As a construction business owner, optimizing your business for local search is more crucial than ever, especially when your target customers search online for local services. That is why you have to start building a local search engine optimization strategy now. The goal of this strategy includes:
- Raising your online visibility.
- Boosting your website rankings.
- Reaching more potential customers in specific areas, and so much more.
And to achieve all of these goals, you need to pay attention to several local SEO ranking factors. As of today, there are nine ranking signals that many marketers and SEO experts recognize and learn about them in this blog.
Importance of Local Search Engine Optimization
Today, under half of all Google searches associate with local searches, making the importance of Local search engine optimization clearer.
Local SEO plays a consistently essential role in your construction marketing strategy. So, without it, you may find it extremely hard to attract a certain number of new clients to sustain and grow your construction business. That said, you have to focus on several ranking factors and how to optimize your business further.
Ranking factors are criteria most search engines use to assess different web pages. These ranking signals help search engines like Google to determine the optimal order of relevant results and provide a unique search query for a certain user.
While there are a lot of ranking factors to consider, it all begins with the top three major factors that deeply impact your local search results:
- Relevance: This refers to how closely your company matches what the consumers are searching for locally. Relevance is key to matching a certain local business with a consumer’s particular query. So, how can your website achieve a higher level of relevance? Easy. You need to focus on including relevant keywords, including their strategic placement.
- Distance: In local SEO, distance pertains to the physical space between the user or searcher’s location and every potential search result. In other words, this means how close your construction business is to the searcher looking for your services. This main ranking factor heavily relies on the details provided by your business. So, keep all your business information up to date across different platforms – website, social media accounts, and anywhere else you may be.
- Prominence: This ranking factor reflects the popularity of your construction business. The more popular you are, the more prominence you will gain. But how do search engines measure this ranking factor? The measurement is based on the details Google has on behalf of your business. This includes directories, links, and your current ranking in web search results.
To help boost your prominence, you must include local optimization tactics in your overall SEO strategy. From here, you will focus more on optimizing your Google My Business profile, social media engagements, and link strategy.
What are the Top Local SEO Ranking Factors?
When you optimize the three major ranking factors above, distance, relevance, and prominence, surely you are on your way to SEO success. And to further boost that success, you also have to consider the following ten “specific” local search engine optimization ranking factors that we will discuss below.
1. Proximity of your business
A main local ranking signal is the proximity of your business to the address of a certain searcher who enters the query. So, if someone is looking for the services your construction business offers, and the searcher is searching nearby, there is a higher possibility that your company will show up in the top results.
While you cannot always control this ranking factor, you can still influence it by ensuring your business information is accurate and consistent across different online platforms.
2. NAP citations
Stands for Name, Address, and Phone Number. NAP is important for your potential clients and search engines, and Google will look at and use this information to determine proximity details.
Consistency is key here. So, always ensure your NAP citations are consistent anywhere online, including your construction website and local online business directories.
The more times the search engine comes across your NAP citations online, the more trust it has that your business location is real and legitimate.
3. Google My Business Listing
One of the most effective ways to increase online visibility is to optimize the presence of your GMB listing consistently. The GMB listing can get your local business increasingly noticed by search engines.
You can optimize local SEO by enhancing your GMB profile with the following:
- Input hours of operation, including holidays.
- Add updated business name, phone number, and address.
- Include a marker for Google Maps.
- Choose relevant business categories.
- Integrate keywords into your business descriptions.
- Provide different high-quality photos.
4. Amount of positive online reviews
Today, online reviews have increasingly become a top local ranking factor. Search engines like Google are particular with this ranking factor to ascertain the credibility and popularity of your construction business.
Moreover, with positive business reviews you will get online helps in establishing trust and confidence in your company and the services/products you offer. Moreover, reviews also affect how consumers behave and decide whether they will trust your brand. Overall, reviews play a role not just in local ranking but also in consumer journeys, conversions, as well as your reputation.
To get more positive reviews, encourage your existing customers to add comments about your company and the experience they have when partnering with you.
5. Content that delivers valuable and useful insights
Another factor that benefits your ranking in local search results is high-quality content that provides unique and valuable insights. Google values quality content. So, when your content has valuable insights to offer to the audience, you can boost your rankings because more and more people will engage in your content.
6. Organic click-through rates
This specific rate helps search engines like Google determine whether online audiences like your content. When more viewers click on your posts on the SERPs, Google identifies your content to be more relevant, leading them to boost your rankings.
To help you gain higher click-through rates, you must create compelling meta titles and powerful meta descriptions as a major part of your content marketing strategy.
7. A localized website with quality backlinks
Backlinks found on your website play a role in making your business boost its credibility, build authority, and get it noticed by search engine algorithms. The relevance and quality of the backlinks are what matters the most, not the quantity.
As a local business, look for relevant and authoritative backlinks to your specific service offerings. It is also great to build relationships with other local businesses and link with one another. Search engines look at the websites linking back to you. And the higher quality of that particular site is, the better it affects your ranking.
8. Presence on Google Map
Another critical local SEO marketing tool you can use to advance is your presence on Google Maps. With this, you will have a better chance of being discovered by new clients and get a competitive edge, costing you nothing.
We cite below some steps you can follow to optimize your presence further:
- Add your local construction business to Google Maps.
- Include contact information and quality photos in your Google Map presence.
- Link your Google My Business Account to your Google Map business listing.
- Embed your Google Maps on your construction website.
9. A Mobile-friendly website
Mobile-friendliness of your website is a confirmed local SEO ranking factor. But at one point, it made no difference or impact to Google whether a website was compatible with mobile devices. As a matter of fact, mobile-friendliness is only seen as a nice-to-have feature and not a requirement or necessity at all.
Yet again, it is confirmed to be one of the most important local ranking factors. Many SEO experts are convinced that websites that fit on mobile screens can significantly benefit from a ranking boost over websites optimized for desktop use.
What’s Next? Come Partner with ConstructionMarketing.io
Learning the nine SEO ranking factors, we outlined and discussed above will benefit your construction business, existing customers, and upcoming prospects now and far into the future. So, ensure you start learning these ranking factors and take advantage of them.
If you want to step up your game, especially with your local ranking strategy, partner with us.
Here at ConstructionMarketing.io, we have a group of dedicated SEO experts that will assist you every step of the way. You must get the ultimate all-in-one solution to local search with our top-tier local SEO marketing services. We create a customized SEO strategy for you, provide regular reports, and implement expert SEO campaigns – just everything you need to rank successfully and consistently.
If you want to know more about our services and expertise, contact us today. We are excited to hear your thoughts and plans for your SEO campaigns.