In today’s competitive market, mastering SEO for construction companies and tradesmen is crucial for achieving and maintaining online visibility. With visibility in search engines, comes greater brand awareness, visits to your website and, ultimately, sales.
Every webmaster knows there are no overnight successes in SEO. A high-ranking web page has less to do with luck and more to do with the time and knowledge invested into the process. The construction companies and tradies that are flourishing online with enviable brand awareness and burgeoning reach have put in the work to pull it off.
And that’s a good thing. Why?
Effort you can control, luck you can’t. Which means practically any brand under the sun, regardless of size and industry, can take the necessary steps to foster a ‘buzzworthy’ online presence, provided you have the time and resources.
In recent years, WebHummel has helped countless businesses across the Yorkshire region and beyond integrate SEO best practices into their daily habits and into every aspect of their business. All of this experience has informed our guide to SEO for construction professionals, designed to help small business teams and independent contractors alike gain and retain loyal customers.
Contents
- How does SEO work?
- Why SEO is beneficial for construction companies
- Tier 1 – Quick fixes and simple habits
- Tier 2 – Significant changes and improvements
- Tier 3 – Creating a full-blown SEO strategy
Laying the foundations: What is SEO and how does it work?
SEO – the three letters that everyone seems to be talking about – what is it and why is it good for business?
You might already be aware that it stands for search engine optimisation and that it’s got a lot to do with how user surf the internet. But there’s a hell of a lot more to it.
To give you a simple description, search engine optimisation (SEO) is the tactical process of tweaking your website and other online content, so that search engines favour you and bump you up the results pages when people make queries relevant to your business.
It’s a very involved process that can be boiled down into 3 major categories:
- On-page SEO – improving the content on your web pages from the writing itself, use of keywords, structure and images.
- Off-page SEO – the stuff that Google considers that isn’t visible on web pages like backlinks to your website, customer reviews and business profiles (think Google My Business.)
- Technical SEO – the techy bits and pieces related to the improvement of your website’s performance such as site architecture, sitemaps and indexing.
If you’re confused about some of these examples, no worries, we’re going to shed more light on them later as we provide our practical tips on SEO for construction companies.
Local SEO
Another important stipulation to make is that SEO strategies can be executed on a local, national or global level. Yes, that means you can get granular with your strategy and target potential customers in your local area.
A solid local online marketing strategy will incorporate the 3 elements mentioned above and tailor them to a localised audience.
For example, a construction company based in York might want to implement keywords into their service pages that those both in the city and wider North Yorkshire region are searching for. This signals to Google that your pages are relevant to these users, allowing for your pages to be served up to them.
Appearing in local searches is especially advantageous for small businesses working within a fixed region and with a specific clientele – you can appear in Google Maps as well as the search results page, boosting brand awareness in your area whilst limiting irrelevant traffic.
Why SEO is beneficial for construction companies
If you go into any major city – be it London, Sheffield, Birmingham or somewhere else – you’re likely to see construction works as various areas undergo urban redevelopment. This shouldn’t be surprising: there were more than 99,000 construction contractor companies in the UK as of 2023, and this is expected to increase. So how does an independent or smaller business stand out in the sector?
With so much noise, both in the streets and in search engines, it’s more important than ever to invest in marketing strategies that help you stand out and help your business ‘bee’ found online. Out of all of the various digital marketing strategies out there, SEO is one of the most cost-effective, efficient and sustainable of the bunch.
This is down to its quick learning curve, long-term impact and myriad of benefits. To give you a taste of them here’s just a handful.
- Increased web traffic from queries made by locals
- Polished brand awareness and increased authority
- Gain an edge over competitors
- Encourage customers to leave reviews
- Exploit growing customer trends towards strong brand values, local business loyalty and multisearch tendencies.
How to use SEO for construction professionals and tradesmen
Set on improving your local SEO rankings? Then allow us to offer a helping hand: in the following part of this article, we’ve laid out all the necessary steps to setting up a successful foundational strategy for your construction company SEO.
These steps are broken up into 3 main categories:
- Tier 1 – quick fixes and simple habits that are easy to implement and beginner-friendly.
- Tier 2 – significant changes and improvements that might take a bit more time and effort to get going and require a slightly deeper understanding of the principles of SEO.
- Tier 3 – Creating a full-blown strategy that tackles more labour-intensive aspects of the process alongside some more technical stuff.
Start with the easier steps and see how you get on with some of the more intermediate ones. If you run into any trouble, it might be worth enlisting the help of the professionals or giving us a message.
Tier 1 – Quick fixes and simple habits
1) Patch up website problems
If you haven’t created a website yet – take this as your sign to get started. There are so many reasons why you should operate from an official website rather than a Facebook page, for example, beginning with the fact that it lends a certain degree of credibility that social media simply can’t. It’s also a more organised way of providing information that your customers or prospective customers can navigate and use to inform their purchasing decisions.
To make the most of a business website it’s important to ensure that it’s accessible, navigable and caters to the needs of those who use it.
Loading speed
Ever clicked off a website after a few seconds because it simply wouldn’t load? What about a page whose content didn’t match up with the initial title and your expectations? Yeah, I thought so. If your construction site is too slow to load or people get lost in a confusing layout, no matter how good your offering, prospective clients may lose interest in getting in touch.
Positive user experience (UX)
A good website prioritises user experience, meaning that it should be easy to navigate, have a clear and uncluttered look grounded in sustainable web design practices and be free of errors. Implement these best practices and people will stick around for longer – signalling to Google that you’re doing a good job and allowing you a window of opportunity to persuade them to look deeper into your services – which serves to improve your visibility in search.
Take this example from United Living:
- ✅ The branding is professional, consistent and visually appealing without detracting from the text.
- ✅ The header menu isn’t overly cluttered, containing only key elements.
- ✅ Their services are immediately visible, allowing users to navigate swiftly onto the next stage of the buyer’s journey – the decision stage.
- ✅ The video banner is front and centre, creating a clear focus, whilst showcasing their offering. It also contains a compelling tagline that encompasses their brand message and implies a compassionate and thoughtful business culture.
- ✅ The colours and text present on the screen are easy to digest and cater to those with conditions such as dyslexia and colour blindness thanks to the sharp contrast.
- ❌ After a quick test via PageSpeed Insights, it’s clear that there’s some room for improvement as the speed index (how long the content takes to populate visibly) was 2 seconds – most mobile users are ready to check out if they have to wait any longer.
- ❌ According to PageSpeed Insights the site could also benefit from being more mobile-friendly.
*Information true as of June 2024
If you have a sneaking suspicion that your website doesn’t shape up in comparison – don’t worry – many of these tweaks you can implement yourself without having to be an expert. For those that are more complicated, it’s worth reaching out to an experienced web developer who can sort you out.
2) Utilising local directories
One of the easiest ways to improve your visibility online is to use the swathes of free tools available – including (legit) local business directories. It’s all about gaining good-quality links to your website, which improves its authority in the eyes of search engines, and ranking for searches related specifically to your geographical area such as “builder in Leeds”.
Google handles local searches differently by displaying regular search results along with a map and a list of local companies at the top of the page. Appearing in these local results can help your business reach potential clients at the right time. To be included in these results, you’ll need to fill out a Google My Business directory form.
Once you’ve done that head on over to our bumper guide to claiming free UK business listings – it has a specific section for tradies and a free citation planner to help you along the way.
3) Tapping into customer reviews
Customer reviews can really make a difference to SEO not just your brand reputation. However, the extent of their impact on search visibility is debatable, or even varying depending on the specific niche, keyword and search intent.
The good news though is that there’s a strong correlation between brands with a decent pool of client reviews and their sales. After all, 93% of users claim that online reviews influence their buying decisions and 83% use Google to evaluate local businesses.
This should be reason enough to encourage customers to leave reviews and testimonies, but there’s also the added fact that reviews look good on your Google My Business Profile. Did you know that Google aggregates reviews from across the web and attaches them as a Seller Rating on your Google Ads and even in organic search results?
This makes your brand appear all the more credible, so don’t forget to follow up with clients, asking them to leave a review after you finish a project. You might also want to provide incentives in your email marketing such as a 5% off discount.
Tier 2 – Significant changes and improvements
6) The power of blogging
Blogging is a major piece of the SEO puzzle. But it’s a lot of effort to do it well and to do it regularly. Hence why we’ve put it in our second tier of tips.
I don’t know about you, but the thought of starting a blog from scratch feels akin to climbing a mountain – and without experience – in flip-flops. We’ve all been there!
But before you panic, we’ll have you know that it’s not as tricky as you might think. Just follow the steps we’ve laid out below and you’ll see your blog coming together:
- Think backwards – Yep, you heard it right – the best way to create a comprehensive blog is to start at the end. Before you even think about putting pen to paper or more likely fingers to keyboard, take time to consider how your target audience will find your potential post.
- Make your content data-driven – We’ll get more into this when we talk about keyword in the next step, but it’s well worth researching the topics, trends, ideas and questions your specific audience is looking for. Are they curious about sustainable housing? Write about it!
- Draw from multiple sources of inspiration – To ensure your writing remains fresh and compelling to users make sure to find inspiration in a variety of sources. From Reddit social listening to news stories in your area, there are plenty of topical ideas you can seed into your content marketing strategy.
- Use tools and techniques to improve your writing – There are gazillions of resources related to content writing online and in every format possible from podcasts to videos that are ripe for the taking. For instance, we love this blog covering grease-slide phrases! Do your homework, read up and you’ll see your writing gradually improve.
- Avoid AI for writing – We’ve covered the topic of AI and SEO content extensively in previous blog posts, but it doesn’t hurt to repeat: AI tools can be a handy supplement for your existing writing, but don’t let it be your crutch as it comes with several flaws and ethical implications.
7) Ranking for relevant keywords
As well as sorting out any technical mishaps on your website, it’s important to make sure they’re formatted in a way that both users and search engine algorithms can glean value from.
This means getting to know the keywords people in your niche are searching for.
There are several free keyword tools out there like Wordstream’s and you can even use ChatGPT for help breaking down topic clusters, however, at WebHummel we prefer to use Kwdfinder for conducting research and then SEMrush for monitoring keyword and website performance.
Select one of these tools and look for the keywords your audience is using in your niche, taking care to look into synonyms and laypeople’s terms (an industry vocab can be blind sighting sometimes!) as well as considering different levels of intent.
Those who have been paying close attention will know that this is when the buyer’s journey – AKA the marketing funnel – comes in.
For the unacquainted, the buyer’s journey describes a customer’s path to purchase. This path is frequently broken down into 3 core stages – awareness, consideration and decision-making – and each of these stages poses a crucial opportunity to win more business.
When it comes to SEO, this concept is front and centre. You can use inbound SEO tactics such as improving the way you use headings, incorporating keywords into metadata and tailoring your service page content to keep them on your site for longer.
8) Build an internal linking structure
It’s a good idea to make your content as sticky as honey, and by that, we mean that your posts should make readers want to stick around so you’ll be rewarded by the algorithm. The best way to achieve this is through something called an internal linking structure.
Ever been online and found yourself going down a rabbit hole? You want to replicate this with your content via internal linking. This practice involves hyperlinking from one post to another. When done effectively, it will lead your audience along the buyer’s journey, closer and closer to your services, until they feel informed enough to buy. Sprinkle in some external links (links to other websites) in each post, and the SEO reward will be great.
9) Making your site mobile-friendly
With the increasing use of smartphones, having a mobile-friendly website is more important than ever. Google prioritises mobile-friendly websites in its search results, so ensuring your site looks and functions well on mobile devices can significantly impact your SEO.
Here are some quickfire tips for making your site mobile-friendly:
- Use responsive design – Ensure your website adjusts seamlessly to different screen sizes and devices otherwise it might not fit on the screen or just look naff!
- Improve page load speed – Mobile users are often on slower connections, so optimising your site to load quickly is crucial, especially when you are dealing with the lower attention spans of avid social media users.
- Simplify navigation – Make it easy for mobile users to find the information they need with a clear and intuitive menu just as you would for a desktop.
Tier 3 – Creating a full-blown SEO strategy
10) Dip your toes into technical SEO
Technical SEO involves optimising the technical aspects of your website to improve its performance and visibility in search engines. While it can be complex, focusing on a few key areas can make a big difference. The best CMS for SEO will allow you to make these changes quite easily.
Here are some important aspects of technical SEO:
- Site speed – Ensure your website loads quickly by optimising images, using a content delivery network (CDN), and minimising the use of heavy scripts.
- Secure your site – Use HTTPS to secure your website and protect user data.
- Fix crawl errors – Use tools like Google Search Console to identify and fix any errors that prevent search engines from crawling and indexing your site.
- Create an XML sitemap – This helps search engines understand the structure of your site and find all your pages.
11) Conduct outreach for links to your site
If you’ve got a good website and you’re concerned that it’s not ranking as well as you anticipated, it’s worth looking at what you can do to encourage other sites to link to yours. These links act as votes of confidence for your site, signalling to search engines that your content is valuable and trustworthy. Often this begins with conducting SEO outreach.
Here’s how to get started with link building:
Create high-quality content – Content that is informative, unique, and valuable is more likely to attract backlinks organically.
Reach out to industry influencers – Connect with bloggers, journalists, and other influencers in your industry and ask them to link to your content.
Guest blogging – Write guest posts for other websites in your industry and include a link back to your site.
12) Connecting up marketing channels
The online presence of a building contractor or construction company should extend beyond just having a website and implementing SEO. To fully benefit from the effort and time put into SEO for tradesmen, it’s essential to integrate it with equally effective, complementary digital marketing strategies. Two crucial additional channels are:
Social media marketing
Similar to content marketing, social media marketing involves engaging new audiences through the platforms they prefer to use. With different demographics trending toward different apps, having a presence on X, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube can significantly increase the audience you can reach.
You can even use the content you post on your social media accounts to redirect traffic back to your website where they can explore your services and portfolio.
Pay-per-click advertising
Pay-per-click, otherwise known as PPC, is a form of advertising by which you bid to display your website for specific keyword search terms, and only pay for the ad when it’s engaged with. This form of search engine marketing is a seriously effective, budget-conscious means of ensuring your page ranks highly for the most important keywords in your sector.
Allow the experts to handle the heavy lifting
Feeling overwhelmed by the complexity of navigating online visibility? We get you! There’s lots to learn. That’s why, at beefound.agency, we’re here to support construction companies and tradespeople every step of the way.
Mastering the intricacies of online visibility might seem like a tall order, but with our specialised SEO services, you can refocus on what you excel at – delivering exceptional craftsmanship and superior service to your clients.
Whether you’re a seasoned contractor, a bespoke renovation company, or a bricklaying service, we’ll empower you to establish a robust online presence that reflects the quality and reliability of your work. Reach out to us today and let’s hammer out your online success!
