SEO for any construction industry business isn’t simple, and great organic search rankings don’t happen overnight.

But, SEO is something that should not be overlooked if you want to improve your online rankings to grow your construction industry business.

After all, you want your website on Page 1 of Google, don’t you?

It comes down to one question:

What can you do today to help improve your rankings?

The following SEO checklist will help you prioritize your SEO tasks to start moving the needle towards page one.

Some you can do on your own, and others you might want to leave to the experts to keep your sanity and to optimize results.

The following SEO list includes:

  • 8 SEO tasks to address
  • Why each task is important
  • A few suggested resources you can use
  • The time commitment involved

1. Nail Down What Problems You Solve For Your Customers

Before jumping into SEO, you must first understand the nature of what your business provides to your customers.

Your website should make these things clear with the right messaging and page content:

  • What do you offer?
  • What pain points do you solve for your customers?
  • What benefits do your products or services provide?
  • What makes you unique and why is that of value to your prospects?
  • How, when, and where do customers determine they need your product or service?

The answers to these questions will drive your keyword research and content creation, among other tasks.

Resources: Whiteboard
Time Commitment: Low-Medium

 

2. Find Out What Your Competitors Are Doing – Then Do It Better

Online competitors might be different than competitors within your local area. For SEO purposes, you want to analyze your competitors that are showing up in the top 5 to 10 positions of Google search results for your targeted keywords.

When doing a competitive analysis you’ll find out:

  • Who your top organic competitors are
  • What keywords those sites are ranking for
  • Number and quality of their backlinks
  • Competitor keyword position tracking
  • Keywords they have missed that you can target

Resources: SEMrush, SpyFu, Majestic. Or contact us, we’ll provide you with a free competitor analysis.
Time Commitment: Medium-High

 

3. Optimize Your Google My Business Page

Google My Business is important for every construction industry business. It’s free, easy to update, and can make a big impact, especially on branded search results pages.

The first step toward optimizing your Google My Business listing is claiming and verifying it: https://www.google.com/business.

Be sure to fill out as many fields as you can and include photos (and videos if you have them) to enhance your listing.

Read our other post for more action steps: How to Use Google My Business to Optimize Your Online Presence.

Resources: See link above to claim your business page.
Time Commitment: Low-Medium

 

4. Manage Local Business Listings and Citations

In addition to Google My Business, you need to control the accuracy of your local business data.

Consistency is crucial.

Data aggregators like Neustar, Localeze, and Factual share information about local businesses, including the name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Make sure your business’s NAP information is consistent and accurate. Local business listings and citations (i.e., online mentions of a business) can help improve your local online presence, which makes it easier to be found online.

Resources: WhiteSpark, Yext, MozLocal. Or contact us, we’ll handle it for you!
Time Commitment: Low-Medium

 

5. Fix Your Website’s Technical SEO Issues

Your website might look fine on the outside, but if there are technical problems “under the roof” it will likely impact your rankings and site traffic.

You need to fix your website issues so search engines can properly crawl and index your web pages.

Some of the most common technical SEO problems have to do with:

  • Speed
  • Duplicate content
  • Broken links
  • Improper use of canonical link elements
  • Un-optimized pages

Resources: Google Search Console, SEMRush, SpyFu. Or contact us, we’ll provide you with a free technical site audit so you know exactly what issues you need to fix.
Time Commitment: High

 

6. Optimize Your Site Pages

On-page optimization is more than just putting keywords on the page.

Your primary goal is to create a website that is relevant to what users are searching for. If Google recognizes this, you’ll be rewarded with a higher ranking in search results.

You must develop quality content that is properly structured and naturally written using your targeted keywords.

Use every reasonable (i.e., non-spammy) opportunity to add your targeted keywords to your site pages.

Optimize these four things:

  • Title tags – Title tags are displayed on search engine results pages (SERPs) as the clickable headline for a given result and are important for usability, SEO, and social sharing.
  • Meta descriptions – Search engines show the meta description in search results mostly when the searched-for phrase is within the description, so optimizing the meta description is crucial for on-page SEO
  • Image Alt tags – For all images on your site, be sure to include an ALT tag within the IMG tag. Doing so will provide a clear text alternative of the image for screen reader users, and also supports good SEO.
  • Body content – Create content that your customers will find valuable and useful. Properly written content helps improve your site rankings.

Resources: Ahrefs, SEMRush, Yoast. Or contact us, we’ll handle your site optimization for you!
Time Commitment: High

 

7. Get Reviews

Reviews are one of the leading search ranking factors. Plus, you can improve your conversions by getting reviews and feedback from your customers.

In today’s digital age, 93% of customers say that their buying decisions are influenced by online reviews.

Online reviews have major implications through their ability to affect:

  • Your rankings in local search engines
  • Which search results are displayed (and clicked on)
  • Customer purchasing decisions

That makes online reviews as critical to your local SEO strategy as building citations and on-site optimization.

Different paid services can help you organize and manage a review campaign, as well as adding needed schema markup to your on-site reviews.

Resources: Get5Stars, WPReviewPro. Or contact us, we’ll handle online review management for you!
Time Commitment: Medium-High

 

8. Get Links from Websites in Your Local Area

Most construction industry business owners never think about links. However, getting links to your site can help improve your Google rankings, which can mean more sales.

Local backlinks are done with the intention to build relevance for a website towards its locality.

A local backlink should serve the following criteria:

  • Link back to your website
  • Provide the opportunity to speak to your local audience

Here are just a few types of local links ideas to go after:

  • Local newspapers or media outlets that do features on your product or service
  • Your City’s business directory
  • Other local businesses that also have websites and are open to having a local partners page
  • Local charities that you could sponsor as a local business or volunteer for that offers a featured volunteers page
  • As a member of industry organizations
  • Local power-partner sites

Resources: Majestic, Ahrefs, SpyFu. Or contact us, we’ll handle it for you!
Time Commitment: Medium-High

 

We take the guesswork out of success!

This list is a consolidated version of some of the things you can do to improve your website’s Google rankings.

Even if these 8 steps seem overwhelming, the important thing is to just do something.

Set goals you know you can accomplish and start working your way through the list.

If you get stuck, we’re happy to answer any questions you have.

 

Don’t want to do it yourself?

We can handle one or all of these important SEO tasks to drive long-term online results for your construction industry business!