What is Local SEO and Can it Work for Your Home Services Business?
If you’re a home services provider in 2018, you know that customers are using the internet to find you, specifically, search engines. But even though you know that search engines are an important tool for reaching future clients, you might not know how to show up in the search results. That’s where SEO, and more specifically, local SEO, comes in.
What is Local SEO?
We’ve got to start by defining the component parts:
SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. What that means in non-robot/internet nerd terms is that the content, for example, a website or website page, is optimized for search engines to read, understand, and categorize the content.
We don’t want to insult your intelligence by defining what local means, so we won’t. But adding those two together, local SEO means search engine optimization for local search results. So, “West Michigan roofers” or “Grand Haven landscapers” or “Grand Rapids area remodelers.”
Why is Local SEO Important?
As a home services provider, you serve a specific area, or specific service areas. You want customers within that area, and potential customers want a service provider in their local area. No one wants to have to wait for two hours for a service provider to drive to them for an emergency repair, they want someone in their town. That’s why local SEO matters, so people in your area can find you. They are searching for service providers and using location indicators in their searches: “roof repair near me,” “roof repair Muskegon,” etc.
Local SEO is also crucial for getting to the top of that search results page. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of service businesses like yours in the world, and they’re all trying to rank for the most common keywords for your industry. That’s a lot of competition, and you’d have to pour in more time, energy, and money than it’s worth to end up at the very top of the page for a general keyword like “roofing” or “landscaping.” We say, when the odds aren’t good, make better odds (not like the Tonya Harding/Nancy Kerrigan thing though, just to be clear). You might not be competitive globally for your industry keywords, but you can be locally, and that’s where your client base is, anyway. You can rank first for “remodeler Cedar Springs,” because your competition is going to be only a handful of other local contractors.
Local SEO is one of the best ways for home services pros to reach future customers, so if you’re ready to start implementing local SEO best practices, you need to get in touch. Contact us to discuss your online presence, website, and digital strategy.
