Diving into & Demystifying
Contractor SEO
Sharing all the strategies we use to dominate
Local SEO for Contractors
so you outrank the competition
for your most valuable search terms.
What Does It Take To Rank At The Top of Google Search?
If having a contractor website is like owning a billboard, SEO for contractors is like placing that billboard in front of everyone who's searching for anything related to the services you offer within your service area.
What's the point of having a website if your prospects can't find it?
Your number one goal, and the focus of your contractor marketing efforts, should be to increase the number of opportunities you get to make offers to your ideal clients every month.
In order to achieve this goal, you'll want to rank on the first page of Google for every search phrase your potential client is searching for.
The three most important aspects for maximizing those opportunities are:
- understanding who your ideal client is,
- having a winning offer that demonstrates the unique value your company provides,
- and getting that offer in front of as many of those ideal prospects as possible.
Contractor SEO focuses on the third of those aspects - getting more visibility among your ideal customers.
Those
ideal customers are
people in your service area who are searching for your services - whether their search intent is
informational, navigational, transactional or commercial.
Most contractor websites focus on optimizing solely for commercial intent - focusing on keywords that revolve around making a purchase (hire an electrician near me) or requesting a quote (free plumbing estimate Dallas TX).
Though ranking for these keywords can bring more opportunities to quote prospects, this is short sighted and does not work to serve the customer or to build trust in your brand as an authority.
The most archaic approach of local SEO for contractors focuses only on the main keywords with the most volume ('custom builders chicago', for instance).
While
this approach can work to bring in more pbone calls, it's not ideal to limit the scope of
your goal
- which should be
to assist your prospect in the process of making an informed decision.
The right way to do local SEO for contractors - is to put yourself squarely in the shoes of your customer throughout the entirely buying process - from research to project completion.
By doing this, you'll be able to answer, methodically, one by one, and in exhaustive detail, any and all of the questions they may have about your services, your process, your competition and even the common problems and pitfalls of your products and services.
It's only by doing this that your search engine optimization efforts will be their most powerful and effective- both on-page and off.
You see, very few companies will embrace this challenge and take the time to share their subject matter expertise with the public.
When we dig into the cause for their lack of readiness or enthusiasm to embrace this process, it usually boils down to one of these reasons:
- Fear of talking about sensitive issues like pricing
- Scared of the competition learning about what goes on in their sales process
- Afraid of scaring away prospects who can't afford them or are unwilling to pay their asking price
The truth is that the ideal content for you to make is not for these people!
The only people that matter, when it comes to reaching prospects with your marketing, are your ideal customers.
Your website content should focus on building customer trust at the very core of your strategy.
That content needs to work to remove your prospects fear from the buying process - building immense trust in the process.
We put all of this information first because content is the cornerstone upon which contractor SEO is built.
It's important to note, though, that local SEO for contractors is very technical.
There are many small but important details that can easily be overlooked, and also many tasks and pitfalls that are usually more trouble than they're worth.
That's why
we give you a rundown here of the
most important factors for your
contractor seo strategy.
To outrank the competition in your local service area
make sure to implement these technical tactics
What's most important for Contractor SEO
Keyword Research
You'll want to research which keywords to target. There are plenty of free and paid tools which are great for this.
Taking a look at local, regional and national competition within your niche is a powerful place to start.
Fresh, Relevant Content
Having the right content is crucial to the growth and search-ability of your contractor website.
You'll want to make sure the content is relevant to the topics at hand, and that it's unique - so no copying others writing.
Optimized Page Titles
Page titles are important because they show search engines what the content on any given page will focus on.
You can look at the other page titles that appear for your desired search terms, and use them to help plan your site structure and choose what to title your own pages.
Optimized H1 & H2 Headings
Headings work like page titles because they explain what the next bits of content will focus on.
Not only does that help readability for your prospects, but it also shows search engines that your content is relevant to the page title as well as the search intent of your prospects.
Pictures with Optimized Tags
Just using relevant images isn't enough, as search engine bots are built for reading text content.
That's why the alt-text of your images is important, and even the titles of the images themselves. If you inspect the images of well optimized websites, you'll see that the pictures used on each page have optimized file names and alternate text.
Optimized Meta Descriptions
Meta-descriptions are like a summary of any given page, written for the search engine bots.
Some people think (incorrectly) that they're just used for the snippet that is shown in search engine when the page is shown in search results, but using them as a place to summarize page content is a much more appropriate approach.
Backlinking & Off Page SEO
Backlinks to your website coming from outside of your site show search engines that others are taking notice of your website.
If search engine results are like a popularity contest (and in a lot of ways, they are), think of backlinks like you'd think of votes. These votes are 'weighted', in the sense that, the more popular & relevant the site is that you get a backlink from, the more valuable & powerful their vote is for your popularity.
Social Media Presence
Social media plays a major role in today's internet traffic - so having activity and engagement in these channels can greatly increase your own site's influence.
Getting your business in front of people on social media - and getting them talking about and sharing your brand - are powerful ways to show search engine bots that your site is relevant and has authority.
Getting A Better Idea of Success in Contractor Marketing
If you want to truly harness the power, value and impact of what the best contractor website design can give you, implementing these concepts and features is the best route of action.
It will help you
transform your website
from
a business card pinned on a board that no one sees,
to a dynamic sales and marketing tool
that will
empower your contractor company's growth in 2021
and beyond.
Time for a Website Redesign?
Maybe your contractor website was up to snuff when you had it built - but it might be time to implement something new.
If you're already getting phone calls and ranking on the front page of Google, you can still implement cutting edge tactics to help convert more customers and grow your company's reputation online.
We're happy to help your company grow into a permanent fixture in your local sphere of influence, whether through consulting your team or using our own team to your benefit.
Want Help With Your Contractor Website?
We're hoping for your abundant success, both in the
digital marketing realm and in your
contracting business.
If you want
help with your contractor website design, or want us to
make you a personalized market research video - reach out to us
today.
Learn More About Contractor Marketing
