Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the best ways to generate local sales leads for your moving & storage company. By optimizing your moving company website for being found by search engines, like Google, you will see your sales soar.
But what do search engines look for when choosing how to rank pages of your website?
We’ve listed below seven tips your moving company can use to boost your online visibility and gain more sales leads online. And you can do all this without paying for any advertising.
1) Know Your Site
If your moving company already has a website, be sure you know where it ranks. Using tools like Google Analytics or Google Search Console, your company can view data to show how many users are visiting your site, when and why.
Using Google Analytics, you can trace the behavior path of the site’s users. Which pages are they finding, and to where are they being led? Are there certain pages being visited more than others?
Be sure to check for broken links, duplicate content (including meta descriptions and photos) and for content that risks plagiarism. And, most important, be sure to double- and triple-check that your free quote and contact forms work properly. The last thing any company wants is a lost lead!
Do you know how your site is performing? We can email you a free site audit today.
2) Do your keyword research
What are people searching for online? In order to show up in an online search, a webpage must answer the question the user is looking for — the answer they are intending to find.
Determining the best keywords to use (ex. “Moving companies in Dallas”) is most easily done with Google Keyword Planner, but you can easily find LSI keywords without extra help. Let’s explain:
LSI (Latent semantic indexing) keywords are the words or phrases that closely correlate with a search. These can be found at the bottom of a results page where Google often lists “people often searched for…” These phrases and words can help you determine what people are looking for and what words and phrases to use in your own copy.
While targeting keywords is important for content to show up in a search, it’s not the only factor a search engine looks for when choosing which pages to show the user. It’s kind of like dating: a person must check more than one box before being brought home to meet the parents.
So what other boxes need to be checked? Read on to learn.
3) Cater to the user experience
When considering how your perspective customer interacts with your site, the most important factor is how long they stay on your site. The longer a user is on your site, the more likely they will either request further information or call you for services.
Some factors of user experience include:
- Clear, modern design
- Speedy load time
- Visual elements, such as photos, videos or graphics
- Bullet-pointed lists
- Easy navigation
- Mobile friendliness
- Extra short paragraphs
Here’s a pro tip: Have someone outside your company view your site as a perspective customer. How would they rate its user-friendliness? What would they like to see or find easier? Take note of these and apply them to your site, or send them over to your SEO company.
4) Create Content that Solves Problems
Blog posts, infographics, images: What do these all have in common? They can help solve user questions and problems.
Why do people use Google in the first place? To answer a question.
“Hey, Google, find restaurants near me.”
“Hey, Google, what kind of boxes should I use to pack my dishes?” Sound familiar? When creating content for your website, make sure it solves a problem or answers a user’s question.
Put yourself in the shoes of someone who is moving or needing storage services. What do they need? Packing supplies? Moving tips? Or maybe they are even looking for specialty movers to relocate their piano or antiques. This is the kind of information you want to include on your site.
5) Simplify Page Information
How does Google know about your site, anyway? And, and even better question, what do they know?
Think about Google as a group of detectives: several moving parts investigating various areas of the web. When a web page is posted on the Internet, Googlebot sends out a team of robots called spiders to “crawl” the page and add it to the Search Index.
Basically, a bunch of these so-called detectives are reading every piece of information on a webpage and storing it away in a file that consists of hundreds of billions of websites.
So, how does your webpage stick out in such a large file of information? Make it easier to read for the Googlebot, Google’s software that crawls your site. This includes:
- Simple, short URLs using hyphens to separate words
- Include keywords in meta description
- Simple, unique title tags
- Include alt text for images
6) Pay attention to links
Google crawlers use links on webpages to find other webpages. Both external and internal links add value to a piece of content. But one of the trickiest parts of SEO is backlinking: having other websites link to one of your webpages.
The best way to receive links to your site is to do so naturally. Basically, write good, useful content so others will naturally and willingly link to you. Google uses their robot “spiders” to follow these links to other pages, and the more sites that link to you, the more you will get noticed.
Link building, or gaining links to your site, is just as important as maintaining backlinks. Be aware of the quality of links that are leading to your site. Toxic backlinks, links coming from sites Google sees as spammy, non-authoritative or even purchased, can harm your site’s ranking.
Using a backlink tool like Majestic can help you identify some of these toxic backlinks to make sure your rating isn’t getting dragged down by other sites.
7) E.A.T.
What does Google look for in your content?
This question can be narrowed down to three simple letters: E.A.T. Google uses the E.A.T. method when deciding what to show on the first few pages of a search:
- Expertise: showing you know best about a particular topic.
- Authoritativeness: active associations, affiliations or recognition that give you clout.
- Trustworthiness: why should people trust you and the information you are sharing? Think reviews, ratings or customer testimonies.
SEO copywriting is designed to win over Google by showing it that you have content that is helpful and beneficial to the user. People want to read the most trusted and accurate information when looking for answers to their questions. Your job is to make a webpage that is just that.
The Bottom Line
Overall, if you want your moving company to show up as a top search result on Google (or any other search engine), be sure your moving company is publishing content that is solving problems and answering questions users have.
On the back end of your site, be sure your pages are organized and Google-friendly. For more strategies for getting sales leads, read our latest blog posts or learn more about no-contract SEO offerings for your business.