As a home service provider, you’re busy doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to your job - you might not have the time to chase new leads when you’re trying to complete a home renovation! Instead of wondering how you’re going to be found by potential homeowners, consider maximizing this secret weapon instead - local SEO keywords.
For those who are unfamiliar with SEO, it’s an important part of your online marketing and sales strategies - when people type in ‘contractors near me’ on their search engine of choice, you want to pop up first (that’s why makes SEO your new best friend!). But the only way to guarantee those results is by following the proper SEO protocols, and that starts with promoting local SEO.
If you want to reach number one on Google, check out our local SEO checklist tips and suggestions, to help you get started.
What is Local SEO?
Before we dive in, let’s take a moment to learn more about why local SEO is so important. For a general overview of SEO, check out 5 SEO basics for everyone (not just experts!).
If you’re a little more familiar with how SEO works - we’re going to take things one step further with local SEO. It’s not enough to optimize your products or services for Google. Targeting certain keywords can only do so much if you’re a small fish in a rather large pond. With so many business listings in a county, let alone a state, it’s important to take the time to target local SEO keywords.
What exactly would be a local SEO keyword? It could be as simple as “roofing in North Carolina,” but that doesn’t exactly niche down on a pinpoint location. High-quality local keywords focus on a specific city or destination. “Roofing in Greensboro, North Carolina,” significantly increases your chances of getting found by new leads, and Google will thank you for your specificity.
Now that we know a little more about what those local rankings mean, let’s look at your must-have local SEO strategies.
The Home Service Provider Local SEO Checklist
Now you know why local keywords are so important, let’s cover the must-have local SEO checklist for every home service provider. Trust us, you don’t want to skip a single step.
- Determine Your List of Services
- In order to achieve your desired rankings, you have to determine your primary list of services. As a home service provider, you probably offer a lot of services to your local customers. A plumber can do more than unclog a sink - but if you cast too wide of a net, your chances of being ranked become smaller and smaller.
- Prioritize your top five or ten services, and build your local SEO keywords around them first. Focusing on ‘clogged sinks’ in one location isn’t enough. Pick a handful of cities you commonly work in and target your keywords accordingly.
- Optimize Your Website
- Your website is supposed to help your rankings - but without the right keywords, it won’t be able to work as efficiently as you need it to. Be sure to optimize your meta descriptions, title tags, headers, and content, to be relevant to your location. Knowing your local market and targeting the right keywords is just going to help you in the long run.
- Update Your Google My Business Listing
- For all the specifics about GMB, check out It's Time to Get Serious About Optimizing Google My Business Pages. However, remember to regularly update your GMB description and posts with keywords, so you can improve your rankings - and make sure your business location is accurate on Google Maps! This is an easy way to send your small business down the road of success.
- Be Specific
- If you’re too broad with your keywords, you won’t land the right rankings. Specifying your services and location doesn’t force you to compete with huge companies that buy SEO keywords by the hundreds. Focus on what you can control, instead of what you can’t - and be sure to think of ways you can optimize your website for voice search.
- Use Your Contact Information
- If your SEO presence is thriving, be sure to include your address and phone number where you can. Adding your contact information, so leads know where they can reach you, is just as important as those keywords.
If you want to improve your online lead quality, start tackling local SEO, so you start to reach your target audience. But if you’re really looking for inspiration on how to improve your lead quality, check out our Countertop Marble Digital Marketing Case Study - it’s packed full of great tactics that can help grow your business.
