SEO for Contractors
What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. To many, even skilled marketers, it is a mysterious craft. In reality, it isn’t so mysterious. In fact, it is rather boring. SEO is the modification of an entire web presence to assist both site visitors and search engine bots (like Google) understand what a website is about.
To do this, search engine optimizers, confusingly also called SEOs, focus on many technical web stats. For example, SEOs monitor webpage metadata, keyword distribution, image alt tags and titles, and various DOM elements like heading tags. They deploy content marketing consistently and ensure that content is on-brand and meets the technical requirements above. If it sounds complicated, it can be. This is part of the reason it is so misunderstood by the general public. Ultimately, effective SEO is about discipline and strategy.
Why should contractors care about SEO?
There are many reasons why our customers come to us looking for help with SEO. Some of these reasons are quite obvious. Reasons like desiring more sales traffic and a more visible brand have been around for ages. There are a handful of emergent reasons that benefit contractors uniquely, such as optimizing for employee recruiting and extending company culture. Sadly, many construction companies don’t fully understand the power of SEO.
Why don’t more contractors use SEO?
Each contractor has their own reason.
What a cop out answer! However, we will dig into some common reasons below. For one, contractors and construction companies have existed for decades and even millennia off word of mouth. Even in today’s highly connected world, some construction-industry companies lack an online presence at all. Still more rely on bidding alone to generate business. Many do very well. Why do they need SEO?
Secondly, we see many contractors get “sold” on SEO for Google Rankings. This is a personal pet peeve of mine. Firstly, many contractors don’t understand why they need to rank higher on google – see the first reason. Secondly, many opportunities are missed if the focus is only on rankings.
Why is seo important then?
Branding a Contracting Company.
SEO has a unique ability to align your brand with the message it is looking to project. Effective SEO speaks to clients. It answers their questions. SEO helps customers understand the products a company offers. It ultimately drives trust in customers and asserts the business as an expert in their field. This approach to SEO aligns with Google’s algorithmic updates and allows our clients to utilize our SEO services to better sell services, regardless of a boost to page rankings.
Gaining more sales through increased visibility.
As much as I dislike SEO solely for the purpose of boosting visibility on search engines, it is a result of effective SEO. Not only that but it is quite valuable. More than one of our clients have had their web traffic double in the first 3 months of service with us. This translated directly to additional sales.
Hiring, retention, and Employees.
Construction and contracting trades are in a historically tight labor market according to the BLS and NBC. How can SEO help? This is definitely a more recent school of thought in marketing. However, it is not a stretch to see that today’s laborer spends the majority of their job search online. This person, in addition to looking on sites like indeed, is searching Google for companies to work for. By devoting some resources to optimizing webpages to attract talent, a contractor can gain access to a wide pool of candidates. Not only that but due to the nature of SEO, this technique permanently establishes a channel to hire through.
Contractors can also leverage SEO and specifically content marketing to shape the culture of their company. Establishing a desirable voice and vision inspires employees. Giving current employees a resource to share allows them to become proud of where they work and share with others. This further alleviates the pressure from a tight labor market.
Contractors have many ways to leverage SEO. From Employment options to projecting expertise to bid-awarding clients, SEO has a much larger benefit to contractors than just improving search engine visibility.
Market your construction company
Have you recently started a construction company? Maybe you are part of an established company. If you are looking to increase your brand visibility, we would love to help you. Our team has decades of experience in numerous marketing disciplines. From web design and writing, media and content creation, SEO and analytics, and construction we have experience with it all.
We are passionate about delivering results to our clients. We love helping them increase sales and empower their teams. Our marketing helps clients generate sales, hire employees, inspire current employees, and shape their brand image.
