Like many other entrepreneurs, general contractors are heavily dependent on an influx of new leads. Back then, companies relied on word-of-mouth marketing and traditional advertising to reach potential customers. However, as technology changes, so do the marketing requirements.
Nowadays, you’ll have much more luck using search engine optimization than any other tactic. By implementing this marketing process, potential clients can easily find you on Google and other search engines. This makes SEO for general contractors the most unassuming inbound marketing tactic, as you won’t have to beg anyone to visit your shop.
In this article, we’ll talk about SEO benefits for general contractors, how it can help local contractors, and how to get the most out of your marketing effort.
How does SEO for general contractors work?
Most contractors understand what is search engine optimization and what it does. Unfortunately, only a handful of them understand the underlying process. This can be tricky because if you don’t have any basic knowledge, it will be hard to assess the provider’s work. Even worse, some marketers might take advantage of you.
Google has more than 200 ranking factors that determine the quality of a website and its web pages. These metrics can be categorized into several groups, such as site-level factors, page-level factors, user engagement, and backlinks. By improving all these elements, you increase the likelihood of ranking on top of Google searches for profitable keywords.
While there are numerous factors to consider, they have significantly different values. Traditionally, SEO companies have been prioritizing links, but as of late, user satisfaction factors have become every bit as important. Of course, you also need to consider other things such as page speed, indexability, mobile-friendliness, high-quality content, and so on.
Why is SEO important for general contractors?
SEO provides numerous benefits that other channels cannot. In terms of volume, this tactic can provide the biggest gains out of all other marketing approaches. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s without flaws. That being said, here are a few things you need to consider before hiring an SEO agency:
Benefits of SEO for general contractors
SEO vs. SMM for contractors
Both SEO and SMM can be considered long-term approaches. However, unlike SMM, where you depend on a third-party platform, SEO gives you full proprietorship (no one can influence your site). That way, you don’t have to think whether social media will go out of fashion or if they’ll change their policies.
Although different in nature, SEO and SMM are long-term approaches. As a contractor, it’s much better to go with search engine optimization, given that most of your clients will seek out your brand via Google. Local search, in particular, is especially useful for closing deals.
On the other hand, brands rarely do any business via social platforms. Even if a client is interested in your services, they’ll still need to follow the link to your site. So, whether you like it or not, you’ll need an SEO expert for basic website optimization and to improve user experience.
Based on our extensive experience working with general contractors, social media marketing tends to be less effective for this industry. The nature of social channels often attracts passive users rather than those actively seeking contractor services. In contrast, SEO drives highly motivated traffic – users who are specifically searching for solutions that your business offers.
SEO vs. PPC for contractors
The choice between SEO and PPC is a choice between long-term and short-term benefits. SEO is notorious for requiring time to make an impact. On the other hand, the pay-per-click approach via Google, Bing, and Facebook yields much quicker results. So, if you need to generate leads asap, PPC could be a better choice.
The biggest issue with paid ads is that competitive companies understand how much a service is worth. Some of them are willing to bid to the very budget limit just to snatch a client under your nose. Even if they lose money on paid advertising, they believe they can recuperate it through retention and word-of-mouth benefits.
In other words, while PPC can generate quality leads for your contractor company, it might be much more expensive than you initially predicted. What’s worse, all the benefits will vanish as soon as you stop paying for the service.
SEO vs. other tactics
Of course, SEO, SMM, and PPC aren’t the only approaches you can use. You can also tinker with email marketing, influencer marketing, affiliate marketing, and even traditional channels.
While each one of them has a certain worth, they aren’t ideal for local contractors. Just try to remember when was the last time you hired a person after an email back-and-forth. Similarly, influencers won’t help you push this kind of service. Out of all these secondary tactics, traditional marketing might be the best one, as long as it’s properly implemented.
Categorizing key SEO processes for general contractors
Due to a large number of factors, a contractor SEO company needs to make sense of all these things. They can’t simply start optimizing one by one factor, as it would take too much time and lead to confusion. Instead, they segment processes into four distinct categories:
If you wish to boost your contractor business by investing in a global or local SEO strategy, make sure to curb your expectations. Having a good general contractor SEO agency can go a long way, but only if you can endure until the results kick in. Pulling the plug too early is the worst thing you can do, as it will render the previous investment useless.
Real-world activities
Another thing that many contractors don’t understand is that SEO is a continuation of your real-world efforts. Companies that have already built brand awareness with their clients have a much easier time promoting their websites. Thus, getting to the top of search engine results pages every bit has to do with your daily operations as with marketing.
Specifically, real-world interactions have the biggest impact on off-page SEO. Other businesses that work with your brand are more likely to share your content on social media and link to it. As such, these connections can serve as the basis for your future PR and link-building efforts. Of course, the more and better connections you have, the better the gains.
Your current partners and fans can also boost average user engagement on the website. For example, if you have a lot of followers on social media, their long interactions with the site will send a strong quality signal to Google. Nowadays, search engines understand that articles with higher click-through rates and longer time on the page are generally better and should rank higher.
Conclusion
If you’re serious about your contractor business, you should definitely consider hiring an SEO agency. Search engine optimization and, specifically, local search results are perfect for promoting your brand. This marketing tactic can provide a high number of qualified leads while also improving the long-term sustainability of your business.