5 Actionable Local SEO Tips for Contractors

I was recently asked by Melody Infinger of A David Creation to provide a few of the local SEO tips contractors should follow to increase their online visibility and leads. Here are the top five areas that every contractor that serves a specific service area should keep in mind.
Image Credit: New Life Bath & Kitchen
For many geo targeted queries or searches with local intent, Google users will see a special 3 pack of local businesses that appears below the 4 paid ads on top and above the traditional organic listings below This set of results can and will drive new websites visits and calls from potential customers. Ranking factors for this set of search results are a little different than traditional organic results and include distance, prominence and relevance, with distance typically being weighted the most heavily. A few things you can be doing to ensure your profile ranks highly include:
Make sure you have a review strategy in place to ensure you’re earning online reviews from your satisfied clients.
Local Service Area Pages
For painters and contractors that serve more than one city or town, in order to be visible for geo-targeted queries you may need to create service area specific pages. For example, if you are located in Glendale CA, but want to be visible in Beverly Hills CA, you’re going to need to create a specific service area page that’s optimized for this area. A common pitfall I see many contractors make when implementing this strategy is to duplicate their content across these pages. Best practices calls for making these pages as unique and as specific to the area as possible. This can include:- Project photos from the city or town
- Localized content
- Reviews from customers living the city or town

Google My Business

- Verify and optimize your GMB page
- Add plenty of project and team photos
- Ask satisfied clients for reviews
- Share updates on your profile
- Define your services area
The Importance of Inbound Links
While there are over 200 ranking signals that Google incorporates into its ranking algorithm, I like to categorize them into two main categories which are content and links. Google uses the inbound links from other websites to help it assess the authority and relevance of your website’s pages. Pages with more authority will oftentimes have an easier time ranking highly for the search terms they are optimized for. Here a few tips on ways you can earn inbound links:- Do something newsworthy like a community event and then getting the word out to local media outlets, your chamber of commerce, and other websites that publish community news
- Creating link worthy content — high-quality content that’s optimized may earn inbound links from others
- Utilizing partners, affiliates and other businesses you have an existing relationships with
- Thought leadership – connect with and get published on industry related blogs. You are the expert. It’s likely you’ve learned something through experience that others in your industry could benefit from
Barnacle SEO
This term simply refers to latching on to or establishing a presence on 3rd party websites or platforms that are ranking for the keywords you are targeting. So the thought process is that you can increase your company’s visibility by creating and building out a profile on these networks. Barnacle SEO is a key element to a successful local SEO campaign. For contractors, Yelp, Houzz, Angie’s List, Thumbtack, Porch, and Homeadvisor are all online communities that surface frequently. My advice is to try searching for a few keywords that are relevant to your service and see what platforms are consistently ranking highly, then start there. The below image show a search result for the query ‘Huntington Beach Contractor.” You can see that the majority of top positions are held by review sites, online directories, and other platforms:
Review Strategy
Earning reviews from satisfied clients is important for a couple reasons. One, they provide social proof that can influence a potential customer’s decision to contact you. In fact, one survey found that 90% of customers are influenced by online reviews and that 85% of customers reported reading online reviews. Two, reviews are a major visibility factor on platforms like Yelp, Houzz and Porch to name a few. Meaning, contractors with more reviews will typically receive more organic visibility.