While most home improvement projects require a hefty financial investment, what if there was a way to actually profit from your labor?
Think about it. If you’re working in the home improvement space, it’s incredibly important that you start thinking about how you can turn your projects into cash.
However, perhaps the best way to go about it is not be selling your final product, but rather the journey itself.
For starters, consider the following benefits to documenting your home improvement projects and how you could potentially turn your projects into a business through…
- Opportunities to sell your knowledge in the form of a product (such as a course or e-book)
- Increasing your website’s search potential (think: crucial if you’re running a home improvement site or affiliate blog)
- Positioning yourself as an expert in the home improvement industry
That being said, being able to complete a project isn’t enough. If you want to truly sell your knowledge, consider the following steps to turn your labor into serious dollars and cents.
Break It Up Into Steps
First and foremost, you need to approach your projects as being accessible, regardless of how difficult they may be. Perhaps the easiest way to break down the mental barrier involved with a hefty home improvement project is by breaking it up into a series of simple steps.
Generally speaking, you should try to keep the process from seeming too overwhelming (such as 27 step guide) without lumping too much information into one step (think: there is no such thing as a three step guide to replacing a roof). Conventional wisdom tells us that 12 steps or less represents the sweet spot for most educational series.
Take a “How-To” Approach
Again, don’t spend too much time rambling or going off-topic and instead take a “how-to” approach to your content.
While it’s fine to inject some personality here and there, the thesis of your content should be a straightforward set of instructions for getting from Point A to Point B. For example, you can talk about why you decided to give your home exterior a fresh coat of paint but it doesn’t deserve too much backstory.
Know Your Audience
The tone and pacing of your project may be different based on your audience. After all, there’s a big difference between the expertise involved into fixing a toilet versus replacing electrical lines.
Ask yourself: is your project content focused on DIY’ers versus contractors with years of experience? By answering this question, you can tailor your content appropriately without confusing or tuning out your audience.
Take Plenty of Pictures
Visual content is always a plus when it comes to engaging your audience. In the case of home improvement, however, pictures are crucial to ensuring that the project in question is progressing properly. Make sure to take plenty of high-quality pictures and include them throughout your content: a picture per step of your process should be considered the bare minimum.
Consider a Video Component
The boom of e-courses and how-to videos should be telling for anyone looking to sell their expertise. Something as simple as a smartphone video could go a long way to giving your audience the confidence to finish their projects as they literally see how it’s done.
Diversify Your Content
Don’t be afraid to diversify your content in terms of delivery. For example, you could complete an e-book on HVAC projects and turn that e-book into a video course: you could also do the inverse. Likewise, you can implement blog posts on-site integrating keywords relevant to your project to increase organic traffic to your site.
In short, the more channels you have to show off your content, the more likely it is to be seen and sold.
If you’re thinking about double-dipping your home improvement projects and turning them into their own business, there’s perhaps no better time than now. By combining the aforementioned tips, you could be well on your way to creating something totally unique that sells like crazy.
