For most local contractors, it is difficult to market their business online as the managers and owners of these companies don’t usually have a lot of time to promote their business, plus often, they also need to advertise their business with the least amount of budget. Local contractors then mostly rely on word-of-mouth advertising as well as referrals from the search engines.
For all types of local contractors, ranking high in the search results of Google and other search engines means all the difference between making massive profits or mediocre revenues for your business. The following are tips on web marketing for local contractors, specifically how to rank best online for your local contracting business.
Doing it yourself when it comes to SEO is possible so your business can achieve good rankings in search results so you can reach even more customers.
Best SEO Tips for Local Contractors:
- Own a website. Your business website doesn’t have to be expensive. It only needs some basic features to be effective. Make sure to include your business name, business category, and the city or location of your contracting business—in the title of your home page. (Example: “American Drywall Contractors, Inc. – Drywall Contractors – Denver, CO”). Also list the names of the cities and neighborhoods you provide your services on—also on your home page because if you don’t include these locations on your website, your web page will less likely to show up in the search results of the people seeking your type of service in the area they are in.
- Include the basic features of a business website. Create an “About Us” page with information about your business, photos of you and your team, and mentions of any official certifications you may have. Also include a “Services” section and “Payment” options page. Finally, on your “Contact Us” page, include your phone number, and physical address and e-mail but only IF they are accessible to clients. You may also include a contact submission form, but make sure you often check your email for this.
- Include a seal of trust badge on the home page of your website. These are very important for contractors because it helps assure people with higher levels of distrust or apprehension about your trustworthiness and credibility as contractor. You can get a trust seal badge from the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and other similar organizations. Doing this will also add up to your search ranking as it provides valuable local citation for your website.
- Maintain a blog on your website. If you’re an expert at your line of service, you can post short updates on your blog about the services you have done or are working on and even post some important events that are currently happening in your area. you Posting a blog regularly will help increase your search engine rankings, not just your online presence.
- Regularly take photos of your best work and post them on your blog or website. This is an easy way to provide ongoing content for your blog, plus showing “before and after” examples of your work will help attract customers.
- Share the blog posts and photos of your work on Flickr, Pinterest, Facebook and Twitter. Post on your pages or accounts on these social media sites consistently with a link back to your blog or website. Ideally, you should post something every day and interact with others. You can also mention and link to the latest news appearing for your industry, and comment on what others are posting in your industry as well as retweet or share their updates.
- Integrate an author tag to your blog and website by setting up your Google+ page to allow its photo icon to show up next to your web pages in the search results. This will help attract more attention to your website and make you stand out from the rest in the local listings. More clicks to your page, more increased SEO for your website.
- Another great tip in terms of marketing for local contractors is to make sure your business is listed in yellow pages and other major online business directory sites. This gives you “mentions” or “citations” of your business, along with your contact information, which is also beneficial for your local search rankings. You can use GetListed.org to check your current listing presence at major business directories as well as add your listing from there.
- Get more ratings and reviews for your business. Aside from the value of your client’s ratings, the total number of reviews your contracting business has on various sites like CitySearch, Yelp, Superpages, etc. can also affect the value of your SEO or search ranking. Ask your satisfied clients to post a review online and also, monitor your reviews closely to respond to any negative reviews to apologize, explain, or try to make up for the disappointment of the customer. Having a few bad reviews about your service actually helps make your business seem REAL instead of having a business with a very unrealistic amount of positive reviews.
- Get professional help. There may be technical issues that are limiting your site’s effectiveness in terms of SEO, so it may be worthwhile to have a pro checked it out upfront and resolve its issues. Sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Webmaster Tools to see if their bots are able to crawl your website’s pages without issues, and see if they have any recommendations for improving your site further.
Follow these basic SEO tips for local contractors and you will be ahead of your competitors. These will help keep your business thriving online and offline for the long haul.
SEO tips provided by http://www.contractorslab.com Home Improvement Leads and Appointments Delivery Platform.
