Stephen
The online world is confusing for remodelers. You have terms like SEO, PPC, Display Ads, Facebook Ads, Adwords, Bing Ads. Ahhhh stop the madness! Before implementing any type of marketing strategy you need to understand it. You don’t need to be a pro, but you need to know the basics. In this article I’m going to lay out what an SEO remodeler campaign looks like.
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. When someone says search engine they mean Google because that’s where most people search. So when you do SEO for your remodeling site, you’re making it better for Google. And by making it better, they will rank you higher in their search engine.
The higher you rank, the more traffic you’ll get. More traffic =’s more consultations.
The truth is it’s hard and takes a long time to gain traction in Google. When I start working with a new client I’m upfront and tell them it could take 6-12 months to start seeing some action. It’s hard to grasp that but it’s the truth.
An SEO for remodeler’s campaign is made up of:
1. Onsite optimization
2. Conversion optimization/user experience
3. Content creation
4. Link building
5. Citation cleanup & building
6. Review generation
7. Social signals
If you have all these pieces in place, you can expect to rank higher in the organic section Google. Organic? Huh? There are 3 spots on a search page in Google. In the screenshot below you’ll see the paid section (at the top), maps section (below the paid ads), and the organic listings. Google really doesn’t like SEO because they want you to pay for their ads. But organic/SEO traffic is usually the best traffic you can get to your website.
Let’s look at each part of an SEO campaign.
1. Onsite optimization
I put this on top of the list because it’s most important. If your website stinks, it’s going to be hard to rank in Google. Your site needs to be mobile friendly, needs to load quickly and needs to be technically perfect in the eyes of Google.
I won’t get too technical but you should have a robots.txt file, alt tags in images, title and meta descriptions, keywords throughout each page (but not too many!), internal links linking to each page. The list goes on!
TIP: Put this into Google site:yoursite.com and look at all of your site pages. These are your titles and meta descriptions. Each should be unique and have different keywords in each one.
2. Conversion optimization/user experience
Your site could be technically perfect but you might be missing key elements. Is your phone number on the top of your site? Do you have a simple contact form a potential customer can fill out? A visitor should flow easily to each page on your site. Your navigation should be clean and clear, you should have pages for each of your services (kitchen remodeling, bathroom remodeling, ect..), and you should have clear CTA’s (call to actions) throughout your whole site.
If your site is a mess and someone hits the back button really quick that is going to hurt your rankings because Google thinks that user had a poor experience.
TIP: If your phone number isn’t at the top add it in there. If you don’t have a simple form, add one. If you can’t do it yourself, pay someone to do it for you. It should only take a developer a few hours to do this type of work.
3. Content creation
Content is a big problem with remodelers. Most of the websites that I review have very low word count. Meaning the page on their site might only have 50 words. You want to shoot for 500-1000 words on each page. This should be unique and valuable paragraphs on each page. Remember user experience is important for a kitchen and bath remodeling SEO campaign so the content on that page must be good.
TIP: Tackle one page a month. Start with your homepage and try to add a few hundred words (about 2-3 paragraphs).
4. Link building
Google says you shouldn’t be building links to your website. And by building links I mean getting a backlink from another site that points to your site. The truth is this is a big factor when you’re trying to rank past your competitors. You might already have some link opportunities out there. Are you part of a local chamber of commerce group? If so see if they link to your site. If not ask them if they can. Do you sponsor any local charities? If so, have them link to your site.
TIP: Sometimes the easiest links to get are from your local area. Like I mentioned above, become a sponsor and reach out to any chamber type group you belong to.
5. Citation cleanup & building
Citations are sites like Yelp, Angies List, CitySearch, Google My Business, Houzz, Apple Maps, and many more. You want to be consistent on the main ones. And by consistent I mean your business name, address and phone number (NAP). I have a free training on this you can check out here. Google looks at this as a ranking factor.
TIP: Start with the list below and fix your business so that it matches on all of these sites. I always start with Google My Business and make sure the NAP is identical to my client’s site. Then I work on these:
Bing
Apple Maps
InfoGroup
Acxiom
Neustar Localeze
Factual
Facebook
Yelp
Yellowpages
Foursquare
CityGrid
Houzz
6. Review generation
You need reviews! This is another factor Google looks at but you don’t need 100 of them. Google wants to see consistency. Let’s say you do a few dozen jobs a year. If only a small percentage of these customers leave reviews, that about 5-6. That’s ok! If you can get 1-2 a month that’s great, but if not try to get 1 every other month. Don’t get 10 in January and then none for the rest of the year.
TIP: Focus on getting reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook and Houzz. I would start with Google. Again 1 every other month is ok, just be consistent.
7. Social signals
You should have a Facebook, Instagram and Twitter page. Also create a Youtube page if you can post a few videos a year. Google looks to see if you’re getting “shared” around the web. The best way to do this is to create a blog on your website. Post on that blog a few times a month and then share those blog posts on your social networks.
TIP: Use paid ads to get more shares. Run a $3-5 dollar ad and pay to promote your blog posts. You will get a lot more traction and it doesn’t cost a lot. Target homeowners in your area. I created a FB ads for remodelers training. Check it out.
SEO isn’t easy work but it can pay off. It will bring steady leads to your remodeling business and can add a significant amount of yearly revenue to your bottom line. If you have any questions, comment below.
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