Rank Higher on Local Search Results
Local SEO for electricians is a major driver of website traffic and qualified leads for electrical businesses. Every year, local search becomes more and more relevant to small businesses. As a matter of fact, Google saw 350 times more searches for the keywords “local” and “near me” in 2019 than in 2009. People are using the internet to find the services they need, and you don’t want to be left behind.
To help you out, we’re going to cover four local SEO tips for electricians to make sure you show up when users search for electricians in their area.
1. Take Advantage of Google My Business
Forty percent of mobile searches have local intent, which typically results in the local pack appearing on the results page. The local pack is the list of three businesses that appear above the normal organic listings when users search for local services or products. For local queries, 42% of searchers click on results inside of the local pack. That makes the local pack valuable real estate in the search results page of Google.
So, how do you get your electrical business to show up in the local pack? You optimize your Google My Business profile.
Choose Your Business Category
Make sure your primary business category aligns with the services you offer. There are more electrical-based business categories than you’d imagine, and Google is always adding more. Is your business focused on electrical installation, or do you primarily offer electrical engineering services? Maybe your business is best described as an electrical repair shop.
These are all business category options for Google My Business listings. If you’re not sure which category suits your business best, we suggest opting for the category of “Electrician,” which captures most electrical services.
Set Your Service Areas
You need to include the priority cities you serve in the service area section of your GMB. Try not to cast too wide of a net in this list. The closer to home you make your service area map, the more effective your efforts will tend to be.
Show Off Your Images
Include recent and quality images of your team and your work. Users trust businesses with up-to-date pictures more than they trust listings with no pictures at all. Some images that work best include ones of your team, your business, and your work.
Your Team
Try having images of your team at work. Some examples might be members of your team working a job, your team standing in front of a service truck, or even staff profile images. These help customers feel at ease knowing who will be coming to their door, which service truck is legit, and whether your team will make a mess while working.
Your Business
If you ever experience a Google My Business hiccup, you’ll know that Google will typically ask for images of your storefront with the address clearly labeled on the door. That’s why it’s important to make sure you have a clear storefront image of your business. A few other images of your business you definitely need to include are your logo, a cover image, and the inside of your business office.
Your Work
At the end of the day, you’re trying to sell your work, so show it off! Include pictures of jobs you’ve done, products you work on, services you offer, etc. Some examples might be generators you install, newly installed recessed lighting, or an open circuit breaker.
For more tips on how to get your Google My Business listing to rank, check out our blog on getting your business to the top of Google’s local listings.
2. Build a Mobile-Friendly Electrical Website
With an internet-connected device in nearly everyone’s hand or pocket at all times, people have much easier access to search engines than ever before. Consumers no longer have to ponder their questions or add “find an electrician to hire” to their to-do list — they can just find answers and businesses immediately.
This explains why there were 221 million mobile phone search users in the United States in 2020, according to Statista. The move to using mobile devices as a means of searching creates a demand for mobile-friendly websites. In fact, Google ranks sites with better mobile design higher than those without.
Mobile-friendliness is characterized by fast speeds, easy-to-navigate design, and accessibility for mobile phones.
How can you optimize your website for mobile? Keep your site speed fast, make sure your site has a responsive design, and make your buttons large enough to work on mobile. Try testing your website’s mobile-friendliness with Google’s mobile-friendly testing tool.
3. Lean In to Local Content
One of the easiest and most understandable SEO metrics to track is keyword rankings. When people search for electrical services, is your site showing up in the results?
If you want to rank for local electrical queries, you need to have local electrical content. The top three ways to include local electrical content on your site are through service area location pages, blogs on electrical searches relevant to your local area, and geotargeting site-wide.
Let Your Location Be Known With Service Area Location Pages
These pages help inform Google and users of the areas where you operate. Service area location pages are a must-have in order to convey to users whether you will drive out to their location for electrical services. Having service area location pages opens up a new opportunity for your site to rank when users search for electrical services near them.
Educate Your Consumers With Blogs
Relevant local blogs can be a great way to target local searchers. Companies that blog have 55% more visitors on average. When users search for common electrical problems or questions, you want to make sure that your site is in the results with an answer or a solution.
To drive local traffic to your site, you should focus on electrical topics that are relevant to your area. For example, if you operate in a thunderstorm-prone city, try publishing a blog on lightning arresters.
Or, if your area regularly experiences hurricanes, a blog on generators will surely gain traffic. One last example would be if your town has a lot of historic, old homes, you might write blogs on the signs your home needs rewiring.
Let Google Know Your Service ARea With Geotargeting
Including geotargeting site-wide is crucial to signal your local service areas to search engines. By including the city your office is in as well as any priority cities you serve in the title tags, headers, and calls to action throughout your site, search engines will know to include your website in the results when users search for electrical services in those areas.
4. List Your Business on Local Directories
Listings of businesses on online directories are called citations. According to Moz, citation signals are one of the top local ranking factors for the local pack and for normal organic search results. Citations usually show your business name, address, and phone number. The importance of citations is making sure they are consistent across the web.
We suggest claiming and optimizing all directory links of your business across the web so they all have the exact same information. By doing so, Google will rank your website higher on search results. If your business doesn’t have any or many listings in directories across the web, we suggest getting started by adding your information on:
- BBB
- Bing
- Apple Maps
- Yelp
- Yellow Pages
- Nextdoor
And any niche local directories, like the Chamber of Commerce.
Build Your Electrical Business With Blue Corona
We know that some of these tips can be daunting. Service business owners shouldn’t have to keep up with their own business and search engine optimization as well.
That’s where Blue Corona comes into the picture. Our team of SEO analysts will take care of the local search ranking and more.
We’ve been proven to drive 73% more qualified leads from electrician SEO services.
Get in touch today to learn more about what Blue Corona can do for your business.