Beginner’s Guide to Keywords: How to Get Your Construction Business Ranked Higher on Google
The construction industry has changed a lot in the past couple of decades.
You know better than I do that the construction industry is a competitive one. Even if you’re getting a steady stream of clients from word of mouth or local ads, winning more customers to scale your business requires an effective online presence.
When chatting with my clients, a common challenge is figuring out how to get more visibility on Google. How do you get to that coveted 1st page of search results? What are your competitors doing to get there and how can you get those same results?
There’s a lot of noise in the SEO and digital marketing world. Quite frankly, the industry as a whole doesn’t have a great history of being trustworthy, approachable, and easy to understand. For many industries (not just construction), it’s a world that seems impossible, frustrating, and foreign.
My hope is to break down the barriers, even if just a little bit, to give my clients – blue collar businesses like yours – more understanding around this topic, in hopes it can help you grow your own business.
A beginner’s guide to finding the right keywords for your general contracting business
What are keywords?
“Keywords” is probably a term you’ve heard of, but what does it actually mean? And why is it important for your website and marketing strategies?
What is a keyword?
Simply put, a keyword is a word (or group of words) that describes what you do.
Why are keywords important for my construction business?
The magic happens when you are able to include the terms people are using to find you when they search on Google on your own website copy.
When you include keywords on your website and in your online marketing, you’re telling Google that you do all of the things that their internet browsers are looking for.
Google’s job is to match users with the best results for them based on what they typed into the search bar. If you’re the perfect match because you used keywords effectively on your website, you’re going to attract more people searching for your services on Google.
The better use of keywords, the more traffic you’ll get to your website. The more traffic you get, the more jobs you’re likely to land!
What are the best general contractor keywords to use?
While you may be tempted to use keywords that YOU would use for your industry, it’s important to put yourself in the customer’s point of view.
Recently I was working with a company that specialized in networking services for home and business owners. When strategizing wth him about his industry and the best approach for his SEO plan, the keywords he thought would be best to use included:
A/V (Audio/Video) Services
Low Voltage Wiring
Networking
While all of those are an accurate description of the work he does, it wasn’t exactly the words his customers were using when they searched Google.
His customers were searching for his services online with very different keywords.
Instead of “A/V Services”, customers were searching:
“Home entertainment setup”
“Home theater installation”
“TV mounting”
Instead of “low voltage wiring”, people were looking for
“Ethernet installation service”
And instead of “networking”, what people were actually thinking about was
“Wi-Fi installation”
“How to fix slow internet connection”
You’re an expert at what you do, but the rest of us are usually not! So while you want to make sure to include the best keywords for your industry, make sure you’re focusing on what everyday people are searching.
What are transactional keywords?
When thinking about what keywords to use, you want to use what are called “transactional keywords.”
If you do a quick Google search using the keyword “bathroom remodeling”, you’ll see that most of the search results include articles or websites like:
“Bathroom Remodeling Ideas”
“75 Bathroom Pictures & Ideas You’ll Love”
“How much does a bathroom remodel cost?”
The basic keyword of “bathroom remodeling” could be used to find a local bathroom remodeling company. But because it’s not more focused, it generates a lot of search results with general information having to do with a bathroom remodel, like giving tips for DIY’ers, for example.
A transactional keyword is what potential clients are searching in Google when they actually intend to make a purchase and book a service.
They are the keywords that lead to a sale.
Transactional keywords for a general contractor that you can use in your own marketing and SEO strategies include:
General contractors near me
Home remodeling contractors
Commercial general contractors
Renovation companies
Home renovations contractor
Bathroom renovations contractor
What about long-tail keywords?
I know this is a beginner’s guide to keywords, but I wanted you to know about what are called “long-tail keywords.”
Long tail keywords are highly specific words and phrases people use to find your services. They are usually made up of 4 or more words or a complete phrase.
So how exactly do you find these long-tail keywords?
Go to Google!
One of the best ways to find long-tail keywords for your contracting company is to go to your google search bar and start typing a question related to your industry. Google has a record of all searches related to your industry, so they are a great source of knowledge for us. They will provide long-tail keyword suggestions for the most common questions people type in.
To find the best long tail keywords for your general contracting website, start with common questions your clients ask about your services.
What is a reasonable budget for a bathroom remodel?
What are the steps to renovating a kitchen?
What additions add the most value to a home?
In a Google search, type in a basic keyword in the search bar. When you scroll down, there is a spot Google calls “People Also Ask.” This is a great place to find long tail keywords of real searches people are doing online!
These were some of the questions people searched that were similar to the keyword “general contractors near me.”
If you do an initial search, you can also scroll all the way down to the very bottom of the page, and Google will give you even more ideas in an area called “Related Searches.”
Not all of these searches will be relevant to your business, but they’re a great place to start!
Why should I bother with long-tail keywords in my general contracting marketing plan?
For a few reasons, actually!
First, almost 50% of all searches are long-tail keyword searches.
If you’re not including long-tail keywords in your content, you’re missing out on a huge market of website searches!
But the best part? Long tail keywords are WAY easier to rank for because they’re so specific.
There are thousands of searches for “remodeling contractors” around the world every day. So, everyone in that industry will be working to rank for that.
By getting more specific, less of your competitors will be ranking for that keyword, making it easier to rank for. Instead of focusing all of your energy ranking for “remodeling contractors”, try “home remodeling company in Portland.”
Third, long tail keywords will get you more qualified traffic to your website.
You want to attract people to your website who are:
In need of your services
In your local area
Ready to buy
By ranking for “general contractor”, your website could show up for people who are looking for a job or apprenticeships to become a general contractor or maybe want to know what a general contractor is and how much money they make.
Showing up for these people isn’t helpful to getting more jobs.
But by focusing on “home remodelers in [insert your city here]”, you’re going to attract people who are in need of your services, are in your local area, and are ready to buy!
The specific keywords are going to get the right people to your website and save you a ton of time and marketing dollars in the end.
Free keyword research tools for general contractors
If you’re just starting out, Google is a fantastic free resource for finding keywords for your industry.
But if you’re looking to dive deeper, here are some other tools you can check out that are also completely free!
UberSuggest
UberSuggest allows you to do 3 free searches per day to hunt for keywords related to your industry.
Simply type in a keyword and see the recommendations populate!
When typing in “remodeling company” into the search bar, a ton of keyword ideas populated (shown below).
UberSuggest will break each keyword down by:
Search Volume - the number of searches the keyword gets in a month
Cost Per Click (CPC) - average cost per click if you were paying for Google ads
Paid Difficulty (PD) - the estimated competition in paid search, the higher the number being the more competitive
SEO Difficulty - the estimated competition in organic search, the higher the number being the more competitive
Depending on what your own business goals are, you might take different approaches to SEO.
Maybe you want to focus on Google Ads (paid search) during your slow months to get a quick ROI.
Or, maybe you want to grow your organic ranking (meaning you want to get to page 1 of Google and stay there), which would require long-term organic SEO.
Whatever approach you choose, the information you can get from UberSuggest and other free keyword research tools can help find what works best for your particular industry!
Answer the Public
Another genius resource from Neil Patel is AnswerThePublic. This resource listens into autocomplete data from Google and cranks out every useful phrase or question people are asking about your industry keywords!
This is a super useful tool for finding long-tail keywords for your general contractor website, but also to help you create useful content for your potential clients in the form of a blog or social media post.
The more useful information you provide on your website, the more Google is going to place you in front of people in your area searching for your services. This is why keyword research and implementation of those keywords on your website is so important!
Let’s cover a few more things…
Where should I put keywords on my general contractor website?
For the sake of keeping this a beginner’s guide, I’ll just cover how to include keywords ON your actual website. This is called onsite optimization. (We’ll save offsite keyword optimization for a later post.)
Google reads the content that is on your website, so by including those keywords and phrases on your website, you’re telling Google exactly what you do and that they can match your company website with people using those same keywords when searching online.
Make sure to include keywords:
In your headings
On your page settings (SEO titles and description)
Your URL slugs (www.yourcompanywebsite.com/url-slug-keywords-here)
Blog post titles
Blog post content
Website page content
Descriptions for your website images (also called alt-text)
I see my competitors list a bunch of keywords at the bottom of their website. Should I do that too?
NO.
First, this is called keyword stuffing. And it used to be an effective technique and yielded great results for a time. But that is NOT the case anymore.
According to searchenginejournal.com:
“In the early days of web search, way before SEO was a thing, Google ranked web content using a basic set of signals. Keywords were one of those signals. The more keywords you used, the better a page would rank, especially in the earliest days of search engines.”
Today, keyword stuffing actually has a negative impact on your ability to rank your website on Google.
Don’t just take it from me. Here’s the proof from Google’s Webmaster Guidelines:
“’Keyword stuffing’ refers to the practice of loading a webpage with keywords or numbers in an attempt to manipulate a site’s ranking in Google search results. Often these keywords appear in a list or group, or out of context (not as natural prose). Filling pages with keywords or numbers results in a negative user experience, and can harm your site’s ranking. Focus on creating useful, information-rich content that uses keywords appropriately and in context.”
Repeating keywords and phrases over and over again, and stuffing as many keywords onto your site as possible, in an attempt to rank higher, will only cause your website to rank lower.
Do not listen to anyone who tells you otherwise.
As for your competitor? Their website is either very outdated or they are paying someone to do their SEO who doesn’t know what they’re doing.
I hope this post helped you understand what keywords are and how you can get started searching for them for your general contracting company.
You don’t have to be an SEO expert to get started. Free tools like Google, UberSuggest, AnswerThePeople, and more, are all available at your fingertips and will help you start showing up online for your potential clients.
Convert more website visitors to paying customers to grow your general contracting business this year!
I’ve helped dozens of construction companies scale their businesses with effective website design and strategy. I’d love to serve you and help you achieve the same! Learn more about my custom web design services and book a free consultation today!
