Local SEO tips for contractors

Since contractors typically work with customers in their immediate geographic area and cannot always rely on repeat customers, your business depends on you consistently attracting new clients.

Local search engine optimization (or local SEO) is targeted promotion in your geographic area that can help boost your online visibility so you outrank local competitors. Since most search engine users will click links for businesses on the first page of results, you want to be proactive and rank above local competitors. 

What does local SEO entail?

Business Profile Pages

Citations are registered listings on business directories, such as Yelp and Business.com. The listings include your name, address and phone number (NAP). These directories are like online yellow pages and are a valuable place to register listings that link back to your website. 

Having listings on business review sites establishes credibility with potential customers and helps improve local SEO. Keep your NAP data current; if a web crawler can verify your information across websites, it’ll be more likely to trust your business. 

If you have contradicting listings, customers might get frustrated, and web crawlers won’t know what to trust and may not show your business on search engine results pages (SERPs). 

Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business)

An essential citation is your Google Business Profile, which allows you to show up on Google Maps and in the local pack results on SERPs. Make sure you complete your profile and keep your business information up to date. 

Reviews

Google considers reviews from clients in search rankings, so it’s beneficial to encourage customers to leave reviews. Reviews also provide an opportunity to connect with clients and demonstrate your expertise and professionalism. Respond to both positive and negative online reviews to boost your SEO while showing customers and potential clients you care.

Links

Internal links help customers and web crawlers navigate your website and demonstrate the depth of your knowledge and services. Backlinks are when other reputable websites, like manufacturer pages, link to your website. Backlinks serve as an endorsement, which gives your business credibility with customers, but more importantly, search engines.

How do I get my contractor business on the first page of Google?

Google’s algorithm considers a variety of factors when determining SERPs. These metrics make it possible for a small business posting high-quality content to outrank a large company in result listings. Getting your business on the first page likely won’t happen overnight. The best way to rank high is through consistent action over time.

Optimize your website

Homepage

Your homepage is often the first impression a prospective client has of your business, so you want to ensure it’s clearly organized, builds trust in your expertise, and includes relevant keywords. You can optimize your landing page for your location, which is also a key place to get the attention of search engines. 

A few tips to optimize your homepage are to have a solid title tag, meta description and headline. 

• Title tag: About 50-65 characters that describe the content of your page
• Meta description: 100-150 characters and typically includes a call to action (CTA) 
• Headline: A brief overview of your business and the services you offer

Optimize your landing page for your location and provide a place to collect visitor information such as customer name, email, and phone number. Keep your lead information well-organized and up to date so you can respond to and convert leads into paying customers.

Service pages 

List all your services to make it easy for customers to see what you offer. Give each service an individual page targeting relevant keywords, a title tag and a meta description. Interlinking provides links on your webpages to your other webpages. This enables Google and other web crawlers to grasp the depth of your expertise and keeps users browsing your website longer.

Content

Consistently publish excellent content that your client base might find helpful. While service pages target potential clients, you can produce informational content targeting a wider audience. Publish content that offers value and establishes you as a credible source in the contracting field. 

Keyword research

Money keywords, or main keywords, are the most searched terms. If your main keywords aren’t improving your SERP, consider using long-tail keywords, which are longer, more specific searches. The search terms may be used less, but can result in more site visits becoming high-quality leads. 

Get social

A social media presence can expand your overall online presence to build trust and familiarity with potential clients. Link all your social media pages to your website, so potential customers can easily find your services and contact information. 

What is the ROI for local SEO? 

To determine the return on investment (ROI) of your local SEO, you’ll need to track SEO campaigns and determine if your SERP rankings are improving, if your website or business is getting more traffic and how many new leads are becoming customers. SEO is a long-term digital marketing strategy, so improvement will come in time with consistent effort. 

Improve your SEO with Broadly

Broadly can help simplify your SEO strategy by tailoring a responsive website at a reasonable price. We will help make sure your website is mobile-friendly, optimize keyword usage, and employ all the best practices mentioned in this article. Best of all, our responsive design team remains active to support quick and easy edits.

Customer reviews will also improve SEO for your business. Send automated review requests to customers with Broadly’s Reviews. Additional features consolidate reviews from multiple sites so you can respond to all of them from one place.