4 SEO Tips Contractors Can Use For Online Lead Generation

4 SEO Tips Contractors Can Use For Online Lead Generation

By Socius Staff

May 6, 2022

Digital marketing is an integral effort in growing your business. The online environment is the place to be to reach potential customers and promote your brand or services. And showing up organically (without paid advertising) in search results is the simplest, lowest-cost, and arguably most effective online marketing solution out there. SEO marketing can help your contractor or home services business really take off by generating leads that actually convert.  

In this article, we’ll discuss tips you can implement into your home services business to increase your online lead generation and get more customers to your door. 

Understanding SEO lead generation 

Before we get started, let’s clear up some basics. What is SEO? What is lead generation? And more importantly, what do these mean for contractors? 

SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of increasing a website’s ranking on search engines’ query results. SEO involves web optimization so that search engines present your site to people who search specific terms. Ranking is the site’s position on the search results page. Top-ranking sites get the most clicks and visits. 

Lead generation involves growing the number of qualified leads your business obtains with solid marketing efforts.  

How To Use SEO For Lead Generation 

The goal of SEO is to pull traffic to a website or webpage. On the other hand, lead generation is about attracting prospects. You can use SEO to pull potential customers to your site instead of just raw traffic. Generating leads using SEO is all about drawing meaningful traffic that actually converts. This means targeting your site’s visibility to audiences that are more likely to engage with your contracting business. Here are four ways to do just that: 

1. Optimize Your Keyword Strategy 

There is no SEO without keyword optimization. Whenever someone uses a search engine, they enter words or phrases in a search bar. The search engine then works out the most relevant content and websites matching the words used in the search query. Keyword optimization is all about matching your website to search queries from potential customers. This makes it possible for search engines to list your site in their results based on specific searches. 

The first step in keyword optimization is keyword research. This involves finding out the words or phrases your target audience is likely to search. Second, you need to quantify potential keywords by measuring how well they rank on SERPs and their relevance to your business. There are several SEO tools you can use for this analysis stage. Finally, having listed the most relevant and best-ranking keywords, you can go ahead and add them to your web content, metadata, URLs, and CTAs. 

2. Focus On Local SEO 

Being a builder, contractor, remodeler or home service provider means you have a localized business. That is, you only serve a particular geographical area. Even with multiple branches, each of them will still have a limited geographical scope. So, it makes sense to narrow down SEO marketing to your service area. That’s where local SEO comes in. 

Local SEO lets you target audiences within a specific region. Since local customers are more likely to buy from your business, marketing your brand to them should generate more easily convertible leads. Local SEO is a broad category involving various techniques, such as: 

  1. Claiming and filling out Google My Business Page (GMB) 
  2. Adding location pages to your website 
  3. Getting citations and listings in online directories 
  4. Optimizing URL, metadata and web content for local search 
  5. Maintaining name, address and phone number (NAP) consistency throughout the site 
  6. Engaging in local online events and trends 

Localizing your SEO efforts is probably the best approach you can use toward lead generation. Nearly half of all Google searches have local intent, and most customers search for nearby businesses online. Plus, 53% of local searchers engage with a business within two days after an online search. 

3. Promote Customer Reviews 

88% of customers trust online customer reviews as much as peer recommendations. Potential customers want to know whether a contractor is any good by learning about past customer experiences. Positive customer reviews and testimonials build purchase confidence and, in some cases, they are the last nudge convincing customers to take action. In fact, 89% of consumers consider reviews to be an essential resource when making a purchase decision. 

Encourage your customers to leave reviews on your e-commerce website, Google business page, or other service rating platforms such as Yelp, HomeAdvisor, and Angi. Allow customers to leave reviews and testimonials directly on your website or provide links to various review sites. Remember to embed external reviews on your site through widgets. Get as many positive reviews as possible from different sources. And take the time to respond to review comments. 

Besides promoting lead conversions, reviews may also improve a site’s ranking on SERPs, or search results both paid and organic, meaning your SERP visibility gets a boost as well. 

4. Build Links from Quality Sources 

Create a rich inbound link portfolio. But more importantly, ensure all the links leading back to your site come from credible, high-quality sources. A high-ranking, locally established website with lots of traffic would be a good backlink source. Backlinks are one of Google’s strongest ranking signals and one of the fastest ways to generate organic leads. However, building relevant backlinks is not always easy. But here are a few proven ways to source SEO-credible backlinks for contractors’ websites: 

  • Mentions from business partners (suppliers, affiliates and related businesses) 
  • Online publications such as press releases and reports 
  • Guest blogging 
  • Explainer videos on streaming platforms 
  • Social media mentions 
  • Endowments and acknowledgments
  • Discussions in communities, forums, and blog comment sections 

Final Thoughts 

Generating leads through SEO is an involving and continuous process. You have to constantly nurture multiple efforts simultaneously to make it work. It’ll also take some time before you start seeing tangible results. But you don’t have to take this journey alone. You can partner with us to get the ball rolling.