How SEO Helps Local Service Businesses Get More Customers
by Juke Marketing
What is SEO for Local Service Businesses?
Local Service Business SEO is the process of creating an optimized website, performing ongoing technical optimizations, and creating content that drives traffic to your website.
Every SEO Campaign Starts with Keyword Research
This is primarily done by optimizing for keywords. For a local business, you want to be ranking for the keywords that your customers are searching for when they want to learn about or buy your service (i.e “Service + Town/county + State”).
Search Engines Produce High Intent “Hot Leads”
Google is the largest search engine and where most SEO companies and businesses alike are focusing their efforts. When a customer searches for these terms to find a business to perform a specific service in their area, this is a very “hot lead” with high intent to buy.
Don’t Let Your Competitors Get All the Traffic
If you own a local service business and are not taking advantage of your local search traffic, you are sitting back while your competitors receive phone calls and emails from those looking for a business like yours to hire online.
The Steps of A Landscaping Customer Being Acquired Through Local SEO
Your Website: The Central Hub of All Marketing Activities
The website is the center of all marketing activities. Whether you are doing cold email campaigns, physical mailers, social media, paid ads, or organic SEO, the website is the final destination where a lead evaluates the professionalism, quality, and trustworthiness of an organization. Before any additional SEO can be done, the website itself must be optimized for SEO, utilizing keywords in the proper places, having a strong interlinking structure, and being conversion optimized to turn leads into paying customers. This allows the website to be visible in Google’s search results, although in competitive environments, ongoing optimization will be needed to get on page 1.
Your Website:
- Builds Trust
- Makes your services known
- Convert traffic into paying customers
- Collects information like phone numbers, emails, and job details from leads
- Helps customers searching for your service connect with YOU
A Customer Has a Need for Your Service and Takes to Google
Around 46% of all Google searches are local searches: this means that about half of the time someone uses Google it is to find or research a product, service, or organization in their local area. This is why Google is an amazing lead-generation tool.
When a customer searches for a term like “Landscaping in Ludlow Vermont” the search engine uses the list of pages it has indexed to come up with the best match for the query. If your website is well optimized for the keyword “Landscaping in Ludlow Vermont” You will likely come up for this query, but the competitiveness, you may not be high enough in the search results to capture any of the traffic.
75% of all clicks go to the top three search results on Google. the first organic result is seen as the most relevant and authoritative option and gains about 28.5% of traffic. The second result typically gets about 15% of all traffic, and the third gets 11%. This is why continued SEO services are important. It can take months or even years to outrank competitors with SEO, but once you do, the precious lead share shifts in your favor.
Your Website Comes Up in the Top 3 Results
When SEO is done correctly, your website will come up when someone searches for related services in your area. A strong strategy is to make sure your site covers the full array of services across your entire territory.
Service Area Impacts SEO Strategy
If a business serves just one city, it can optimize the entire website for that local area. However, businesses that serve a larger area such as a whole state or multiple states will need a plan to rank for multiple areas at once.
Blogging to Gain Local Authority
A common way for this to be done is through blogging. SEO agencies will write blogs that are targeted at the keyword for the service and one region of their service area. This blog helps Google to further associate you with that service and area and increases your chances of coming up for related searches.
Local Service Area Landing Pages
Another common way to rank for multiple areas is to make a dedicated landing page for each location. This allows businesses to be aggressive in the search results for multiple towns or cities.
Your Website Comes Up in the Google Business Profile "Map Pack"
Completeness and Consistency WIN Google Business Profile Traffic
While the website is the core of any SEO operation, local businesses also benefit greatly from optimizing their Google Business Profile. The more filled out and complete the profile is, the more reputable it is in Google’s eyes. We know for a fact that the number of reviews you have and the rating across those reviews do make an impact on GBP rankings as well as organic website rankings.
Include Keywords without Keyword Stuffing
There is an art in ensuring that the keywords and services you want to rank for are included in your profile without keyword stuffing, which can lead to a Google penalty for manipulating the search algorithm. Getting a penalty is the last thing you want for your long-term SEO goals, so it is important to include the keywords without overdoing it.
Fill Out Your Google Business Profile Completely
A great place for businesses to start is to fill our their profile including services, products, updates, pictures, replies to reviews, and more. A more complete profile not only motivates Google to show your profile to searchers but also has an impact on trust and conversion once you are seen. Customers will often check your reviews and photos before deciding to click through to your website. This is the first touch point in a lot of local searches.
So You Got Someone on Your Site... Now What?
In SEO, getting the traffic from Google’s search engine to your website is often the hardest part of the battle, but it is only half of the equation.
Now that you have captured the attention of a potential customer, it is the job of your website to convince them that your company is the one to call and ultimately hire.
Good Designs Win
A good design can increase your web conversions by 200%. This is because well-designed sites are more likely to engage your users. Being the first touchpoint in digital interaction, the website aesthetic is the first judgment a customer makes on the professionalism and trustworthiness of your site. Just like a run-down building would push clients away, so does a run-down site.
Leverage Social Proof on Your Website
The first way that we like to do this is by social proof. This includes integrating reviews, testimonials, or even better: video testimonials. People are social animals and we find safety in others having tried a service before us. Having strong reviews alone can boost your conversion rate. Social proof can also be increased by association with larger regulatory institutions like the Better Business Bureau.
Show Your Work
One of the biggest mistakes we see is that business owners fail to capture high-quality before and after pictures of their jobs. At the end of the day, a customer is most concerned about one thing: the quality of your work. If you can convey mastery in your trade before you even hop on a phone call, every sale will become easier.
Strong Calls to Action
When someone lands on your website and is shown all of your great social proof and amazing work, it is now time to push them to take action. Having eye-catching buttons, easy-to-use forms, and attractive offers are what drive your visitors to take action and reach out to your business. Without clear direction on what they should do next, many users will leave the site and visit the next one.
Invest in SEO Today and Thank Yourself Later!
It is no secret that SEO is not the fastest marketing channel, but once you do rank well for your meaningful keywords that drive users toward a purchase you will see the value that SEO can provide.
One important factor of SEO is that it is a cumulative practice. Just optimizing one page may give you some immediate results, but for long-term success and true digital domination consistency is the key in any SEO strategy.
If you are ready to start investing in your business’s digital real estate in the Google search results and earning some of the traffic that your competitors are getting every month schedule a consultation for your Free Homepage Mockup or learn more about Juke Marketing today.