Building the Procore Construction Network

The Opportunity - Revolutionize the Construction Industry with Procore Construction Network

The construction industry has long been known for its inefficiencies and lack of connectivity. However, with the advent of new technology, there is an opportunity to change that. Enter Procore, with its ambitious mission to connect everyone in the industry on one single platform. At the heart of this mission lies the Procore Construction Network, which provides an opportunity for every business in construction to connect with each other.

With this platform, Procore aims to provide a more efficient way of doing day-to-day things throughout the course of construction for all the players involved, including General Contractors, Subcontractors, Suppliers, Owners, and other service providers such as insurance and capital providers. By creating a Procore account and participating in the Procore Construction Network, businesses can streamline their processes, increase productivity, and reduce costs.

In the early days, Procore will focus on improving the way General Contractors find and connect with Subcontractors during the bidding process. This will make it easier for Sub Contractors to secure jobs, while General Contractors will have access to a wider pool of qualified Subcontractors. Procore also plans to provide a way for Subcontractors to connect with the financial markets, making it easier for them to borrow money for the job they just won.

With these initial steps, Procore aims to lay the foundation for a more connected and efficient construction industry. As more businesses join the Procore Construction Network, the platform will become even more powerful, enabling businesses to collaborate and communicate in new and innovative ways. The future of the construction industry looks bright with Procore leading the way.

Boosting Website Visibility with Procore's SEO Strategy

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a critical component of any successful online presence, and Procore's Construction Network is no exception. With a 20-year-old website and a domain rating of 78, Procore has already established a strong foundation for SEO success. However, to ensure maximum visibility and traffic, Procore's SEO strategy was designed to focus on specific keywords and efficient internal linking.

The first step in the strategy was to target specific business names as keywords to increase visibility in search results. Additionally, Procore targeted long-tail keywords for trades in a particular location to reach a more targeted audience.

To optimize the website's structure, Procore kept profile pages and locations as close to the root as possible. The team also used internal linking as a key component of the strategy. A link from procore.com to procore.com/network was added to the footer, and every page on the network site was exposed to bots by adding a section above the footer that dynamically changes as users navigate the site.

To help search engines discover all the pages, Procore created a faux sitemap that included all the links on the site. The team also used the next.js dynamic sitemap generator to create sitemap index files for location and profile pages. These files update automatically every time a new profile or location is added.

Another critical aspect of the SEO strategy was setting up Google Search Console. This tool enabled Procore to monitor crawl and index rates of their pages, among other things. By using the tool, the team was able to identify issues such as longer parameter URLs that were being indexed and crawled unintentionally. Procore pruned the site, added canonicals, and monitored URLs in Search Console until they were re-crawled with the correct URLs.

Finally, Procore created a basic but specific robots.txt file that instructed crawlers to crawl the pages and sitemaps they wanted and excluded certain pages to optimize the crawl budget.

By implementing this comprehensive SEO strategy, Procore was able to boost visibility and increase traffic to their Construction Network site. With continued monitoring and optimization, the site is poised for even greater success in the future.

Seeding the Procore Construction Network: A Unique Approach

Seeding a network is a critical step in establishing an online presence, and Procore's Construction Network was no exception. There were a few approaches that the team mulled over before settling on a unique approach that involved validating companies through data gathered from Procore's core business.

Initially, the team considered scraping data from public business registries to establish a site architecture and establish authority in the domain. At first pass, over 535K unique construction company records were pulled down across 13 state licensing databases. However, in the end, the team decided to take a harder, less followed path: they simply asked specialty contractors who had worked on a project with a general contractor who uses Procore.

The main product Procore sells is a project management SaaS solution, and their main customer profiles are large enterprise general contractors. These contractors create thousands of projects a year, which creates a natural network effect where they invite around 30 companies to collaborate on each project they create. For the most part, the users who collaborate on a project with general contractors have a sizable business. Most general contractors that are developing large projects require their subcontractors to prequalify before they can be selected to work on the projects. These sub-contractors also want a place to promote themselves and win more business, making it easy to get the initial batch of pilot and beta customers.

Procore set a goal of 5k sign-ups in TX and FL but ended up with around 60k unique companies who wanted to join. By validating companies through data gathered from Procore's core business, the team was able to ensure that the Construction Network was populated with companies that had a proven track record of working with general contractors and a genuine interest in joining the network.

This unique approach to seeding the network has paid off, and the Construction Network is now a thriving hub of construction businesses that are able to collaborate more efficiently and effectively than ever before.

The Technologies Used to Build v1 of the Procore Construction Network

Building a successful online platform requires leveraging the right technologies, and the Procore Construction Network was no exception. Unlike Procore's core product, the Construction Network has a public-facing experience built into it mainly used to drive awareness and traffic for acquisition purposes. This meant that the team had to build the application off of the marketing team's main asset, procore.com. To take advantage of Procore's 20-year-old site with a domain authority of 78, the team intentionally chose to leverage a subdirectory rather than a subdomain.

Procore.com is hosted on AWS, so the team had to do some configuration to map procore.com/network, our Next.js web app, to the site. The web app is completely custom-built and also hosted on AWS, connected to the backend DynamoDB at the data layer in the application architecture. This setup allows people to make updates to their profile on the Procore Construction Network and immediately see the updates on procore.com/network. The team essentially created a LinkedIn business profile page look and feel for everyone in the construction industry.

In addition to the web app, the team also instrumented it with Google Analytics, Amplitude, and wired up monitoring services like Datadog and New Relic to ensure everything is running smoothly. This allows the team to monitor and optimize the performance of the platform continually.

With these technologies in place, the Procore Construction Network has become a thriving hub of construction businesses, offering a unique platform for professionals in the industry to connect, collaborate and streamline their work.

Measuring Success: Early Metrics for the Procore Construction Network

Measuring success is a critical part of any project, and the Procore Construction Network was no exception. In the early stages, the team focused on several key metrics to measure the success of the platform.

The first metric was signups. The team set a goal of 5,000 sign-ups in TX and FL, and they ended up with around 60,000 unique companies who wanted to join. This metric was a critical measure of the network's initial success, as it demonstrated that the platform had generated significant interest in the construction industry.

Trades by location was another important metric used to measure success. By tracking the number of trades in each location, the team was able to identify where the platform was gaining the most traction and where they needed to focus their efforts to generate more interest.

Keywords were also an essential metric for measuring success. By tracking which keywords were driving traffic to the platform, the team was able to optimize their SEO strategy and ensure that they were targeting the right audience.

The number of URLs created was another important metric. By tracking how many URLs were being created, the team was able to ensure that the platform was growing and expanding, with more and more businesses joining the network.

Finally, the team tracked the number of pages indexed by search engines. This metric was a key measure of the platform's visibility and demonstrated that search engines were recognizing and indexing the network's pages.

By focusing on these early metrics, the team was able to measure the success of the Procore Construction Network and identify areas for improvement. With continued monitoring and optimization, the network is poised for even greater success in the future.

The Procore Construction Network at Scale: The Future of Construction Connectivity

The Procore Construction Network has come a long way since its inception, and today it is a thriving platform with over 70,000 business profiles published and coverage in all 50 states in the US. But what does the Procore Construction Network look like at scale?

The next step for the platform is to get even more granular, with the goal of exposing trades and services at the city and zip code level. This will help general contractors find the exact specialty contractor with the right credentials in the right location. By providing this level of granularity, the Procore Construction Network will become an even more powerful tool for streamlining construction projects and connecting businesses in the industry.

After expanding at the local level, the team plans to take the Procore Construction Network global by expanding internationally. With a solid foundation in the US, the team is poised to tackle the unique challenges and opportunities that come with scaling to a global platform.

At scale, the Procore Construction Network will become the go-to platform for businesses in the construction industry, offering an unparalleled level of connectivity and collaboration. From specialty contractors to general contractors, suppliers to service providers, everyone in the industry will have a place to connect, collaborate, and streamline their work.

With continued growth and development, the Procore Construction Network is poised to revolutionize the way the construction industry works, making it more efficient, effective, and connected than ever before.