gemini.

But notice, did you notice? And I think this is really key. Accentuate the fact that your search just changed. Your search is no longer roofing companies Dallas. It now added online estimates roofing companies Dallas. So what those, what those pushing those buttons do is with one click, it's actually changing what you searched.

Yeah. I wanna show everybody that again, because this is what it showed before. We have two paid ads. We have our, our map pack. We have also other searches and then some roofing companies and then some, some stuff on Reddit. And the minute we, we click this, it is running Gemini. And once this answer populates, it's gonna punch down everything and just give me the, the Gemini search, which is right here. And it's funny, look at that. The company's changed. I did it again. The company's changed. Yep.

Yep.

So as we scroll down and then Burt Roofing is mentioned, Reimagine Roofing. That's great. That's Cody Landels, who's one of our mentors at RSRA. Free Roof Estimate in Dallas, Mesquite Roofing, roofer.com, and then the Hargrove. So, Mike, let's talk through from a practical standpoint what this new feature means. But you know what, before we get into— because there's the 3 things, let me just pull my screen share up one more time here. We have Online Estimates, Open Now, and Top Rated. We'll get into this, but before we do, I think it's important for us to talk through the trends that we're seeing. You were at our annual event, the RSRA annual event. I kicked it off about the future trends, piggybacking on the 2025 to 2028 Roofing Market Report, which, by the way, if you have not read a copy, click the link in the description, get it free. There's no catch. It's 17 pages of 9 key categories summarized with an action plan at the end. To give you the 3 buckets of building a future-proof roofing company. But Mike, what would you say to the people that have been resistant about this online estimate thing? For those that resist it, what is the— what do you predict happening in the future?

Yeah, we have had the luxury of being in control of the sales process for generations in the roofing and the home improvement industry. And so we just— what that is, the biggest thing that has changed is that What used to be completely in our control is now we have to surrender a little bit of control and not for bad reasons necessarily. It's just very different and you have to continue to amend to that change.

Yeah. Yeah. Google's giving people what they want. I mean, it's, it's that simple. They have, gosh, depending on who you ask, more data than Meta. Especially if you start looking at YouTube data. So you have all of the analytics of that level of content consumption. They've got, don't they own Waymo, or am I crossing my wires? Isn't the LiDAR that Waymo's using? Anyway, they've got tremendous amounts of data from different sources, and please, someone in the comments correct me if I'm crossing my wires here. Whether they're the largest or not the largest, I think it's pretty fair to say that they can listen to what consumers want. And although right now, which we'll get into, that button clicking online estimates really is essentially, and there's a conversation going about this in the RSRA community. I'm not gonna be sharing the details of that because that's, that's private stuff. But I can paraphrase some of the things that are shared that I shared, 'cause that's, that's okay. But essentially this is really more of a pulling up whether your profile settings for your GMB, your Google My Business, has indicated under your service options when you edit your profile whether you offer online estimates or not. So it may not even mean that like there's an online estimate. It like literally just amends the search terms for the homeowner by making it easy. This is what I want. Yeah. So, uh, you could lie.

I mean, you literally could, you could set up pages that talk about having an instant online estimate and not actually do it and you can draw the benefits of that. But what are you left with as a disappointed homeowner that came there for that option and they walk away empty-handed?

And again, if we, if we click this and I just want to show, let's, let's pull up a few. So we got Burt Roofing. I'm just going to open in a new tab and, and then Corey here and we'll just start with these two. So yeah, there's get a free quote. Looks like roof is installed here. So they do have that. And then this one says request a free online roof estimate, request a free estimate, and we'll see where this one goes.

Did that jump off the website too? No, it's—

yeah, this— no, this was also— yeah, a pop-up. So it sent us to a landing page. So my point is it really doesn't necessarily mean that the online estimate will be given, but it's saying, hey, here's, here's the path for you moving forward. I think the biggest takeaway that I got from this, Mike, when you share this, 'cause I'll, I'll, I remember I even texted you, like, I was like, I'm literally in the gym working out. I like stopped my workout, searched for this, found it, and I was like, we gotta, we gotta talk. The big pull that I see is whoever you use, get an online estimating tool. You know, I am very sensitive to people feeling like sponsors are being crammed by their throat. I talk to people that bring value to the people I serve. Mike, you're one of those people, and I'm grateful that, that Ruful is a partner of the Roofing and Solar Form Alliance. But on my YouTube channel, I don't let people buy their way in. For anyone here, this was not— there's nothing— Ruful didn't pay a penny, to be honest. I invited Mike to be here. So, Mike, what would be your like your, your steps that you would instruct someone to take, uh, to start showing up on this online search, but then also how to convert traffic from that search.

Yeah. So that, and, and those are the two questions, right? Because number one, just get one. You know, like even if you, I've seen some that, that it really requires, uh, you know, 6 or 8 questions in order to get through it. I've seen other ones where the homeowner's, uh, inputting all of their own information to be able to generate. A quote, the, the fact is anything will start converting higher than what you're currently converting at. So that's really the first point. First point is get something on there to be online estimates. Give that ability to the homeowner to be able to see that and, and have that experience because clearly that's what they're demanding. That's what they're used to. Doesn't matter if they're buying a house or a car or a boat or anything. They have price transparency in every industry outside of home improvements. Now the demand is there for home improvement. Secondly, though, it becomes a whole question of A/B testing and it kind of becomes a little bit more complicated from there. So when you add an instant estimator or an estimator on your website, how much is it helping? Are you getting twice the number of leads? Are you getting 3 times the number of leads? Are you getting 6 times the number of leads? That is what ended up driving that cost per lead or that acquisition cost of each of these leads down, and then which ones are converting into an actual appointment and which ones, how much of it is actually increasing your close rate in sales. So again, first off, just get it on there. Clearly the demand is there. Secondly, okay, now let's A/B test them and get the best one that works for us as a company.

Yeah, I couldn't— I couldn't agree more. And for those that resist it, and again, I share this in the report, Homeowners now, when you look at the trends in the research, they prefer tech-enabled companies and they're more likely to do business with a tech-enabled company than without one, without tech. And if you don't believe me, I want to ask you, when was the last time you picked up the phone to call a taxi?

Right. I was thinking about that today because I got to— I got to— I'm in Minnesota. We had a huge snowstorm. I have to take my truck in to get it washed. And I'm sitting there. My frustration is I don't know how long the line is to get a truck wash. And I don't want to leave because I don't want to sit in line for half an hour. I'm like, you know, it'd be great tech is for your local car wash to tell you how long the line is.

Yep. And how hard would that be? I mean, even the airports say estimated line at security, right? You know, here it is. And there's apps I know for Denver Airport that share the same. So the part— because I know that the conversation that this sparked in the RSRA community and Jim Malin, one of our mentors who built and sold Roofer Marketers and is a freaking rock star at marketing, shared. And, and, uh, by the way, I've, I have, uh, permission to share some of the things Jim shares. I won't share what our members share because we have confidentiality agreement, but in a nutshell, what this means, and I just want to be clear of like what this means versus what it doesn't, is ultimately this just changes the search. It literally reconfigures the search, but it's playing to the behavior patterns of the searcher, the person entering the information. What this doesn't necessarily mean is that they're going to get like, that won't bring them to some instant quoting tool or something. It just is, if your profile has been edited to say that you provide this, then it pairs people who are looking for this. And then Jim gave a couple other tips on page headings and the buttons and H1 titles and URL, uh, uh, structures and all that jazz, uh, which were really, really helpful. But, um, I, I would recommend that everybody do that because this is low-hanging fruit. What I do think, and Mike, I'm curious if you agree, I do believe strongly that this is just the beginning because they're going to be looking at the data, consumer trends. Are people clicking this? Is that what they want when they land on the website? Is there long page time, page time, meaning people are actually getting an online estimate, or is this like you mentioned, a bait and switch? I think this is just the beginning of what might be to come yet. Curious your thoughts.

Yeah, 100%. And I'll take it one step further. I don't think we can have this conversation without talking about answer engines and the impact of AI on this. And we were kind of joking a little bit because I sent you a Google ad. We have to stop and think like, when is the last time we've watched Google advertise their services? You don't have a search engine, you Google something. And now all of a sudden they have a 30-second ad for Google because I think they understand that disruption is on the doorstep and not just disruption, but potentially, you know, extinction. Yeah. Who would have thought, right? And so even as you were, you know, showing that and pushing those buttons, what did it do? It sent you over to Gemini. Yeah. Right. And so what we have to really think about is as Google is funneling the question and amending the search for the homeowner, like the homeowner just wanted to know roofing companies near me and what did they end up going? Oh, getting online estimate. They— Google just helped them refine their search. And I think this is what it's doing. Is Google is helping the home improvement contractor understand that this is the direction it's going. And specifically, and this is how Marcus Sheridan was talking about in your talks with him, that's where AI is picking up on these answers. Like, AI wants to know, are you open? Are you highly rated? Can I get an instant online estimate? Those kind of things. So, so we are really seeing a glimpse of the future in the way that this is pointing us in the future direction.

When we look at the behavioral trend, And it says online estimates and people click it. It is shaping behavior and driving consumer demand. And one thing that's very fascinating to me is when you click this, and I clicked it again and I got a different result. It was actually similar to the first one. We have Burt, Beyond, and Bumble. I don't know why it's favoring these B companies. Mesquite Roofing, roofer.com, and Infinity is below. But look at this, how online estimates work, right? You provide your home address so it can find it via satellite. You verify your home on the image. AI measures it. You select your material. You get an estimate. What are the key benefits? What did I just say? Tech-enabled, tech-forward, convenience and speed, compare options, and tech-forward. So all of this, and again, as we see consumer trends changing, and I'm gonna pull up a, a search, I'm actually gonna use GenSpark. Why? Because GenSpark is my absolute favorite AI everything, and we're gonna just use Whisper Flow and we're gonna say, Find me the 5 top-rated roofing companies in Dallas, Texas that will give me an online estimate and don't require a sales appointment. So I'm gonna let Whisperflow dictate for me. We're gonna hit enter. And, uh, again, you can use the LLM of your choosing. For those that don't use GenSpark yet, it is, uh, I got turned onto it by a really brilliant man named Mike Koenigs, who, uh, I had dinner with and actually ended up at his AI workshop. He actually helped Tony Robbins launched his first program. He's one of the most brilliant marketers I've ever, ever talked with. But we're now going to see what Genspar comes up with. It's a pretty robust tool. It's a little slower than ChatGPT. So let's see what we've got.

Are you practicing your prompting, by the way? I mean, that's an art form in itself. And just—

I— the answer is yes. I spend a lot of time talking here on my I use Whisperflow, I use GenSpark. I ask it to write prompts for me instead of me prompting it. So my, my skill that I've developed is prompting by asking it to prompt me when I give it really clear instructions. But I find that you need to have the end in mind to get a good outcome. So if you're just like, do this for me, so I get really, really specific about what I want.

Yeah.

Um, but check this out and I'm in the—

the reason why I'm asking that too though, you, that's what one of the things that I hope the takeaway is here. You have to put yourself in the shoes of the homeowner and more and more and more to where 50% of these searches are going through AI, but you're having homeowners that are being ultra specific about their asks. And if you can't answer those questions, the AI is going to gloss right over your website and give it to their, to your competitor.

Yeah. And the, without a doubt. And the interesting thing with an LLM, here's the top 5 rated companies. So look at this, Burt Roofing overlap, Burt Roofing. Okay, let's go back. We've got Corey Construction. If I remember right, Corey Construction was down here. We've got Lon Smith. They did not show up. My memory is right. Yeah, they did not show up here. And White Rock, I didn't see. New View Roofing, I didn't see. But it shows the criteria, the rating, the BBB, their reviews. Look at the reviews, you know, are you top rated? Do they offer instant estimates or not? And then there's some important notes: stands out for having the most automated instant quote system using satellite imagery. Yeah, pretty rad. So that is shaping the future of what— of how people are searching, and it's training consumers to to think this way, to shop this way. And Mike, how many times have you heard, 'cause we just polled people at our annual event, or not our annual event, we just ran a members-only workshop teaching how to sell roofs over the phone. One of our mentors has been doing an incredible job doing that. We've had, when I said how many people in the room have had homeowners find you with AI and LLM? Significant percentage. Percentage of the room went up.

Yeah. And, and it's only getting more. And, and one of the ways that I like to think about this, so if you've ever watched the TED Talk from, from Malcolm Gladwell on, on spaghetti sauce, have you seen this one?

I have not.

So this one, it, it really goes to Diet Pepsi's desire to, well, it's actually Pepsi desiring the perfect Diet Pepsi. It was, it was back in the '80s when they and, you know, found out about aspartame and were looking for the perfect Pepsi. And this guy came out and tried to figure it out. But the whole point is, and you gotta watch it because it's a fantastic TED Talk, but at the end of the day, what we're talking about is when you go to the store today and you look at the aisle of spaghetti sauce, there was no perfect spaghetti sauce. There are perfect spaghetti sauces. Homeowners in America today are looking for a variety that solves their desires, that, that quenches their thirst. And so as a home improvement contractor, you need to come and you, yes, you need to define who you are, but you have to also define who you are to your customers. What does that look like? And as you turn your back on certain technologies and turn your back on certain things, that's totally fine. That's up to you. But you also are going to suffer the consequences of turning your back on that constituency. You're never going to do business with those people. And the problem is that group of people who desire technology is only growing bigger and bigger and bigger, where the people that want the old school, come on in, uh, sit down at my kitchen table, is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. Yeah.

So our call to action to you, go to your Google My Business listing, configure it, and I'm looking off at the instructions right now. All right. You're going to click edit profile. You're going to scroll down and where it says offers online estimates, you're going to check the box. And same thing for online services. Check the box. Get yourself set up. You heard it here first. It's what we do. Thank you to Mike for bringing this to our attention.

And 24 hours. You're open 24 hours now.

Yes. And open 24 hours. Mike, thank you. Anything you'd like to leave with our people?

No, just continue to invest yourself in the people around you. There's— you've got a lot of people. You've got a great group here in RSA that's going to help you. You get this direction. So, uh, keep paying attention. The world is changing quickly. It is.

And those that don't change with it will fall behind. Those that do will get a first mover advantage. Thanks for being here with us. And if you don't have an online estimating tool, hop on over to Roofle and check it out. We'll see you on the next one.