The Best Way to Grow Your Water Damage Business Online

Kasra Dash: So today we're going to be talking about water damage and how you can generate more water damage leads for your business. I'm joined with James and we're going to break down each strategy, including which ones you should avoid as a company. So James, take us into strategy number one. James Dooley: Step number one for growth is optimising your Google Business Profile. If you already have one, reach out to all your existing clients and ask for as many five-star reviews as possible. Google Business Profile is a great way to generate more leads. You should also build citations, post regularly and upload photos. That’s definitely step one for generating more local leads. Kasra Dash: Step number two to support your Google Business Profile is creating dedicated service pages for each individual service as SEO-optimised pages on your website. This helps your pages rank and increases the likelihood of your Google Business Profile appearing for those keywords, which means more phone calls. James Dooley: If you want more local leads, another option is PPC lead generation with Google or Bing. Here you target bottom-of-funnel keywords. You need to work with a good PPC agency because of click fraud and the need for strong negative keyword lists. PPC can work well, but in the wrong hands you can waste a lot of money. Still, it's another way of generating local leads. Kasra Dash: Another option is Meta ads on Facebook and Instagram. When someone scrolls through Facebook, they might see your ad. You have two options: lead forms, which stay inside Facebook but may have lower quality, and conversion ads, which send users to your website to fill out a form. Both have pros and cons. James Dooley: Another way to grow local leads is organic social media. Post regularly on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, Reddit and Quora. These platforms can all generate leads. Kasra Dash: Organic social media is a volume game. You want to upload consistently, whether that’s daily or weekly. For example, uploading five videos a week and sticking to it helps with algorithms like YouTube and Twitter. James Dooley: What are your thoughts on using AI agents, such as N8N, to automate and schedule social media posts? AI is everywhere now for lead generation. Would you team up with an AI consultant to set that up? Kasra Dash: You can definitely set up AI agents to crop videos and autopublish to YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. But another focus should be AI search. People are slowly shifting from Google to engines like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude and Groq. If your brand isn’t showing up in these engines, you’ll struggle to generate leads. So that’s another focus for companies. James Dooley: If you're looking for business leads locally, you should team up with trades websites such as Checkatrade, Bark, Builder Builder, TrustATrader and Rated People. They can generate strong local leads. Track your KPIs, cost per lead and cost per acquisition to measure ROI. Check the links in the description because we compare these platforms with FatRank. Kasra Dash: With lead generation companies in general, do your due diligence. If you're in a specific niche, make sure the company has generated leads in your industry before. Have a strategy call to discuss budget and expected leads. Also ask whether the leads are exclusive or shared. Many platforms like Bark and Checkatrade offer shared leads, which creates a race to the bottom on pricing. Those are questions to ask before partnering. James Dooley: If anyone wants more local leads, go to fatrank.com where we offer a commission-based lead generation service. You only pay a finder's fee on converted jobs — no cost per lead, no fees until you get paid. Visit fatrank.com to see whether you qualify. Now, what are your thoughts on inbound vs outbound lead generation? Kasra Dash: I always prefer inbound. The conversion rate into paying customers is much higher — the last stat I saw was around 16.1% compared to around 1.4% for outbound. It’s a big difference. James Dooley: That's huge — around 10 to 12 times better. Outbound requires a lot of volume, whether cold calling, cold email or LinkedIn outreach. You often need more staff, and people forget there's still a cost to sending emails and running the sales team. Inbound is so much better. What's your view when people ask whether real-time leads matter? Kasra Dash: Real-time leads are very important. Conversions increase by around 63% when leads are delivered instantly. When we tracked KPIs, responding within a minute performed best — far better than responding within five minutes. If an enquiry comes in and you can call or email immediately, your chances rise dramatically. Not every company must respond in under a minute, but many businesses fall short when they’re away or not monitoring enquiries. These nuances matter when partnering with companies.