SEO Tips for Roofers

Having an effective website is an important element for growing your roofing business. A strategic website design helps support your business goals and lands you more contracts. But to land more jobs through your website, you first need to get your website found online when people search for your services! This is where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in.

How to promote your roofing business using search engine optimization (SEO)

What is Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of using front end (onsite optimization) and back end (offsite optimization) so that Google and other search engines populate your website in their search results. Search engines scan billions of web pages per day. BILLIONS. SEO lets you tell Google what you do in order to include you in relevant search results and rankings. SEO is how you communicate with Google who you are, what you do, what sets you apart from your competitors, and how you can help the people who are searching for you online.

Why is Search Engine Optimization important for roofing contractors?

Like most blue-collar industries, as a roofing company, you often depend on being found online in order to grow in your local market. While you may have some repeat clients over the years, roofs can last around 25 years, leaving you dependent on getting new customers, homes, and businesses to work on. While growth can definitely come through customer referrals, often times as a roofing company, you’ll need to rely on multiple strategies for finding new customers.

Imagine — you get new roofing leads every day from people in your area who are finding you online?

Imagine — these clients are finding you for phrases like “roofers near me”, “roofing contractors in (your city name here)” and dozens of other keywords that people typically use when looking for a roofing company to work with?

That’s where you want to be. Your goal should be to show up EVERYWHERE people who need a new roof or roof repair are searching.

Ideally, your company would be at the top of the Google search for multiple search terms — making clicking on your website and obvious and easy choice.

And it’s more than just getting them to land on your home page. Every single page on your website (your “About” page, “Service” pages, etc.) can be found in web searches as well. Because of that, each and ever page on your site needs to be optimized for 1-3 primary keywords for that specific page.

For example, if you have a service page devoted to repairing someone’s roof, you need to be thinking about a couple of keywords that are most closely related to roof repair services. If you have a page going over a specific type of roofing material like shingles, then think about what people might be searching to get information on that. Utilizing these keywords is crucial to getting your site found online and booking more customers.

What are the best roofing keywords to use?

If every page on your roofing website is an opportunity to show up online, how do you know which keywords to pick?

A keyword is a word or phrase a person may type into Google to find the service, product, or information they are seeking. When you use a keyword on your website, you’re telling Google what your business is, including what you do, who you are, and where you service.

But remember to keep in mind what potential customers are searching for — not just what you think of…

Put yourself in a potential customer’s shoes. They go to Google. What are they searching? Like the exact words they are typing in the search bar…

You may think to optimize for “professional roofing company”, when in reality, they are searching for “roofers near me.”

So here you go! Some of the top keywords for roofing companies to implement into your SEO strategy and website content. We call these “transactional” keywords — terms potential customers are typing in their web search with the intent to book a roofing company (as opposed to just looking up general information).

• roofing companies

• roofers near me

• roofing contractors

• roof repair

• roofers

• roofing repair

• roof leak repair

• best roofing company near me

• commercial roofing

• local roofing companies

Have you heard about long-tail keywords for roofing?

While these common keywords are among the top searched for roofing services, we can’t forget about what are called “long-tail keywords” for your roofing website SEO. These keywords are informational searches and longer phrases people put into Google to get more specific information. The reason why long-tail keywords are useful is because they are far less competitive, and therefore easier to rank for!

How do you find long-tail keywords? Well, the best way is to think about common questions you’re asked by your customers and start there. Long-tail is like it sounds — they are long keywords, usually 4 or more words or a phrase, such as:

• How much does a new roof cost?

• When do I need to replace my roof?

• How to decide on roof color?

One of the best ways to find these longer-tail keywords is to go to your google search bar and simply start typing a question related to your industry. Google is smart. They analyze all of our searches, so naturally they will provide long-tail keyword suggestions for the most common questions people type in.

If you do an initial search, you can also scroll all the way to the bottom of the page of Google search results, and they’ll give you even MORE ideas in an area called “Related Searches”.

Where should you put all of these great keywords on your roofing company website?

Without getting into tooooo much of the technical aspects of this answer…here are some basics.

ON YOUR WEBSITE (On-Site Optimization)

To get started right away, start adding these keywords to the content ON your website. This is the front-facing content that the public reads. And guess what? Google reads it too. So including common and long-tail keywords in the written content on your site is key. Make sure to also utilize those keywords in your page headers and descriptions, headings, your page URLs, and in links. And I’ll always tell you, the more content the better! Try to get 1500 words of content on your home page ( I know it sounds like a lot but to Google it’s important) and 500 words on all of your inner pages (service pages, about page, location pages, etc.).

OFF YOUR WEBSITE (Off-Site Optimization)

These are more of the back-end settings. It includes things like your page titles and descriptions as they appear on Google, adding alt tags to your images (for the visually-impaired), and so on. Another big factor in using these keywords is getting quality backlinks to your website and using your keywords as “anchor text” to link back to your site with.

Yeah, it got a bit technical. I’m sorry.

Remember, quality roofing Search Engine Optimization takes time…

There are no quick fixes for SEO. There’s no magic want to get us automatically ranked on page 1 of Google for any given keyword. After all, there’s only 10 spaces on the 1st page. Good organic SEO will lead to great search results for your roofing company – but it takes time. Months and even years. But don’t lose hope. Every single small change you make to your roofing website makes a difference. It’s like a small snowball rolling down a hill. It gets bigger and bigger the further it goes. So continue to add new service pages and location pages to your website. Utilize blog posts to address common questions or topics your potential clients care about. It WILL pay off in the end!