Nail These SEO Tips for Contractors To Increase Qualified Leads From Google
Let’s face it, the days of relying on being listed in the Yellow Pages or word-of-mouth marketing to book contracting jobs are long behind us. Even your great-aunt Gertrude is punching in “best plumber near me” on Google when her toilet is clogged now. So, no matter if you’re a plumber, HVAC contractor, electrician, or home remodeler, SEO and organic search must be at the top of your marketing priorities.
If you’ve found yourself on this article because you have no idea where to get started with contractor SEO, then you’re in luck! Keep reading for our four most crucial SEO tips for contractors on how to improve your real estate on page one of Google and generate more qualified leads.
Utilize & Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile (previously Google My Business) is a free tool every business owner should be using to manage their online presence on Google search and, specifically, Google Maps.
If you’re a local business, you need to ensure you are visible on Google by claiming/creating your profile since it’s often the first place a potential customer will be looking in this industry. Once you’ve created or claimed and verified your profile on Google, make sure to utilize and optimize it fully by:
- Choosing a main category as accurate and relevant as possible
- Adding relevant and valuable secondary business categories
- Filling out your business description and adding an opening date
- Adding a logo and cover photo and any relevant images
- Ensuring business hours are accurate and adding any holiday hours
- Filling out the list of services under each business category, including a description
- Implementing product listings
- Adding an appointment link
- Filling out the service area section with priority cities/counties
- Adding any relevant business attributes (online estimates, veteran-owned, etc.)
- Responding to reviews
- Gaining positive reviews from customers
By implementing the above, you are ensuring that your Google Business Profile is being properly leveraged to appear in Maps whenever a potential customer in your service area is searching for your services or products, leading to more calls and qualified leads.
Learn More About Google Business Profiles
- [Blog] Google My Business Suspended? Here’s What to Do
- [Blog] Should You Turn on Call History In Your Google Business Profile?
- [Blog] Google Reviews Disappearing? Here’s Why
Improve Your Site’s Title Tags & Meta Descriptions
Title tags and meta descriptions are bits of HTML on a webpage that help search engines understand the content on a page. These pieces are the first impression a potential customer of yours sees when they do a Google search, so you want to make sure they’re both informative and enticing.
Having optimized title tags and meta descriptions on your site’s pages can attract more users to click them in search results, as well as potentially improve organic rankings for targeted keywords and phrases.
Your site title tags should:
- Be under 60 characters
- Include relevant keywords/phrases that describe what the page is about
- Include some sort of value proposition to entice users to click
Ensure Your Website Is Mobile-Responsive
Last year, Google fully rolled out mobile-first indexing, meaning Google primarily uses the mobile version of the webpage for ranking and indexing purposes. Today, more than half of users are searching on their phones or mobile devices. In addition, Google has begun placing more emphasis on mobile-responsiveness and site speed when it comes to rankings through its Core Web Vitals metrics. This means that how your site looks and works on mobile is more important than ever.
Work with your web team to make sure users can successfully navigate your site on all devices to:
- Improve search engine rankings and organic search results, ensuring potential customers can find your website
- Decrease bounce rate, keeping potential customers on the website.
- Increase qualified leads by making conversions easier through mobile sticky headers and other mobile site elements.
Target the Right Keywords
Short-Tail Keywords
When a potential customer is searching for your services, they may use keywords such as “AC repair” or “remodeling contractor.” These are considered “short-trail keywords.” Researching the keywords that people use most often to find you or your competitors can be valuable in helping understand the content you need on your site.
Since Google is continuing to get smarter in the results it shows, basing them on the context of a query and the content of a page, you want to ensure the pages and content on your site match up with these queries and search topics.
Long-Tail Keywords
In addition to researching short-tail keywords related to your services, also consider looking into “long-tail keywords” and base content off these, which is a keyword that demonstrated a user searching for something more specific. For example, “home remodeler for master suite addition” is a long-tail keyword. Though it’s likely your site ranks for less of these, when you do, it typically brings in more qualified traffic.
Ensure your content is optimized for Google and other search engines by targeting both short-tail and long-tail keywords within your service pages as well as blog content.
Contractors Shouldn’t Leave SEO in the Marketing Toolbox
If you’re a contractor looking to improve your business’s bottom line (of course you are!), SEO is a marketing strategy you can’t ignore. Ranking on page one for your targeted services isn’t going to happen in a day, but if you follow the SEO tips for contractors we’ve laid out in this blog post, then you are well on your way! Google isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, so the time to invest in organic search is now.
Interested in how SEO can specifically benefit your contracting business or have further questions? Get in touch with Blue Corona today!
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