Search engine optimization (SEO) is a significant driver of a home service business's success; it increases brand awareness, improves online visibility, and can boost company sales. But to get all these benefits, you have to know how to use SEO correctly.
In the guide below, we will explain what SEO stands for and share the best tips for you to include in your home services SEO strategy!
Search engine optimization means enhancing the quantity (and quality) of the traffic a website or specific web page gets from organic results in search engines.
Being SEO savvy in today’s market pays off. Numerous studies confirm that organic traffic makes up the most significant share of web traffic — 53%. And more importantly, it also has a higher conversion rate. If you’ve optimized your home service business’s website correctly, you can drive organic traffic and ensure you’re getting seen by the right people — your potential buyers.
In addition to making you more visible on the web, search engine optimization can help you drive local sales and build trust with your customers. A big part of success in search engine optimization depends on content. When you craft top-notch content with your audience in mind, you don’t just capture their attention but also build your company’s credibility. As a result, your prospects will be more likely to buy from you. And thanks to local optimization, you can reach just the right audience that will be able to use your services.
Now that you know what SEO is and how it can affect your business, you must be wondering how to start optimizing your home service website for success.
In this part of our guide, we’ve compiled a list of the best tips to help you get on the right track to success.
To get started with SEO for your home service business, you need to conduct research and identify relevant keywords. Keywords play a pivotal role in optimization as they are the search queries that potential customers use to find the products and services they need on the web.
An easy way to discover the right keywords is to use specialized tools. For example, Google Keyword Planner is a free tool that will let you discover keyword ideas that align with your business in just a few clicks.
Related: The Best SEO Tools for Service-Based Businesses
When conducting SEO keyword research for your home service business, be sure not to focus solely on high-volume and competitive keywords, e.g., “plumbing.” These will be difficult to rank for, especially when you’re starting out. It’s also important to note that although short and trending keywords bring the most traffic, they are very vague, which affects the quality of traffic, so use sparingly.
On the contrary, long-tail keywords are much more specific, such as “after-hours plumbing services.” Long-tail keywords typically have a lower keyword difficulty, which increases your chances of ranking on the first page of search results. As they’re more specific (as in the example above), the traffic from them is more in-line with your target audience. The visitors to your site that these long-tail keywords generate are generally more motivated and ready to purchase, so they have a higher conversion value.
You can also strengthen your SEO strategy by targeting location-specific queries, e.g., “after-hours plumbing services in Brooklyn.” Location-specific keywords will help you get traffic bound to your location of operation, allowing you to reach the right target audiences and increase conversions.
Once you find the right queries, leverage on-page SEO best practices to increase your website’s visibility. This involves incorporating keywords into your website content and adding meta tags, headings, images, URLs, etc.
Related: How to Increase Organic Website Traffic for In-Home Service Businesses
Link-building helps increase brand awareness, online visibility, and traffic. At the same time, it helps improve your domain credibility and, thus, can take you higher in the search results.
There are many different tactics for building and improving your site’s link profile. One of the most effective tactics is creating expert content. This kind of content answers users’ search queries, brings value, and establishes you as an expert in your field. It’s also likely to earn you more backlinks, as other websites reference your statistics or facts in their article.
Examples of expert content to create include
If you want to unlock new opportunities for gaining links, conduct a competitors’ backlinks analysis. Such an analysis will let you see what pages your competitors focus on, what anchor texts they use, etc. These insights will help you identify winning tactics and improve your own link-building tactics. (You might even uncover websites that link to them that you could reach out to about exchanging links to your own site.)
There are many backlink tools you can use to make this process easier. For example, the backlink checker by SE Ranking will let you analyze your competitors’ links faster and easier and gain detailed insights. The tool helps you analyze any backlink profile together with anchor texts, referring domains, and top-linked pages.
Every home services business is tied to a specific location in one way or another. Respectively, when you start looking for potential customers, you want to target them in your area of operations. And that’s where local SEO steps in.
According to the Local Consumer Review Survey 2023 by BrightLocal, 87% of consumers used Google to discover and assess local companies in 2022 — up from 81% in 2021.
To make your site pop up in the search results pages (SERPs) for “near me” queries, you need to create a Google Business Profile and optimize it. Complete your profile with accurate business information and craft a powerful description — this is a great place to add location-specific keywords.
Tip: Ensure your business name, address, and contact information is consistent across all your online and physical presences because Google Business Listings with accurate & complete information receive 7x more clicks.
Once you’ve got your profile set up, encourage your customers to share reviews and spend time managing your home service business’s online reputation. The more positive reviews your business earns, the easier it will be to convert new customers.
Tip: Contacting local and online directories and having them add your website or Google Business Profile (depending on how they organize the site) can also be beneficial for your home services SEO strategy.
Page load speed can make or break the user experience. 47% of consumers expect a web page to load in two seconds or less. If your site is too slow, visitors will likely leave, and once they’re gone, it’s tough to get them back!
Furthermore, long loading times affect your bounce rates, conversions, and, respectively, how high you appear in SERPs. You can check your site’s metrics with the help of PageSpeed Insights or similar online tools.
Due to all these reasons, it’s clear that you must make page speed optimization an integral part of your home services SEO tactic.
Starting in 2019, when Google introduced its mobile-first indexing, mobile optimization became one of the primary factors in how search engines rank websites. Today, mobile-friendly websites deliver better user experiences, get better conversions and lower bounce rates, and rank higher in SERPs.
Ways to optimize your site for mobile include
Tip: Watch out for overlapping menu links or buttons that suddenly shift location during load, which creates a bad user experience and can prevent visitors from accessing the site correctly.
Structured data describe your website’s content for search engines in the form of code. Typically, it clearly defines different types of information, such as information about your company, products, services, contact information, etc.
Why does it matter? Structured annotations allow Google to crawl your website better and reliably retrieve up-to-date information from it. As a result, Google can enable automated feeds and item updates and rank your site more accurately.
Most importantly, you should add the LocalBusiness markup. With the LocalBusiness element, you can specify the location of any local business. With this markup feature, you can add a specific subtype for your business, such as Cleaning, Plumbing, Repair, etc. If you offer multiple service types, you can add them in bulk too. And with LocalBusiness, you can also specify your business hours, reviews, etc.
Although structured data markup may sound complicated, you can easily handle it using Google Markup Helper. This tool will help you add structured data markup to your site in a few simple clicks. For example, you can tag your company ratings, working hours, or addresses so that they can be displayed in rich snippets.
Lastly, if you want to make the most out of your optimization efforts, keep track of the changes you made and continuously analyze the results of your home services SEO campaign. Consistent monitoring will help you define your SEO strategy's strong and weak points so you can tweak it accordingly to achieve the best outcomes.
To streamline the process of tracking and analyzing SEO performance, leverage auxiliary tools. Google Analytics is one such option. The tool will help you collect valuable insights about your customers and track the results of your campaign and make well-informed decisions.
In today’s business landscape, online visibility is the only way to scale and drive sales. This is true for any kind of business in any industry, including home services. And search engine optimization is the most powerful tool for achieving all these goals at once.
Luckily, now you know everything you need to get started. From keyword research and on-page optimization to local SEO and analytics, all tactics from this guide are time-tested and proven to be effective. Be sure to include the tricks we shared with you here in your home services SEO tactics to get your business in front of its target buyers.
Leslie Anglesey is a freelance writer, journalist, and author of various articles with a passion for telling stories about the economic and social situation in the world. In case of any inquiries or suggestions, kindly reach out to her at GuestPostingNinja@gmail.com.
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