The construction industry may be its own niche, but like any business sector, it must utilize the tools of the modern age to promote itself. And in today’s world those tools are digital and they come in the form of the world wide web. What people are searching for online is the key to successful advertising initiatives, and this is the essence of search engine optimization (SEO)
Consider these eye-opening statistics:
- 81% of people perform an online search before making a purchase
- 75% of people never scroll past the first page of search engines B2B marketers
- 57% of b2b marketers say that SEO generates more qualified leads than any other marketing initiative
Those stats should convince you of the awesome power of SEO. More importantly, they should spur you into developing a solid search strategy that works within your industry and appeals directly to your target audience. Below we offer some tips to properly optimize your website and marketing content, help your operation reach that coveted target customer, and turn him or her into a qualified lead.
Get listed on Google Places Bing
First things first: you need to be visible in local internet searches. So create a business profile on Google My Business and Bing Places. But that’s only the first step; you need to be diligent in ensuring that those profiles are always up to date with the correct contact information. As we mentioned above, most folks don’t look past the first results page when performing an internet search. So if you have a construction company in San Francisco, you don’t want it not to rank at all due to a simple oversight like failing to input a working phone number.
Make sure your website is “searchable”
The next crucial step is ensuring that Google, Bing, and other search engines have indexed your site. This web indexing is simply the process search engines go through to identify the contents of a website.
Google does this by “crawling,” or using giant sets of computers to search for new web pages to be added to the Google index. Needless to say, if something is preventing Google from crawling your website, you won’t be listed in search-engine results, which means you might as well not have a website in the first place.
A website might be “un-crawlable” for a few reasons. Perhaps the web developer blocked search engine bots during the setup process. In this instance it’s a simple process of updating the robots.txt file on your website. Also, once you do know that your site is indexed, you can install certain tools to monitor website visitors (Google Analytics) as well as how often Google is crawling your site (Google Search Console). These tools will prove invaluable for your SEO efforts.
Develop a content strategy
You’ll want to develop a robust content strategy that takes into account all forms of searchable content. That means keep a regular blog, of course, and publish new posts once or twice a week. Also, make sure all topics on this blog are relevant to your audience and that they help them in some way (think tutorials, FAQs, how-to’s, product roundups, etc.).
You’ll also want to diversify your content by publishing video blogs (vlogs), webinars, and even podcasts whenever possible. In short: the more quality content you have out there, the better. And above all else, make sure all of your content is properly optimized for mobile devices.
Focus on long-tail keywords
When used in marketing parlance, “long-tail” is just another way of saying “more specific.” Any successful keyword strategy is going to focus on those words that your potential audience is inputting into a Google search. Simple keywords in the construction industry might be “pre-fab” or “green construction,” or “home remodeling.” These are the words you’ll want to be using (but not over-using) on your website and content.
Then there are long-tail keywords, which are—surprise, surprise—longer and more specific. You should research these keywords and put together a comprehensive list that you can use in your marketing strategy. A good and simple strategy to researching effective long-tail keywords for your company is to consider all the services your construction company offers. If you offer general contracting, constructions management, remodeling, damage restoration, etc., then input those services into a Google search.
For example, a simple search of “damage restoration” resulted in long-tail keyword ideas such as “water damage restoration tips,” “water damage restoration cost,” and “fire and water damage restoration companies.” And remember that many Google searches regarding the construction industry will be location specific, so whenever possible always incorporate your city or town into your long-tail keywords.
Also remember that content and keywords are inexorably linked. So after putting together a list of relevant long-tail keywords, make sure you have content based on those subjects to offer your audience. After all, the reason they are searching in the first place is to get answers to specific questions.
Employ a backlinking strategy
One of the most effective ways to supercharge your SEO efforts is to earn backlinks to your website. The reasoning behind this is simple: the more you can get other authoritative websites to add a link back to your site, the more it impresses Google and the higher your site will then rank in the SERPs (search engine results pages). In the construction industry this would mean appealing to links from any organization within the industry that has clout, be it building supply companies, industrial equipment manufacturers, and well-known contractors. To receive backlinks, appeal to these entities by offering quality content in exchange for a backlink.
Conclusion
The above tips will help you reach your target audience more effectively. However, all your SEO work will be for naught if you don’t fundamentally understand who your audience is. To this end, create a buyer persona and list all the traits of the customer you’re appealing to. Think about your target demographic. What’s their educational background, their career path, the size of their company, their role in that company and job title? Then ask what are their biggest challenges, figure out how to solve those challenges, and design your SEO strategy around that.
Need help crafting your SEO strategy? Let the experts help!
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