Do you know why SEO for contractors is a necessary topic? With search engine optimization, contractors can increase their online visibility. An increase in online visibility means prospects looking for a company like yours can find and do business with you.
Marketing and the way people source information about products and services have changed. Now, most people turn to Google and other search engines for information. Google holds 90% of the search engine market. Therefore, the majority of the online searches people conduct happen on Google.
As a contractor, you must understand how to make your business popular on search engines and a breeze for prospects to find. Keep reading to get more details.
What Is SEO For Contractors?
Contractor SEO involves the use of various digital marketing strategies to improve a contractor or construction company’s online visibility. It is a vital strategy, as it improves your ranking and organic traffic.
SEO for constructing companies or contractors involves the use of keywords related to the industry. The keywords are placed strategically in the content, and the website is optimized using white hat SEO techniques.
When properly optimized, prospects searching for related terms will land on your website. And most of the prospects wouldn’t have located your website or learned about your business if it wasn’t for SEO.
Search engine optimization for contractors is a necessary strategy for companies interested in improving patronage. It helps create a massive brand awareness and place your business in front of potential customers.
Why You Should Take Contractors SEO Seriously
As a contractor, why should you consider investing in SEO for your business? Here are several reasons.
1. Generates better ROI than other marketing strategies:
Search engine optimization (SEO) delivers higher ROI than other marketing channels. It even has a lower CAC (Customer acquisition cost) than other marketing channels.
Search engine optimization delivers genuine leads. When you rank high in the search engine result pages (SERPs) for a keyword, prospects searching for the related terms will find and are more likely to patronize you.
Organic searches have 8X higher click-through rates than paid searches. People trust organic results more than paid search. They believe organic search results match their searches and could be more valuable. They know that the Google search engine only promotes reliable and the most valuable websites to the top of the search results.
Your ranking in the organic search results should be as high as possible. Why? Websites higher up the SERPs will get higher click-through rates than those far below.
2. Guarantees sustainable lead generation:
As long as your business is still active, lead generation will always take center stage in your marketing campaign. And if you want sustainable lead generation, implement effective SEO strategies.
With pay-per-click (PPC), you must continue funding your ads account to sustain the traffic. Once the funds in your ads account are exhausted, your website will immediately disappear from the search engine result page. That means lead generation stops until you add funds to your account.
Paid adverts aren’t cheap. It is called “pay-per-click,” so you’re paying for every click and website visit you get. Additionally, you have to pay an expert or agency to manage your ad campaign.
The experience is different with SEO. Firstly, you don’t have to pay any money to Google or other search engines to rank high in SERPs. Just optimize your contracting company’s website and keep building quality backlinks. If you get your optimization strategy right, you’ll get sustainable organic traffic.
The interesting part about SEO is that you’ll continue getting organic traffic even when you stop investing or putting more effort into your optimization campaign. You won’t even lose your position on the search engine result page when you stop putting effort into your SEO campaign.
SEO is a continuous process, not a once-off. As long as your company still operates, search engine optimization should have your utmost attention.
3. Build trust and online reputation:
Trust is an important currency in business that is hard to gain. Prospects will only do business with brands they trust. Nobody will want to risk hiring a contractor that they don’t trust.
How can SEO help contractors build trust? It can, in so many ways!
First, let’s start with the obvious. Users searching for information, products, and services on search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc) understand that sites that appear at the top of the search engine result page offer more value. Prospects know Google will only display reputable and valuable sites higher up the SERPs.
When you appear higher up the search engine result page, prospects who stumble on your site will trust you. If they visit your site and like what they see, they will award their contracts to you.
A Handy Tip: Populate your website with high-quality and professionally-written content. Let prospects feel more enlightened and convinced that you are fit for their contracts after reading your content.
In other words, your blog posts and everything about your website should convince visitors that hiring you is the best decision they will ever make. Ensure you’re not only optimizing your website for search engines.
4. Cost-effective marketing strategy:
SEO’s initial cost might be high based on several factors, such as the agency handling your marketing campaign, SEO strategies, campaign duration, and more. Some agencies charge a premium for SEO services, while some are more considerate.
The point is that even though SEO’s initial cost is high, it’s still the most cost-effective and crucial marketing strategy to implement. Compared to strategies like pay-per-click (PPC), SEO is unarguably cheap. I’ll explain why it is.
When you kick-start a PPC campaign, you are going to continue funding your account to sustain the campaign. Without money in your ads account, Google or other search engines won’t continue advertising your website in the search engine result pages.
The moment funds in your ads account are exhausted, your website will disappear from the search engine results page. So, you’re going to continue funding your Google ads account to sustain your website’s position in the SERPs.
With SEO, you don’t need to fund an ad account. Your only concern should be implementing a robust search engine optimization strategy. If you don’t have the knowledge and experience to start and manage an SEO campaign, you can hire an SEO expert.
As explained earlier, even if an SEO expert stops working on your SEO project for a while, you’ll still retain your ranking position. Competitors can’t derank you overnight. They have to work harder and hope you don’t continue implementing your SEO strategy.
Effective Contractors SEO Strategy To Dominate Search Engine
Implementing SEO for a contractor is a bit dicey, thanks to Google’s occasional algorithm updates, changes in consumer behavior, and high competition among contractors. However, understanding the strategies to implement or having an SEO expert manage your campaign can set you apart.
Here, I’ll highlight various search engine optimization strategies that will help you dominate the search engine. Let’s get right into it.
1: Establish a user-friendly website:
Having a website is one thing, and ensuring it is user-friendly is another. Google prioritizes user experience. So, if your website is user-friendly, Google will take you seriously.
Having a user-friendly website is as simple as making it a breeze to navigate and using a responsive design. You need a website that loads fast and has all the information prospects need to understand the services you deliver.
Your website speed is important, as it affects user experience. Note that a website that loads fast will likely have low bounce rates and high dwell time. The ranking of such websites also increases.
Once you have successfully established a user-friendly website, then you can focus on the next step – finding valuable keywords. Check it out below.
2: Perform in-depth keyword research:
Google and every search engine in existence operate on keywords. Keywords are the search terms or phrases prospects use when searching for information, products, or services online. For example, a person who is seeking a building contractor in Texas may likely use keywords like “building contractors in Texas.” Most users may even focus their search on a specific location. For instance, they may search for “building contractor in Houston.”
Finding the right keywords or search terms is the first and most crucial step to dominating the search engine. An expert SEO agency will use premium tools to help you find the best keywords for your industry. You’ll have a good understanding of the competitiveness of each keyword and create a robust SEO plan that will give you a competitive edge.
There are other information you need to know about keywords. First, there are short-tail and long-tail keywords. The short-tail keywords have higher search volume and competition. In other words, it is more challenging to rank high for short-tail keywords. An example of a short-tail keyword is “building contractor.” It is more generic and highly competitive.
Target long-tail keywords to increase your chances of ranking high in SERPs and getting more organic traffic. An SEO expert will help you identify long-tail keywords that offer the best opportunity to rank high and get more organic visitors.
So, there are “short-tail keywords” and “long-tail” keywords. But target long-tail keywords. However, that doesn’t mean you should neglect the short-tail keywords. Try to sprinkle as many short-tail keywords as you can in your content. You never know; you could rank for those keywords someday.
Must-know Keyword Mistakes To Avoid
Understanding these keyword mistakes businesses and even most SEO firms are making will save you time and money and ensure you don’t miss out on opportunities. So, here are the keyword mistakes that can put your SEO campaign in jeopardy.
- Choosing keywords irrelevant to potential customers: One terrible mistake some businesses and SEO agencies make is their choice of keywords. They focus on the search volume, neglecting the relevance of the keyword to potential customers. This makes it difficult to get reasonable organic traffic. The ideal thing to do is understand your customers. Try to figure out the possible search terms they might use when looking for a company like yours. If you can do so, you’ll rank high in SERPs and get sustainable organic traffic.
- Targeting the same search term throughout your website: Targeting the same keyword on two or more web pages of the same website is a terrible SEO sin. It is what Google calls “keyword cannibalization.” When you eventually start ranking high for the keyword, you’ll be competing against yourself because you’re targeting the same keyword on other pages. It doesn’t matter whether the articles differ. The keywords should never be the same. Otherwise, you’ll hurt your site’s ranking potential. Instead, focus on targeting brand-new keywords on other web pages. That way, you’ll boost your chance of ranking for different keywords.
- Neglecting localization in your keyword strategy: An individual searching for a plumber to hire will focus on hiring a plumber in the local area. It is common sense. A person based in Houston who’s searching for a plumber won’t be looking for one who is based in Brooklyn. Google understands this, and research has confirmed it. According to the tech company, 4 in 5 consumers conduct their searches with local intent. Your SEO strategies should include using local search terms. That way, you’ll make it easier for local customers to find you online and award their contracts to you. Keyword localization also helps you gain popularity and create brand awareness in your locality.
3: Prioritize on-page SEO:
You have your target keywords ready. Now, it’s time to focus your attention on on-page SEO. This strategy involves optimizing your web pages to improve your chances of ranking high in SERPs and attracting more organic traffic.
On-page SEO includes activities performed on a website to improve online visibility. It basically involves placing your target keywords in the right places. These include the blog content’s title tags, meta description, subheadings, alt texts, anchor text, and URL.
The first and last 100 words of your blog posts are unique positions to incorporate your keywords. Place your primary keyword in these two positions. However, avoid keyword stuffing (excess use of your target keyword in your content). Google is strongly against this strategy, as it will only impact your ranking negatively.
Practice white hat SEO strategy or ensure the agency managing your marketing campaigns is doing so. With white hat SEO, you won’t have to worry about your search ranking dropping when a Google algorithm update happens.
4: Prioritize off-page SEO:
Off-page SEO involves activities performed outside a website to improve ranking, referral, and organic traffic. With an effective off-page SEO strategy, you can even improve your online reputation and build trust.
A good example of off-page SEO you can prioritize is link-building. Backlinks are one of the major factors Google considers when deciding where to rank a website on the search result page. Thus, the more backlinks you have, the more chances you have to rank high.
5 Avoidable Link building SEO Mistakes
Link building is an important strategy that can make a huge difference in your SEO campaign. But if you want to build backlinks that will have a great impact on your ranking, traffic, and online reputation, avoid the following mistakes.
- Acquiring low-quality backlinks: Most website owners are so much in a hurry to improve their search rankings and organic traffic that they don’t vet the source and quality of backlinks they acquire. As a result, they end up building poor-quality backlink profiles. How do you build quality backlinks? Get your backlinks from a reputable source. Secondly, avoid backlinks from spammy and low-quality websites. Links from such sites can do more harm than good to your website’s ranking.
- Neglecting no-follow links: No-follow and do-follow are the two types of backlinks you can get when building links. And while the do-follow link allows SEO value from the linking site to pass to yours, no-follow doesn’t. As a result, many website owners completely neglect no-follow links. Having only do-follow links will send a wrong signal to Google about your backlink profile and link-building strategy. It will give the search engine giant the impression that your backlinks aren’t natural. So, don’t exclude no-follow links from your link-building strategy. Instead, let your do-follow and no-follow backlink ratio be 60:40.
- Building your backlink profile in a hurry: It’s important to exercise caution and patience when building backlinks. You don’t want to give search engines the impression that your backlinks aren’t genuine. Build your backlinks gradually and steadily. Let Google see that you’re gaining popularity online gradually, and the platform will reward you accordingly. There is no gain in trying to build thousands of backlinks in one day. Google understands how link-building works and knows it’s impossible to build thousands of links in one day. Handover your link-building campaign to a reputable SEO expert. Get someone or an agency that knows how to build quality backlinks and has the connections to do so.
Conclusion
SEO for contractors is important, as it improves online visibility, leading to higher patronage and revenue. Most people prefer to use Google search engines to search for information, products, or services. When they do, they only consider the websites that appear on the search engine result page.
With an effective SEO strategy, you can make it easier for potential customers to find your website online. SEO improves ranking and organic traffic. It can also enhance your online reputation and help your brand to build trust.
You can manage your SEO campaign yourself or outsource it to a competent agency. That way, you can focus on other aspects of your business that are seeking your attention and time.
