Local SEO Tips for Home Service Companies

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What is Local SEO

Local SEO is optimizing websites for search engines to rank well in specific geographical areas.
For instance, you can optimize your Home Services site to rank better in the search results just for Dallas by creating more region-specific content, like an article about the best DIY repair kits or writing reviews of local hardware stores.
Your optimization efforts should focus on high-ranking keywords specific to your niche/city. This post will learn how to effectively use local SEO to rank your Home Services company higher on search engines. Let's dive into the topic.

Crucial Local SEO Tips for Home Services

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1. Sign up for Google My Business

Americans are increasingly reliant on the Internet to find the best deals and materials for home repairs. On the other hand, many Home Service businesses in the United States are still unaware of the importance and convenience of signing up for Google My Business.
Google My Business has proven to be an invaluable tool for local businesses. Businesses with a GMB profile set up often receive calls from people who had seen the company when searching online.
Tip: It is essential to fill out all the information about your business on your GMB page to ensure that people can find you easily online.
Make sure you include:

• Contact information.
• What types of expertise or home services your company offers.
• Your hours of operation.
• Any awards or recognition you have received.

Take a look at these home care services in Dallas, providing details like Hours of operation, phone number, address, Areas served, and more.
One great way to stand out from similar home service businesses is by uploading your photos and videos. Ensure replying to all reviews and customer questions.

Related : Benefits of a Google My Business Listing

2. Ensure NAP Consistency

NAP consistency is important for SEO because it helps search engines index content more efficiently. A consistent NAP will help your site rank higher on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and other search engines.
If you want to rank high on search engines, a business must have a consistent NAP throughout the Internet.
All of a business' offline and online materials should list the company name, street address, city, state, ZIP code, and phone number in a similar format to assure better visibility for your company name.
One must also be consistent with number sequences/format, special characters such as '/' and '-.'
Three Useful Tools For Managing Your Listings:

• SEMRUSH - Manage listings in 70+ directories
• Moz Local - Manage and Sync all of your business listings
• SEO Foxy - NAP Consistency, Completeness, and Accuracy checker

3. Add Location Pages To Your Website

Many businesses have started to use geo-targeted pages, also known as location-specific pages, to improve their rankings in local searches. This means that if a business serves more than one area, it should create a new page for all of its locations and make sure each page has its content and links to the other pages.
If you want to rank at the top of Google's search engine, it's important to make sure that your website is geo-targeted. This includes areas such as countries, states, and cities.
Geo-targeting helps Google match your site with the browser location and recommend it to the concerned searcher.
If you want to get more traffic from your local area, you need to create pages specifically for people who live nearby. The more relevant the content, the better chance you catch their attention!
Three Tools To Level Up Location Pages:

• GeoRanker
• SEMrush's Position Tracker Tool
• Google Trends

4. Get Verified On Twitter And Facebook

What's the first thing that pops into your head when you think about the legitimacy of a local business's social media profile?
If you're an avid social media user, then it's likely that you'll answer with "a verified account."
For example, Have a look at these Home services companies like Handy and TaskRabbit having verified accounts on Twitter, Facebook, etc.,
There are many benefits to having your home service business verified on social media, but before, let's take a minute to define what exactly it means.
Verification is the process of proving one's authenticity — in this case — for businesses on social media.
The increasing popularity of social media has led to a need for businesses in all industries, let alone home services, to have a presence on these platforms to reach a larger audience.
Useful links to get verified on social media

• To get verified on Facebook, click here.
• For Twitter, check out this article.
• For Instagram, here is the link

5. Use Descriptive ALT Tags

An Alt text is a short alternative to the image seen by those who can't see the picture on a site.
The Alt text will appear as an empty rectangle if the image cannot be shown, and it will describe what is happening in the photo so that people can still understand and enjoy it.
The importance of using descriptive ALT tags for SEO is that they allow search engine crawlers to read an alternative text which can help determine the focus of the image so that it can be indexed correctly. The more you use ALT tags to describe images on your website, the better.
Descriptive ALT tags are crucial for SEO.
A good ALT tag should describe the content of the image it accompanies to facilitate retrieval of the page where the image is located. This also helps with accessibility for people with slow network connections or small screens.
Three Alt Tag Checkers

• NerdPress's Alt Text Plugin
• AdResults's Alt Tag Checker
• SEOptimizer's Alt Tag Checker

6. Optimize Your Metadata

Meta tags are the small snippets of text that describe a webpage and help with SEO. It is important to optimize the meta tags to ensure the web page appears in search engine results.
Meta tags should be concise and include keywords describing your content. The meta description should be anywhere between 120-150 characters and include a call to action for people to click on it. The tags help search engines understand what a page is about and rank it accordingly.
Have a look at the title tag and meta descriptions used by these Home service companies.
To optimize your meta tags for SEO, you should utilize keywords that are not only relevant to home services but also contain phrases that people often use, such as "handyman near me"
Three Helpful Tools

• ToTheWeb (Meta Description Pixel Length Checker)
• KayakMarketing's Meta Description Tool
• Mrs. Digital+ Meta Length Checker

7. Include Keywords In Your URLs

Search engines, such as Google, will rank a website higher when the URL is shorter and easier to read. An excellent way to do this is by ensuring that URLs are descriptive, keyword-rich, and easy to type.
Using descriptive URLs makes it easier for the search engine to categorize the content correctly. Do not use hyphens and underscores in the URL. Keep the string of characters as short as possible.
Make sure to include words that describe the page's content, such as "deep-house-cleaning-in-fort-worth" instead of "deep_house_cleaning_in_fort_worth." In cases where a hyphen is needed, put it at the end of the URL.
For example, Have a look at the website URL of a maid service provided in Houston.
To optimize URLs for SEO, you will need to be aware of the keywords.

• One way to do this is by using tools like Ubersuggest or Keywordtool.io to get lists of keywords related to your website.
• Google Keyword Planner is also a great tool to find the keywords related to the home services domain.

8. Create Quality Links

It can be difficult to build links quickly and naturally as a local business, but there are ways to get them to boost your site's SEO. Below are some tips for acquiring quality backlinks.
Maintaining relationships with bloggers in the home services niche is an excellent way to promote your services. They can provide their audience with valuable content with links pointing to your site.
Take a look at this valuable backlink for a Home cleaning services company Myclean from Huffpost.com
The more backlinks your site has, the higher it will rank with search engines and the higher it will appear on SERPs. Ensure that the links are from a site relevant to yours.
Links from businesses such as Garden Services or an Interior Decorator would be a perfect choice to build your backlink profile.
Start establishing relationships with other websites within your industry or niche. This will result in the sites linking back to you.
Three Valuable Tools to Manage Backlinks

• Check My Links
• Monitor Backlinks
• Linkody

9. Make your Website Mobile-friendly

It's no secret that people use their smartphones more than any other device to research a business. In a world where a quick Google search can bring up the latest reviews for a local business, brick and mortar establishments need to have a mobile-friendly website.
Have a look at this mobile responsive website from a Homecare agency.
A site with a responsive design will allow users to navigate the site just as smoothly on their phone as they would on the desktop.
Please note that roughly 55% of Internet users use mobile devices, and 50% of Google searches are conducted on mobile devices.
You can optimize your website for mobile phones by using the following techniques:

• Remove any bulky or heavy images.
• Avoid animations or videos that are not essential to your message.
• Use Hamburger Menu instead of dropdowns.
• Keep the text concise.
• Make sure buttons are easy to click with fingers.

10. Join Hands With a Qualified SEO Agency

Perhaps you are bombarded with loads and loads of information about SEO and started losing concentration on your home services business, which is where you excel.
If that sounds familiar to you, leave the job to a professional SEO agency like us, which will move mountains for you.
As an SEO agency, we are encountering more and more local businesses approaching us for SEO services. If you fall behind, your home services business may get lost in the crowd.
To stay competitive, consider hiring a professional SEO company like us to help you build an online presence and bring in more customers.

11. Create a Site Map

Come up with a site map for your website?
"What's that," you may ask.
A sitemap is nothing but a list of all the pages on your website. Sitemaps are usually presented hierarchically, with the essential pages listed first. Having one will show search engines what pages are on your site.
For example, Have a look at our sitemap.
The importance of creating and submitting a site map for SEO has been discussed at length.
For example, SEO experts agree that it is vitally important for search engines to crawl and index every page on your site.
Many local businesses have no idea how important it is to have a sitemap to increase their rank in search engines. Do not be one among them.
Three Useful Site Map Tools

• Small SEO Tools's XML Sitemap Generator
• XML-Sitemaps
• SureOak

12. Use Keywords in Page Titles and Headings

Keywords are important to use in page titles and headings because they help people search for your website when they're looking for something specific.
Say someone wants to find plumbers in San Francisco. They will use keywords like "best plumbers in San Francisco" or "best plumbers near me" in a browser's search box.
Remember that Google and other search engines rank pages depending on how many times keywords (in a meaningful way) appear.
The more a keyword appears, the higher its ranking and the higher the chance readers will see it. To increase your chances of finding, use keywords in page titles and headings strategically.
Tip: While creating titles, put yourself in users' shoes, not search engines.

13. Add Citation Links for Your Home Services Website

Here Is A List Of Directories For You To Consider

• Yelp
  Yelp is a website that allows users to post reviews about their purchasing/customer experiences with local businesses. The platform has a five-star rating system.
• Angi
  Formerly called Angie's List, Angi lets users compare prices and book services for home renovation, repair, lawn care, plumbing, and the like.
• Expertise
  In their own words, Expertise finds and reviews the top service professionals from more than 200 industries. It lets users shortlist home service professionals by Zipcode.
• The Real Yellow Pages
  A platform that needs no introduction, the Real Yellow Pages allows users to compare and shortlist professionals using reviews, ratings, and business scores.
• BBB.org
  Better Business Bureau (BBB) is a go-to platform for understanding a business's credibility. Whether users want a general handyman or a landscaping professional, they can check businesses' profiles here.
• Apple Maps
  Apple Maps is a mapping and navigation app that shows businesses and points of interest in the user's vicinity. The app's information sources include Apple Maps data, Yelp reviews, Google Maps, etc.
• Home Advisor
  Home Advisor is an online marketplace for customer reviews on home repair and renovation professionals. It has over 1 million reviews and more than 250,000 high-quality service providers.
• Thumbtack
  Thumbtack is a popular platform that allows users to find all sorts of professionals for just about any job they might need. Users can search for anything from plumbers to wedding planners and hairstylists.
• Bing Places
  Bing Places is a search engine that allows people to find and share information about geographic locations. It allows them to rank local businesses.
• Manta
  Manta lets users find American small businesses and provide them with a cost calculation for home projects such as plumbing and painting.
• Waze
  Waze is a community-based mapping and navigation app that gives small businesses a way to connect with drivers, potentially leading to more customers.
• FourSquare
  Foursquare allows users to "check-in" to different locations, then ranked on the FourSquare website. Any user can view their list of places they have checked into.

Local SEO for Home Services - FAQs

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Q1. Can I Expect More Phone Calls For My Home Services Business If I Invest In Local SEO?

Yes, you can. Local businesses that invest in SEO achieve more phone calls, walk-ins, and inquiries than those that have not.

Q2. My Home Services Business Is Uber Local. Do I Need Local SEO?

Yes. Your home service business needs the SEO push more than an established business.

Q3. Is Local SEO A Costly Affair?

No. The truth is that you can even start with a couple of hundred dollars to see results.

Key Takeaways

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• Claim your Google My Business Page immediately.
• Create location-specific pages and post authentic content.
• Earn backlinks from complementary businesses.
• Include keywords in URLs, Page Titles, Headings, Meta descriptions, etc.
• Ensure your Name, Address, and Phone Number are consistent across platforms.
• Make your website mobile-friendly.
• Create and submit a site map for efficient indexing.
• Ensure descriptive Alt Tags.
• Get your social media accounts verified.
• Claim your listings on all major directories.