In today’s contemporary business landscape, 97% of individuals leverage the internet to gather information about local businesses. With nearly all potential customers conducting online searches, construction companies must strategically implement Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) to ensure their visibility in SERPs.
A robust SEO strategy acts as a bridge connecting construction companies with their prospective clients. Securing the top position allows these companies to effectively showcase their values and expertise. Just as a meticulously designed physical storefront attracts passersby, an optimised online presence captivates qualified traffic and ensures a meaningful interaction.
In this blog, we will elucidate ten practical strategies to enhance the sales of construction companies in the digital realm.
2. What Is SEO for Construction?
Before we delve into the world of SEO, it is essential to have a clear understanding of the construction industry’s online marketplace. The construction industry is unique because many customers prefer to work with local businesses. This means that your website needs to be optimised for local search queries. For example, if you’re a construction business in Chicago, you’ll want to optimise your website for keywords like “construction companies in Chicago” or “Chicago construction services.”
SEO for construction is the practice of driving high-quality website traffic through strategic website improvement and link building. There are various SEO strategies for construction that help your website rank higher in SERPs. For instance, you can include high search volume keywords (relevant to your services) in your website or publish informative content that answers the queries of your target audience. You can even improve the website speed or streamline the navigation so visitors can find the required information. All these strategies can help boost the rank of your website on search engines and reach people searching online for your services.
3. What Are the Benefits of SEO for Construction?
- Higher Ranking
The most significant benefit of SEO for construction is a higher ranking on SERPs for industry-specific search phrases or keywords. It is crucial to rank in the top three positions of page #1, as they receive more than 50% of the clicks. Also, the sites that appear on page #1 are considered valuable and build trust. SEO for construction is a great option to position your construction company as an industry leader.
- Qualified Traffic
Optimising your website for search engines can ensure you get qualified traffic because your website shows up on those searching for your services or the type of services you offer. With SEO best practices for construction, you will be targeting qualified traffic who has shown interest in your company and are likely to become your customers. You don’t have to waste money trying to reach those not interested in your services.
- Boost Brand Awareness
With more than 7 million people looking for construction marketing services online, more people will find your company if your website is shown at the top of search results. They are more likely to recommend companies on the first page to others needing your services. SEO for construction is the best way to boost brand awareness and be in people’s minds for years. This increased visibility can ultimately lead to more business opportunities.
- Long-Term Results
Unlike paid advertising, which stops generating traffic as soon as you stop investing, SEO can provide long-term results. By consistently optimising your website and creating high-quality content, you can maintain your rankings and continue to attract organic traffic. Remember, the long-term results of SEO stem from the continuous efforts of creating high quality content and maintaining user-friendly, technically optimised website.
- Cost-Effective Marketing
SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy compared to traditional advertising methods. While there may be upfront costs for SEO, such as hiring professionals for optimisation, creating quality content, or investing in SEO tools, these costs often decrease over time. Once you’ve established a strong online presence, the ongoing maintenance and optimisation costs can be lower than continuously paying for traditional advertising channels.
4. 10 Tips in SEO for Construction Companies to Generate More Leads
On-Site SEO
- Keyword Research
Keyword research is the first step in optimising your website for search engines. It starts with identifying the exact phrases or keywords that match your industry and what you target audience is searching for. Add those keywords strategically across your website, especially in the title, meta description, alt image, and main body, so that search engines understand what your website is about.
Make sure you choose action-oriented keywords are not just random phrases. For instance, “construction company” might be a generic phrase that doesn’t require or indicate an action. Instead, keywords like – “construction companies near me”, “house construction companies near me”, road construction companies near me” might give more clarity on what the user wishes to see on search results.
To pick more relevant and action-driven keywords – you can use tools like SEMRush, Google Keyword Planner, UberSuggest or Moz. As a rule of thumb, don’t get locked in high-search volume keywords, as they are highly competitive. Your keyword strategy should include a combination of short-tail and long-tail keywords with decent search volume and low/medium competition.
2. Create New Content Pages
Once you are done with initial keyword research, the next step is to identify the untapped keywords that haven’t been targeted on any of the pages on your website. Start working on new content ideas by grouping relevant keywords into clusters. You can target these keywords within the same page to rank for related phrases or long tail keywords.
Typically, a blog page is an ideal place on the website to add informational and engaging content For instance, you can answer the searchers’ queries whilst listing the features of your services. By regularly adding fresh content to your website, you will –
- Attract potential visitors who are on the top of the funnel and looking for information on relevant services.
- Establish yourself as a domain expert in the eyes of Google and will be rewarded with a top position in SERPs.
Besides adding blog posts, you can incorporate images, videos, and infographics to engage your website visitors and hook them to your site for longer.
3. Image Optimisation
Did you know – images comprise 75% of total page weight? Moreover, 39% of visitors exit the website if the images take too long to load. This means it is crucial to ensure the images are displayed correctly and not negatively affecting the site’s performance.
Image optimisation is a crucial on-site SEO strategy for construction websites that help improve the user experience. The primary goal of image optimisation is to reduce the file size of an image without compromising the quality. As a result, small website owners can significantly reduce the bandwidth and save a lot of disc space.
Besides compressing images, you must add alt text to your images to improve the site’s accessibility. Make sure to choose the correct file format from JPEG, PNG or GIF to boost your targeted SEO performance through image optimisation. Some other factors include – images with proper file names, alt texts, structured data, and placement. It is advised to use high-quality, copyright-free images to prevent the risk of lawsuits.
Off-Site SEO
4. Link Building
Once you have taken care of on-site SEO, it’s time to promote your website through a solid link-building strategy. It is the process of getting quality inbound links from high-DA websites. Backlinks that point to a website signal Google that the site has a reliable source of information and is easily visible to people searching for relevant information.
Some of the best link-building strategies for construction include replacing broken links, link reclamation, unlinked brand mentions, forum posting, local listings, promotion of clickable assets etc., that work well – if executed properly. Google also takes into account the quality of the backlink. Quality links from high-DA websites are more effective than low-DA websites.
Building quality links requires a long-term strategy approach, and your website’s position will gradually improve over time.
5. Guest Posting
Guest posting is one of the best off-page SEO strategies that allow you to post informative and valuable content on high DA websites and get a backlink to your website. Holistically, it is a content marketing strategy that includes creating and publishing content on reputed sites. When you write a guest post in a trusted publication, the chances of getting a high-quality backlink are high.
According to a survey by SEMrush, guest posting is a widely used off-site SEO strategy that gives you more recognition and authority. Undoubtedly, you will get a valuable backlink to your site, which puts your brand in front of the right audience. Some popular sites that accept guest posts for construction companies include – Construction Marketing, Publicity, Construction Junkie, and SJB Construction Inc.
Create genuinely engaging and informative content that gives you quality backlinks and establishes your credibility.
6. Online Reviews
Online reviews play a crucial role in boosting your company’s credibility, eventually increasing your rank. Typically, Google algorithms determine the rank of your website based on the credibility of online reviews. You can use a reputation management tool to engage with your reviewers and boost your reputation.
Remember that you should respond to both positive and negative reviews similarly. It signals to Google that your organisation values customer feedback and works actively to improve its services.
Besides Google, many trusted review sites allow consumers to post their reviews. Tools like – YouScan, Brand24, Brandwatch, Digimind etc., enable you to monitor users’ reviews on multiple platforms. Whether you want to improve your brand’s health or are focused on damage control, these tools help you control what people see when they search for your company.
7. Local SEO
Most of the work done in the construction industry is done locally, so it is imperative to appear on local search results. Customers often look for reliable construction companies in their area or city rather than searching globally. Local SEO for construction can send more relevant traffic to your website by showing your website to the local audience.
To optimise your website for local search, you need to add location-specific keywords in the page titles, description, heading, and content. Besides, you must register your website in local directories like – Google My Business, Yahoo, Bing, Yelp, and MapQuest. With it comes to local SEO, Google Maps Pack plays a prominent role in local search results. It provides massive benefits to users looking for local construction businesses and vice-versa.
Technical SEO
8. Crawling and Indexing
Crawling and indexing are the most critical technical SEO factors that help search engines bring your website in front of the right audience. You need to follow some guidelines that ensure the structure inter linking and security of the website meet the standards of the search engine algorithm.
When you are ready with your construction company website, you should submit the XML sitemap to Google Webmaster Tools and Bing Webmaster Tools. These tools help you keep an eye on the general performance of your website and if the pages are correctly indexed. Some key benefits include – testing the website’s mobile usability, viewing backlinks to your website, accessing search analytics, and disavowing spammy links.
9. Mobile Responsiveness
With the proliferation of smartphones and handheld gadgets, 59% of website traffic comes from mobile devices. Mobile responsiveness of a construction company website refers to whether the website is aesthetically appealing on devices of all screen sizes. Mobile-friendliness matters a lot in SEO for construction websites. It is one of the ranking signals for reputed search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
Having a responsive website ensures your customers have a positive experience on your website. Following are some reasons why mobile responsiveness is essential –
- 74% of consumers are more likely to come back to a mobile-responsive website
- 67% of users are likely to buy from a company that has a mobile-responsive website
- Google gives priority to the mobile version of the website
Fortunately, creating a mobile-friendly website isn’t complex or complicated. Today, most website builders offer mobile-responsive themes and templates. Here are some examples of mobile responsive themes –
- BuildPlus Responsive Construction and Renovation
- Aadi – Construction Building Responsive WordPress Theme
- Constructo – Construction WordPress theme
10. Page Load Speed
Page load speed is the time a page takes to load completely. It is an essential technical factor that influences your search ranking. According to Semrush, if your website loads in 0.8 seconds, it is faster than 94% of websites. On the other hand, if your website has a poor loading speed – it is more likely to be unnoticed by Google. According to a study, improving the page load speed by .1 seconds increases the chances of conversion by 8%.
It is highly recommended to follow the best practices such as compressing the images, caching the web pages, enabling browser caching, choosing a performance-optimised hosting solution, and minifying CSS, HTML, and Javascript. You can also implement CDN to boost the loading speed of your website.
You can check the page load speed using Google Page Speed Insights or GTMetrix and take the necessary measures to boost the page load speed.
5. How Can a Digital Marketing Agency Help?
Implementing an effective SEO strategy can be complex and time-consuming, especially for construction companies that may not have in-house SEO experts. This is where a digital marketing agency specialised in SEO can be immensely beneficial.
Growth Ganik is a full-stack digital marketing agency that can conduct a comprehensive analysis of your construction company’s website and identify areas for improvement. We can perform keyword research to identify relevant and high-performing keywords for your industry and optimise your website’s on-page elements, such as meta tags, headers, and content, to improve its visibility in search engine results.
Book a free 45-minute consultation to discuss how we can help you implement an effective SEO strategy for your construction company.
6. FAQs
- What Does SEO Mean in Construction?
SEO for construction is the practice of driving high-quality website traffic through strategic improvement to the website.
- What Are the 4 Types of SEO?
The four types of SEO are – on-site SEO, off-site SEO, technical SEO, and local SEO.
- How long does it take to see results from SEO for construction companies?
The time it takes to see results from SEO varies depending on several factors, including the competitiveness of construction industry, the current state of your website, and the SEO strategies implemented. Generally, it can take several weeks to several months to start seeing noticeable improvements in search engine rankings and organic traffic.
- Can SEO help construction companies target local customers?
Absolutely! SEO can be highly effective in targeting local customers for construction companies. By implementing local SEO strategies, such as optimising your website for location-specific keywords and creating Google My Business listings, you can increase your visibility among potential customers in your area.
