For most roofing companies, the competition can be as steep as the last pitch you built. This means you need to be at the top of search results when potential customers are looking for roofing businesses near them.
How?
A solid search engine optimization (SEO) strategy in place that you regularly implement.
Although search engine optimization (SEO) sounds like an intimidating phrase, it’s really just about appearing higher on the search engine results pages. For most of your customers, Google is the starting point of their journey, so focus on ranking well on its search results page to build website traffic.
Here are Scorpion’s top seven roofing SEO tips for getting new business.
1. Plan Your Roofing SEO Strategy
Roofing SEO professionals have to prepare for and execute a multi-layered approach to SEO. There are many angles to look at SEO from, making it challenging for roofers to bring them all to one place. Designing an effective SEO plan is one way to get that done.
With the advancement of artificial intelligence, SEO strategies have gotten smarter. For example, Scorpion’s ranking solution, Ranking AI, has the power to analyze over 40,000 data points for a single keyword your roofing business needs to rank for. The software will then analyze what’s working on your website and what strategies your SEO team needs to implement to rank well.
A good SEO plan must include the following:
- Keyword research
- Content marketing
- Monitoring and analysis of your SEO service efforts
- Regular optimization and maintenance of your website
- Listing your services in your geographic area for local SEO
Each of these contributes to your roofing SEO’s overall success, but they’re all time-consuming and even labor-intensive. You have to sit down with a mapping tool and think about how you’ll use each of these parts in your future campaign.
SEO is also known as a long-term effort. While strategies like paid advertising can get you quicker results, SEO takes time to see the results but is a critical foundation for your website.
2. Optimize Your Roofing Website for SEO
All of your digital marketing efforts will eventually lead customers to your website. Google’s algorithm "crawls" through the internet to look for content that adds value. And they rank websites according to how valuable they are to users.
This means that to enhance your online rankings and appear on top of the search results, you need to optimize your website to become a high-value roofing website.
Search engines prominently index headers and images on your site, looking for juicy keywords that align with a potential customer’s search queries. Add relevant keywords wherever they’re appropriate on your website.
For instance, you can add keywords to the following:
- Page titles
- Meta descriptions
- Image descriptions
- Article copy
In addition, you need to conduct an SEO audit of your website. Technical difficulties, such as slow loading times, often cause customers to exit your website without doing anything, which can severely hurt your search engine rankings and cause a potential customer to leave your page without taking the desired action.
Focus on Local Search Results
Since you want people in your local area to find your roofing company easily, display your geographic area prominently on your website. That approach is called local SEO.
Any potential roofing leads should know where to find you and whether you serve their area at all. The goal of your roofing SEO campaign, at the end of the day, is securing more on-the-ground service calls, not just ranking high on the search engines.
Content Strategy
To that end, make sure your website’s content marketing strategy stays regularly updated and oriented toward finding more roofing leads.
People should come to your website and find a solution to their problem and realize that you’re the roofing contractor for the job. Be sure to bring the same type of content to your social media presence to ensure brand recognition.
3. Touch Up Your Roofing Business Pages
Your online presence doesn’t begin and end with your website. As important as your website is, most people’s first encounter with your roofing company will probably be through other channels, such as your business page on one of the more prominent social media platforms.
That’s why successful roofing companies establish themselves on every platform where their customers maintain an online presence. It’s about maintaining the same brand messaging and professional look throughout every platform.
A Well-Rounded Polished Impression
For instance, Google is one of the first places people look when they encounter a problem with their roof. They might not even know at this stage that they need a roofing contractor, but the simple act of searching for roofing solutions places them into your sphere of influence.
What if you have a strong Google My Business profile to capture their attention right away?
People also often discuss their roofing concerns in social media threads on Facebook, Twitter, or other platforms. You should maintain updated business profiles on each of these sites to make it easy for them to find you.
Optimizing your roofing business pages offers several obvious benefits to your business, such as:
- Increase in online reputation and SEO rankings.
- Building brand awareness
- Lead generation potential
- Route to referrals
When you optimize your roofing business pages, you're likely to get more conversions. Customize your business pages and provide compelling content to target the right audience.
Make your calls to action clear.
What actions do you want your visitors to take?
Do you want them to submit their contact details in exchange for a product or service, contact your business, or make a purchase?
Make that clear to potential customers who visit your business pages.
4. Improve Your Roofing Keywords
Keep in mind that your future roofing customers have specific problems that need resolution. That means they’ll use specific words in their online searches to find a solution or answer. As an expert roofing contractor, you should find out what those keywords are and use them to your advantage in your roofing SEO strategy.
When researching for keywords, start by creating a list of topics that would interest your customers, such as “roof repair.” Consider using a paid research tool like Semrush to gather more specific keyword data, like keyword search volume and competition. Then, incorporate the most relevant keywords into your website.
Beware of Keyword Stuffing
But don't stuff your website with keywords in an attempt to improve its rankings. Google’s algorithm will recognize that and penalize your site accordingly.
Use your roofing keywords in an organic and authentic way. Remember, you don't need the whole world to find you; you only need to focus your attention on potential customers in your immediate service area who can benefit from your roofing services — make them your first and only priority.
5. Work On Your Off-Page Roofing SEO
Off-page SEO, sometimes called external optimization, is about building authority. Reputation is everything when you’re running a roofing company. How people think about and interact with your roofing business will have a decisive impact on your search engine results performance.
Backlinking
When people find your content valuable, they think of you as an authority and are more likely to link to your roofing website on their own initiative. This process is called backlinking, which signals to Google and other search engines that your website has something truly valuable to offer. The more backlinks you get, the more you can secure a superior spot in their search engine results.
In addition, having an effective off-page SEO means getting high-quality leads for your business. What good are leads if they aren’t valuable to you at all? By focusing on building your backlinks, you can increase your brand awareness and recognition. New leads will come with a purpose, and that purpose will be to schedule a roofing service call.
6. Conduct a Roofing Advertising Campaign
Advertising needs market research to be successful. Whether you’re using pay-per-click (PPC) Google Ads, display ads, or video advertising, you risk losing money if you don’t know what you’re doing. That’s why it’s necessary to create an advertising strategy and stick to it.
The benefits of roofing advertising are clear. Instead of waiting passively for potential customers to discover your roofing company, you can be more proactive by placing your company in front of your audience via ads. But first, you have to know what your target audience is interested in. Before advertising your roofing company, you must do the following:
- Conduct extensive market research to learn what kind of ads your target audience responds to
- Create detailed buyer personas that align as closely as possible with the result of your market research
- Refine your message to address your customers’ pain points accurately
Roofing advertising doesn't come without challenges. Interest in professional roofing services wavers throughout the year, often spiking only during peak seasonal months, and you’re most likely not the only roofing company in the vicinity.
Strategic advertising is a powerful way to rise above the competition. Strengthen your brand voice and make it unique from your competitors — your audience should recognize that you aren't just a “generic" roofing company.
Similarly, you can create powerful headlines and graphics that grab their attention and encourage them to visit your website.
7. Work With a Roofing SEO Agency
A lot of roofing companies can struggle with how to rank well and can benefit from outside support. Partnering with a marketing company that specializes in local SEO would be a wise choice.
Roofing SEO experts bring many unique skill sets to the table, including:
- Polished SEO copywriting tailor-made to attract more roofing leads to your business
- An in-depth mastery of search engine structure, including the elements needed to rank your roofing company website higher
- Comprehensive knowledge of keyword research and how to use keywords in your marketing
Working with a roofing SEO agency is more cost-effective than constantly testing out different digital marketing strategies to see what works.
Every digital campaign you put out costs your business time, money, and effort, and these resources can be scarce when running a roofing business. Bringing in an outside agency means you get effective content marketing plans that increase your website traffic.
The Scorpion Solution
Despite the many moving parts involved in roofing SEO, the main goal is this: To get your business in front of more people.
At Scorpion, we rely on getting you the smartest SEO results possible through our Ranking AI technology and our SEO experts, who know how to implement the strategies recommended by our AI. We also conduct a complete SEO audit of your internet presence, checking for areas of improvement on all your business pages so we know exactly where we need to work first to make a difference. Reach out today to learn more about our Roofing marketing options and SEO strategies.