325 Unlocking Your Website's Marketing Power - CeCe Cheney Jun 24 2026

Greg Bray: [00:00:00] Hello, everybody, and welcome to today's episode of the Builder Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse.

Greg Bray: And we are pleased today to have joining us CeCe Cheney. CeCe is the communications director at CBH Homes. Welcome. Thanks for being with us today.

CeCe Cheney: Thank you guys for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Greg Bray: Well, let's start off, CeCe, by just getting to know a little bit about your background, and just give us that quick introduction. [00:01:00]

CeCe Cheney: Awesome. So, I've been with CBH Homes for about 15 years now. I like to say I've grown up here. I don't know much else. I know CBH and a little bit of everything. But we are Idaho's largest home builder. We are super proud. We just got ranked 40th in the nation. Whoop whoop. Throwing it up for that. And got named number one best place to work, so have a strong culture. We love home building. Our website, clearly we try and show that on there. We just really love to build homes and sell them.

Kevin Weitzel: All right. Before we jump into all the stuff we're going to talk to you about, we need to know something about you personally that has nothing to do with work, family, or the home building industry whatsoever.

CeCe Cheney: Family? You're throwing that one out.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah, you can't, because people come on and go, "Oh, I've got two kids, and they both play clarinet, and they're in the same band," and blah, blah. Yeah, we don't wanna hear that. All right. What do we got?

CeCe Cheney: Well, I do have to say that being from Idaho, I do grow potatoes [00:02:00] occasionally, but that's probably a given. I am a farmer's daughter, though, and I have wrecked a tractor in my life. So, that's kind of a fun little one. But, you know, I'm an open book, so you could ask me anything, and I feel like I tell most people anything, so I'm always like people don't know about me, I think I've already told them.

Kevin Weitzel: Well, now I gotta know. Was it, like, a John Deere? Was it an International? What was it? McPherson?

CeCe Cheney: Heck yes, John Deere. I'm a John Deere girl. My dad was actually a sod farmer, and so I would mow in the summers, and I was jamming to some Jack Johnson and totally hit a wheel line, an overhead. It was a good time. Nice little rodeo.

Kevin Weitzel: That's cool.

Greg Bray: And Dad didn't make you cry after that, huh?

CeCe Cheney: No. I did have to carry a giant PTO shaft, like, all around the valley to get it fixed because, you know, in farming, it's like, it's gotta be done. It's gotta be done today, or the stuff is going to die, I'm sure is something he probably told me, but we were all [00:03:00] good. I overcame.

Greg Bray: Awesome. Well, you already gave us a little bit of background about CBH Homes, but for those who don't know all the details, tell us a little bit more about your market, where you're building, the kind of buyers that you guys are targeting, and the homes that you put together.

CeCe Cheney: Yeah. Here at CBH, we truly believe we have a product for anybody. We are a spec home builder, so we've got over 400 homes available right now, and those are ranging from first time move-in buyers to all the way, we're hoping this is your forever home and you're moving up. So, we say, "If you got a pulse, we've got a home for you." We only sell in Idaho, so that's truly our market, and Southern Idaho at that. So, we're always super proud of all the awards we get because we have such a smaller market than a lot of national builders.

Greg Bray: Kevin, I just had this visual for a marketing campaign where they've got, like, a nurse at the sales center checking people's pulses before they [00:04:00] come let them in. If you have a pulse, you can come in and buy this house.

Kevin Weitzel: If you have a pulse, this house is for you.

CeCe Cheney: Are you breathing? Come on in. Fill out a form. We got you.

Greg Bray: If you guys use that, I want credit. I'm just saying.

CeCe Cheney: Okay.

Greg Bray: Okay. Nobody's going to use that, but. So, Cece, one of the reasons that we wanted to talk to you today is over and over and over again, we have folks saying, "Hey, we saw this thing that CBH is doing," or, "Hey, can you, you know, take a look at CBH and tell us if we can make our map do that, or make this feature do that?" And so, it keeps popping up that people are looking at your guys' site and using it as the, "We want to be like them."

So, we just wanted to find out a little more about what goes on behind the curtain to make the CBH website what it is. So, what is the website to you as a company? Like, is it like, "Oh gosh, no, we just have this one person that does it"? Is it, like, core in everything you talk about? Just help us understand how CBH views their website.

CeCe Cheney: I mean, I would tell you the website is the first person [00:05:00] or the first thing that people are going to see. If they're seeing a sign, if they're seeing an advertisement, I guess that's technically the first thing, but once they are clicking or scanning that QR code or going, it's the first person that they're meeting. And to us, the website is a living, breathing thing that's constantly changing, constantly being updated. And so, it is probably our number one selling tool. Our entire team uses it. Even our owner and president, he's on there constantly being like, "Oh, hey, I saw this map, you know, needed to be updated." He's looking at inventory and products. So, it is a tool everybody in the company uses.

Greg Bray: And I don't think that's the case for every builder, Kevin. Would you agree?

Kevin Weitzel: No. Actually, you said, Cece, we could do a whole session on each segment that you just went into. The fact that all of your salespeople, all the way up to the ownership uses the website. The fact that it's constantly evolving and you're constantly updating it. Those are all things that we try [00:06:00] to just nail down with people and say, "You have to absolutely update this." It isn't a set it and forget it. It's not a it's built, so let it do its thing. No, you have to organically be involved with it.

CeCe Cheney: It's a full-time job, and we have a full team that is in there doing things. You know, when you're talking marketing, sales, operations, we all play a part in it. It's not just one department. And I would tell you our sales team is, like, our number one user, right? They're the ones who are the front line. They're getting the calls. They're getting the questions, and they're like, "Hey, we need a filter for this," or, "Hey, this isn't showing up right," or, "A buyer called in and was confused on this." They're truly our front line that are guiding us on what we should be doing.

Greg Bray: So then how do you guys decide what buyer feedback actually makes it into a website change, right? Your sales team is talking to people. They're using it, which is fantastic because then they can point buyers back to it to help them answer [00:07:00] their questions. But as you do that, how do you guys kind of take that feedback and filter through it and figure out which thing is maybe worth doing or not doing?

CeCe Cheney: We do get so much feedback that that's a very, very valid question, because we have 1,000 filters. Not 1,000. I'm over-exaggerating, you know. But we've got so many filters on our main home search page that it can slow down, and one important part is speed. So, you know, it's like we need a filter for this, we need a filter for that. Well, sometimes we have to stop and question how many people are actually going to use that. We have a really cool tool called Hotjar that actually tracks where people are clicking, scrolling. You know, it's building that heat map so we can truly be like, "Is this actually something needed?"

Greg Bray: Have you ever had people come with these ideas, a salesperson, "Hey, well, Mr. and Mrs. So-and-So told us this," and you're like, "Uh, no"?

CeCe Cheney: I do try to omit no from my vocabulary. I'm like, "I'm a [00:08:00] yes and girl. Yes, and I don't really know if that's going to be effective." But yeah, I mean, we get those all the time, but I think you have to listen and you have to say, "Is this accurate? Is this true? Or is this one person just coming out of the woodwork?" I do believe I want any and all feedback. I'm like, "Come to me with any small little tweak."

You know, we have a saying called always improving, and that is one of the tools that people just go on and submit, "Hey, I think the website should have this. Hey, I think the website should have that." An interesting one we actually got was like, "Hey, as a clearance shopper, I want to know which homes are recently reduced." And it was funny, because I was like, "We actually have a filter for that, but you missed it. So, how can we make that stand out more so people like you will see it and use it?"

Greg Bray: That's a great example, because I bet that happens more than folks realize, that somebody is looking [00:09:00] for it and they just missed it. You've already got that feature. You've already got that piece of content or information available, and yet they can't find it for whatever reason. I mean, we've all been there, right? As soon as somebody points to it, we go, "Oh, there it is. Now I know." And now you can't unsee it. You always see it from there on.

Kevin Weitzel: So, they're wanting a filter that basically just says, "Hey, only show me the homes that you are trying to dump." Like an aging report. I want these off the spreadsheet. So, these three home sites, we gotta get rid of them.

CeCe Cheney: I mean, we are constantly adjusting pricing, everything based on the market. So, yes, we've got a little filter that's like these homes have recently been reduced, and they want to select those. You know, whether it's an investment or something along those lines, or somebody who's like, "I want the best deal." Yes, they're going to be using those tools to find them.

Kevin Weitzel: So, let me ask you this. Does that same filter also feed an outbound campaign? So, if Greg was shopping [00:10:00] for, you know, plan XYZ on your website, and he clicked that he liked those plans, does he get a notification like Zillow would send that says, "That home just went down $5,000," or, "That home just increased by $3,000"?

CeCe Cheney: It's funny you say that, because that's one of our main goals we're working on right now.

Kevin Weitzel: Oh.

CeCe Cheney: I know, I better write this down and say, "Kevin told me to do it." Give all props to Kevin. No, but that's where everything's headed. I mean, people are already there, and that's one of the things that's like, when people are like, "Your website's so great." It's so funny coming from being in it all the time, I'm like, "We're far behind. We need this. We need that." So, coming from that lens, you know, I'm always like, "Oh, shoot. Maybe,"

Example, the emails. When somebody does this, they should be getting those auto updates. I'm like, "We're so far behind. We're so far behind from everybody. We gotta go faster." Keep going. And so yeah, that's definitely things that we are looking at and trying to track, and we do those emails that it's like, "See what's been [00:11:00] reduced," but we haven't gotten that one-on-one yet. We're still working on it.

Greg Bray: See, Kevin, there's growth for everybody.

CeCe Cheney: Yeah.

Greg Bray: There's room for everybody. CeCe, I want to go back to the Hotjar comment you made because you mentioned using that tool. And for those who are listening who may not be familiar with it, this is a tool that tracks where people are moving their mouse around, what exactly they click on. It's a level of detail you don't get from Google Analytics on how people are using it. My question is, though, there's already so much data, so much input, and yet, you add that, and all of a sudden now you've got another hundred sessions of heat maps to figure out and look at. How do you guys begin to process that type of feedback and figure out what you should do with it?

CeCe Cheney: We have a great website team that's really synthesizing that for us. But in this day and age, I'm like, you throw anything into AI and it's going to really truly tell you what to do. I always say we want to make the biggest impact. So, what pages are getting the most views? If you're looking at a page that [00:12:00] gets 30 views a month, I'm not going to spend all this time to really, you know, dive into all the analytics. But if we're looking at our homepage that's getting 50,000 views, then yes, I'm going to really dive into those analytics and see what people are doing. Where are they clicking? Where are they going? Where are they going after that page?

Greg Bray: That data is so powerful, and it's amazing that you guys are looking at it. You've probably said our team several times now.

Kevin Weitzel: Yeah.

Greg Bray: There's a lot of builders who do not have an in-house web team. They either have to partner with somebody else or kind of figure out on their own.

Kevin Weitzel: There's some that just have Susie.

CeCe Cheney: Not CeCe, but Susie?

Kevin Weitzel: Yes. There's only one CeCe. Come on.

Greg Bray: So, for somebody who doesn't have that team to kind of dig through all that and help them with it, CeCe, what type of advice would you give them, or thoughts there to kind of where to focus or look at when they're trying to dig into the numbers?

CeCe Cheney: Again, I'm going to preach this the whole time that AI is your new best friend and your new tool. But [00:13:00] again, I think making the biggest impact. So, you need to look at those pages that are getting the most action, the most views, and then diving in from there. A whole website is a huge, scary thing, so you just got to start small. Start small, pick one little page, one piece of it, and go from there. If you're like, "Oh, this whole thing needs to be scrapped," then you're going to get stressed out and you're going to, you know, have a freakout over it. But if you just start in one little piece, maybe I'm going to edit the copy today. Maybe I'm going to just look at this header and look at other people's headers. The websites can be broken down into small, little bite-sized pieces that you can pick, choose, and edit.

Greg Bray: Hey, everybody. This is Greg Bray from Blue Tangerine, and I am so excited to let you know that the registration is now open for the 2026 Builder Marketing Summit. We're gonna be in Dallas, Texas this year on September 23rd and 24th, and we are working on an amazing lineup of marketing, OSC, and leadership content for you.

Please check it out at buildermarketingsummit.com and get your registration in today. Remember, there's limited seats available, so don't miss out. Again, buildermarketingsummit.com. Can't wait to see you there.

Kevin Weitzel: [00:14:00] All right, so it's no secret, I'm in sales. I travel around the country and visit builders. I visited your office. I got to tell you that would this always be improving, always improve or always be improving? What is it?

CeCe Cheney: Always improving.

Kevin Weitzel: Always improving. It was like walking into The Stepford Wives, and not in a bad way. Everybody in the office was pleasant, from the person that greets you at the front door to the guy that was taking out a garbage bag out of the back to literally everybody you meet, they're always pleasant. They're always positive. They're always upbeat. There's got to be somebody in that office that's just like, "Ugh, I don't even want to be here today." But let me ask you this, and I'm being facetious, obviously. There's probably not that one person, but we all have our bad days. But how do you offer such a fantastic experience on the website, and how does that transition [00:15:00] over to the human interaction that your clients have?

CeCe Cheney: We have such a strong culture, and our vice president, you know her. Everybody talks about her, Rhonda Conger. She has just built this insane culture that just trickles to everything. And we've actually started a new motto that home buying should be fast, easy, and fun. So, when you come to the website, is it fast? Is it easy to navigate? Are you having fun? You know, is our culture, is our faces, are we coming across on that website? When you walk into the front desk, it should feel like going to our website. We want this seamless experience. You know, we're going to look the same whether you see us out in the wild, whether you're coming to our office, whether you're seeing us digitally. We want it, you know, to be a cohesive experience.

Greg Bray: So, how do you then layer that on top of the fact that a home is a pretty complex product? It's not necessarily simple to buy a house. You know, it's a big [00:16:00] purchase. It's an expensive, it's a scary purchase. And the website, with the amount of data you guys are dealing with, you mentioned 400 available homes right now. That's not a trivial amount of data for someone to sort through and figure out and find the home that works for them. So, how do you guys kind of create that simplicity as you're trying to give them options for all different types of lifestyle and life journey moments and all the things? Because everybody with a pulse wants something different.

CeCe Cheney: Yeah, I guess that's just where I would tell you, like, our filters truly come into play, but we're trying to educate and guide them through this process where we're like, "Okay, first you're going to shop, then you're going to tour, then you're going to buy." Shopping, a lot of times people have, you know, that idea of where they need to go, what they're looking for. So, it's truly being able to synthesize that data for them so they can have just a sample set where they can be looking at three to five homes, [00:17:00] not 50. Now, some people want to look at 50. I'm not kidding you, we had somebody who toured, like, 200 homes.

Greg Bray: Oh, my.

CeCe Cheney: I was like, "You have to be confused. You can't remember these floor plans anymore after that." But it's just about, you know, building those filters and being able to clearly guide them on how they should be reacting to your website.

Greg Bray: So, as you guys are guiding them through this process, at what point do you feel it's time to say, "It's time to talk to a person"? Where do you guys put that in from the balance of the website and the call to action and the goal of then moving them into the in-person sales experience?

CeCe Cheney: It's funny because I said earlier we want you to just have a pulse, so we're going to try and capture you at any minute, at any hour, at any point. That's the important part, is actually turning these people viewing your website into actual leads. That's the main goal is that we need to capture these people and get them to our [00:18:00] sales team because they're fun. They're like the Stepford Wives. I'm just kidding.

Kevin Weitzel: It is no joke, man. They are so positive it's ridiculous. I've never seen a team, an entire team with that much positivity. It's crazy. I'm talking about, like, you know, positive stuff, good stuff.

CeCe Cheney: Yeah. We're always pushing for that contact, and we are going to capture you one way or another because, again, our team are the experts. They know all the product. They're going to help you sift through 400-plus homes in 50-plus communities to find the one that works for you and your budget. So, I would tell you we're pushing for that pretty early on.

Greg Bray: Have you found a particular point, though, that seems to be your best capture moment where you get the lead in that journey? Obviously, people come at different stages, but is there one place that seems to be, "Oh, this is where we find the best time to invite them to call or schedule"?

CeCe Cheney: I know nobody likes this, but it's that [00:19:00] pop-up. We have tested removing that pop-up, and it was crazy, the numbers, how they just dropped. We add it back on, they're right back up. People will give you their contact information. I think, like, in this day and age, I'm fine getting 30 spam emails, you know? And so, not that we're spam. We are not spam. Side note there, we're not spam. But people are used to signing up for things, and so it's that easy, and now your computer fills it out for yourself, so you're just filling in that information right away, hitting submit, and then going along your way. So, that pop-up has truly been our probably number one lead generation on our website.

Kevin Weitzel: So, do you think that that change has anything to do with just technology in general? Because it used to be you sign up for something, and then you get inundated with a bunch of garbage. Now you can get inundated with a bunch of garbage, but you have that magic unsubscribe and/or block button where you can just eliminate it forever. Do you think that that is a [00:20:00] reason for why people are so willing to give their information out?

CeCe Cheney: Yeah, and I just don't think it's scary anymore. You're used to getting those calls or those emails or those texts, and I think people kind of get a little bit numb to those notifications. It's just not as scary. I would also tell you one big thing that we actually made a change on that has really increased our conversion was our Google Ads. We actually built a separate landing page that kind of guides them, asks them some questions based on which ad that they're filling out.

Previously, we didn't have that tracking of, like, oh, this person actually did fill out this ad from this. You know, they clicked the ad and filled out this Google form. But now we have that, and so we actually have seen our pop-up drop a little bit, but we've seen these Google Ad landing page forms just increase, skyrocket. And so, I think it's kind of about, like, [00:21:00] wherever they're coming from, you need to meet them where they're at, and guiding them on that process from the different ways that they're hitting your website. If you know where they're coming from, you need to send them on a different guided path than somebody who's just going to CBHhomes.com.

Kevin Weitzel: Let me ask you this. So, Susie's listening, because we know our listener base. We know who's on our podcast, you know.

Greg Bray: We've met all five of them.

Kevin Weitzel: We've met at least five. And, you know, four of them are, like, you know, Greg's kids. One's a good friend of mine. No, no. But we get comments back from people that listen to an episode, and they're like, "Oh, man, I had some other questions I wanted to ask." I'm like, "Well, reach out to the person and ask them questions." So, Susie's listening right now, that single person that works at a home builder, small little fledgling, brand-new hire. What is the one thing that you want Susie to do to improve the game, to prove her worth to the company's owner that she was worth hiring?

CeCe Cheney: Wow. Susie

Kevin Weitzel: It's big world, Susie. It's a big world.

CeCe Cheney: It is. [00:22:00] I'm going to preach this again. Throw it into AI. Be like, "Hey, AI, I'm a home buyer looking for this. Tell me what I should be doing. Tell me what I should be looking at." Just to even get you started thinking about where to even start. We just did this with our warranty portal. We were like, "What should we be doing here?" We're kind of, you know, creating it out of the box, and we're like, "What should we be doing here?" And AI's like, "You're calling it a portal, but not showing any of the numbers." And I was like, "Oh, okay, I'm hear you."

The other thing I will always tell you is that speed wins. If your website's not fast, if you're not getting to your leads fast, if it's not feeding to the CRM fast, you have to be fast. Speed is going to win in this market. So, doing those speed tests or putting yourself into the system alone and saying, "What happens?" Put yourself in that buyer's shoes and going through that process. What does this look like? What does this feel like? Is it hard? [00:23:00] Do I have to click three times to get somewhere, to get to the information that I'm looking for?

Kevin Weitzel: The click rule is magical. I love that one. Three or less. Great.

Greg Bray: CeCe, for the person who is not blessed with the type of executive support that you see, how do you suggest they sell an idea of an improvement or a new feature or a new technology to put on the website? What are some of the things you've found to be effective in saying, "Hey, here's why we should try this new thing, or how we should experiment with it"? Any thoughts there?

CeCe Cheney: Yeah, I definitely think, obviously, data's going to help you. I also think it's about just being like, "Let's run this little test. Like, I just wanna see what this does." You know, we are constantly testing, changing, adapting, and if you're not basically being agile enough, if you're not trying something new, you're going to [00:24:00] get left behind. We'll throw something on there and be like, "Let's try this out," and then if we don't like it, it's gone. You know, we're not scared to do it for a week, two weeks, and then remove it. So, I think it's just about selling that. Again, if you have the data to prove it, that's a very big plus. But then just selling, "This is just a tester. I just want to see what happens when we do this."

Greg Bray: How do you guys go about measuring success on a test like that? Is it different, or do you have a common way to say, "Oh, we have to see this type of a lift, or this type of a change is our standard, like, okay to keep going metric"?

CeCe Cheney: It depends on what you're looking at, but again, you know, like form fills are always going to be our number one. If we're making that contact, if this is increasing this. When we were launching those Google landing pages, we were like, "Oh, we're so scared because they're not going to get our pop-up." But then we saw this huge increase, and then we could actually track where they were coming from and guide them through that process better.

So, to me, [00:25:00] it's always going to be that contact. I'm a salesperson at heart, so, and I love our sales team, so it's always my number one goal to get them a human to talk to. But you know, it could be small things, where maybe they stayed a little bit longer on the page. Maybe you saw more clicks increase over here. It doesn't have to be something crazy huge. It could be a very, very small increase, but in the long run, will actually improve your results.

Greg Bray: Well, CeCe, this has been great. You guys are obviously figuring something out, and we're all trying to learn from you. So, thanks so much for being open, honest, and candid with us on some of these questions. Any last words of advice or thoughts to leave with our audience today before we finish up?

CeCe Cheney: You just got to go out there, try it, look at people who are doing it and doing it well. If you like a brand, go out there, research. Play with their website, see what you like. It doesn't have to be a builder. In this day and age, I always feel like we're turning into e-commerce, so you know, you just got to go out there, see what you like, [00:26:00] try it, test, play.

Greg Bray: Well, CeCe, if somebody wants to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch?

CeCe Cheney: This is a fun one. You can email me, if you can spell my name. But it is C-E-C-E-C @cbhhomes.com. That's a good one. It's tongue twister.

Greg Bray: Well, thank you, CeCe, and thank you everybody for listening today to the Builder Marketing Podcast. I'm Greg Bray with Blue Tangerine.

Kevin Weitzel: And I'm Kevin Weitzel with OutHouse. Thank you. [00:27:00]