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By Darren DeYoung
Compare five numbers against the same five from the 90 days before launch: calls, form fills, quotes sent, jobs booked, and customer mentions. If they moved, it worked. Liking the new look is great, but it isn't a score.
Compare five numbers against the same five from the 90 days before launch: phone calls, form fills, quotes sent, jobs booked, and how many customers mention the new website. If those numbers moved, it worked. Liking the new website look is a good feeling, but it isn't a score.
Your crew likes the new site. Your spouse likes the logo. That's nice. But you hired someone so the phone rings more and fewer jobs slip away. Score it like that.
Five numbers, each with a home you can check. Write the "before" numbers down, then check the same five at 30, 60 and 90 days after launch. Once tracking is set up, you or your office manager can count every number without the agency's help.
| What to count | Where it lives |
|---|---|
| Phone calls | Call tracking |
| Form fills | Website database |
| Quotes sent | Your job software |
| Jobs booked | Your job software |
| Site mentions | Office notes |
A new website doesn't replace the marketing that already brings people to you.
If you send mailers every spring or run an ad in the local paper, keep doing it. Stop those the week the site launches and your calls will drop, and the new website will get the blame.
Think of it this way: your mailers, yard signs, truck wraps and ads send people to look you up. The website's job is to catch them once they get there. Cut the first part and there's less for the site to catch.
It also wrecks your scorecard. If you change the website and pull the newspaper ad in the same month, nobody can tell which change moved the numbers.
Keep these steady through the first 90 days:
If budget forces a cut, make it before launch or after day 90, and write down when you made it.
Taste is not a business number. A good brand should make you proud to park the truck in a homeowner's driveway, but the test is whether more homeowners call and say yes. Keep both. Just don't let the first one stand in for the second.
We take design seriously. A clear, trustworthy look is a big part of why someone calls you instead of the next name on the list. Here's what makes a great brand if you want the bigger picture.
This is the first number to move. Count calls and form fills that come from the website, not your total phone volume. Call tracking numbers make that easy, and a good web team sets them up before launch so the "before" and "after" are measured the same way.
If your old site had a hidden phone number or a ten-field form, fixing that alone can change this number.
Watch the season, too. A tree service in Stillwater gets more calls after a June storm than in February. Compare against the same months last year if you have them.
More calls only matter if they turn into quotes, and quotes only matter if they turn into jobs.
Pull both counts from ServiceTitan, Jobber or Housecall Pro. If quotes went up but booked jobs didn't, the site brought in the wrong people or the follow-up is slow.
This is your close rate, the number owners care about most. A website homeowners trust can raise it.
Your agency can't see this number unless you share it. That's normal. Here's a side-by-side of Housecall Pro vs ServiceTitan if you're picking one.
Next step: figure out your cost per booked job by lead source.
Ask your office staff to keep a tally for 90 days. When a homeowner says "I saw your website" or "your site had photos of a job just like mine," mark it. It's a simple count, and it tells you the new site is getting noticed by the people paying you.
Add "How did you find us?" to your intake script, with a short list of answers. Include your mailer and newspaper ad on that list, so you can see what's still pulling its weight.
Then read your new Google reviews. Homeowners will often say what made them call.
Search rankings usually take longer than one quarter. Google says some changes "could take several months" to show up, so don't judge a new website by where you rank for "tree removal Maplewood" on day 90.
Google's own SEO Starter Guide puts it plainly: "Some changes might take effect in a few hours, others could take several months."
If someone promises page one in 90 days, here's why you should be careful with that pitch. And here's how Google ranking actually works.
You can still watch early signs in Google Search Console, like more people seeing your business name in search. A full climb is a longer project.
Lots of homeowners already find you through referrals, yard signs, and your Google Business Profile. Some of them check your site and leave. A good rebuild can fix that right after launch, because it doesn't need Google to change anything. It just needs a clear phone number, real photos, and a short form.
Check it yourself on a phone with our 10-minute walkthrough of what customers see when they look you up.
Common leaks we see:
More website mistakes that hurt your business and brand, and how consistent branding builds trust.
The best proof is a business that counted. Street Smart Rental tracked 33 new deals in the four months after Hoist helped set its rebranding goals and changed its website. Factor said its new branding, proposals and website helped it grow enough to look at a new facility.
Four months is past the 90-day line, but the point stands: they counted deals, not compliments. Read the Street Smart Rental case study.
Hoist designs the brand and the website and runs the marketing, so one team owns the score. Our Results page shows the numbers those clients tracked at the time.
If you're weighing a full rebuild against starting with ads, read Rebuild the Website First, or Hire Marketing?
Before you sign, sit down with your agency and agree on the five numbers, where each one comes from, and what "worked" means for your business. Put it in writing. Then nobody argues about the logo on day 90.
Bring these to your first meeting:
Want help setting your score? Book a time with Hoist, or swing by our White Bear Lake office. We'll build the scorecard with you before we design a thing.