How to Get Started: The Basics of SEO

Before you get started with SEO, it’s important to plan ahead and identify what is important for your business. There is a difference between effective branding and effective marketing, and while the two are complimentary, it’s necessary to understand the clear differences between the two.

Branding should encompass how your business presents itself to its target audience. Is your logo recognizable, relevant and memorable? Does your website imbue a sense of trust into the user from first impressions? Brand-related questions are important once the user has found your website and is wondering whether they should get a quote or commit to services.

SEO, on the other hand, should encompass how your customers find your business in the first place. Does your website rank well for terms that are relevant to your business? Are you getting enough calls to your Google Business profile? These questions are important in getting customers onto your website from the beginning, putting your business in the spotlight.

There are three parts to an effective SEO strategy: the on-site, the off-site, and the supplementary profile.

The on-site encompasses factors that you control directly on your website. This may be factors like your site’s navigation, how effective the content is for user engagement, and linking relevant services together.

The off-site deals with factors outside of your website, like outreach for link building or how well your pages are being indexed by Google.

The supplementary profile is off-site but is extremely important to service area businesses. It is your Google Business Profile. This is the listing that shows up in the Maps for certain terms that include ‘near me’ or your city or service area. This should be connected to your website but will need separate optimization.

But You Don’t Have to Do It Yourself – Leverage Our SEO Experts

As the owner of an electrical contracting business, it can be difficult to wear all the hats. Not only do you have to take care of the administrative work, but you have to do the work as well. That’s on top of trying to take care of your personal life, as well. Now, you’re trying to take on the marketing part of your business, which is typically handled by an entire team. Our electrician SEO services are the answer.

Don’t overwork yourself. No business thrives without a little help; webSURGE is a professional SEO agency for electricians exactly like you. Our team of SEO experts help you get the customers in the door so you can focus on what you do best.

Keyword Research

Before you can do any optimization on your website, it’s important to know the terms that your target customers use to search for electrician’s services. These search terms or phrases typed into the Google search bar are known as ‘keywords’ which your website can then rank for.

Once you know who your audience is, you can narrow down the keywords you want to target by using tools to determine the average search volume. Whether you are using Google’s keyword planner tool, or third-party software like SEMrush, you will eventually come up with a list that fits your business.

These terms may be something along the lines of ‘electrician in [area]’ or they could be broader, like ‘why should I hire an electrician?’ This first step can be daunting, because it requires ideation about what your audience will search. Using third-party tools can help you expand this list once you have a few starting terms, however, which can help add onto the list.

Once you have a rough idea of the keywords you want to rank for, you’re past the first hurdle. You’ll want to start working on your website next, setting it up for success when ranking for these new terms. Every page on your website should include at least one target keyword; a page without a keyword will be difficult to rank.

Site Hierarchy and Manual Walkthrough

The site hierarchy is an important step, as it sets your website up for success in the beginning. Here, you will plan which pages your website will have, and which keywords will be associated with each page. The easiest way to do this is to draw boxes, each one connected with another. Each page should be linked to another page on your website, so users can easily find it. In most cases, this is done with the navigation menu, which every website has either in a sidebar, or as links right below the top logo.

The Manual Walkthrough, also sometimes called a site health audit, is something that some SEO agencies will offer for your website, especially if you have a pre-existing site. This is to ensure that all the on- and off-site signals are performing how you want to, and there are no issues that you need to address. This walkthrough is valuable in double-checking your website for errors that may throw off Google’s algorithm and hinder your ranking progress.

The factors checked may be as shallow as ensuring all your main service pages are accessible from the homepage, or as in-depth as diving into the code behind the page to address any indexation issues that may be present. It also includes evaluating your web design to boost your conversion rate optimization and ensure a good user experience for your potential customers. Finally, it can also involve checking out your online reviews to see if your electrical company requires some reputation management.

On-Page Optimization

For many people who are just learning SEO, the on-page optimization is finally getting to the fun aspects of the job. This type of optimization requires you to go through the website and find any new opportunities for ranking, as well as ranking problems (a.k.a. technical seo).

The goal is to ensure your website showcases where your service area is, what kind of business you are, the qualifications you have for that business, as well as the type of services you provide. When done correctly, it can boost your appearance in the search results for relevant terms.

You may find that each page’s content needs keyword optimization; perhaps one is missing a meta description or header tag. Your Google Business profile may not be connected properly to provide the right signals to Google that says your website should be associated with that business.

On-page optimization can be in-depth for some, while others will just give it a cursory glance to make sure it is navigable, and it presents no user experience errors.

Depending on your site, and the complexity of the SEO work you are doing, it may be better to have an agency handle this type of optimization as they will understand the limits, as search engines don’t like to see an over-optimized site trying to ‘game’ the system. Still, on-page optimization is an extremely important step, making it a fine line balance.

Content Creation

Content creation is by far the most versatile and changing part of your website, where you will start creating written and visual content for your target audience.

This is where most websites go wrong, as they don’t create nearly enough content to sustain their website’s rankings. Another common problem is websites that simply take other people’s content and re-word it, or completely re-use it. Neither of these strategies are going to get these websites to rank well, as it’s seen as unhelpful to your audience, or poor practice in the case of plagiarizing.

Search engines need enough content to understand what the page is about, and after decades of development, the algorithms are complex enough to understand and associate content with similar subjects. Content creation and optimization can be complex and require a lot of fine detail, making it a full-time job by itself. It’s important to pick and choose your battles when you’re creating this for your own website. A lot of electricians have their SEO agency take care of the content for them, so they don’t have to worry about this aspect of the work.

The goal of content from a search engine’s perspective is to create content the audience will enjoy. If the audience enjoys the content, they stay on the page longer and engage with it. Maybe they even found what they’re looking for, and they continue clicking around on the website to find more content like that. If these individuals find what they’re looking for, they’re more inclined to use the search engine again when they need an answer, so the search engine rewards that kind of content with better rankings.

Link Building

Link building is where things start to move off-site. This is one of the biggest factors for success when it comes to ranking a website, but it can only be done once there is content on a page, or in a blog post. Search engines look closely at which sites link to other sites. Essentially, it’s a big vote of confidence, as the third-party website is willing to send their users to your website. If your site is seen as that trustworthy, the search engine gives your website a chance and considers it for higher rankings for certain related search terms.

The quality of that linking party, however, is extremely important. If you get a dozen links from spam sites that don’t seem to have a real purpose other than promoting other websites, then it won’t be considered nearly as much as a single link from a big-name publication site.

Some websites have even been penalized by search engines, removing many of their rankings, because they would try to purchase links or get links from sites that were clearly irrelevant and spammy. It’s best if you reach out to well-known sites in your field and ask for links to the page you are trying to rank.

Google My Business Optimization

Separate from your website is a Google Business Profile, which allows your business to have a listing in local Map searches. Optimizing this profile (also known as “local seo”) can help you show up higher in the Maps listings, as only the top three businesses are visible to searchers from the search results.

Optimization can include ensuring all the optional fields are filled out, and that you have photos of your business uploaded to the profile. It is also helpful to have genuine reviews from real customers, which you then respond to from the business’ profile.

It can be a lot of work to optimize a Google Business Profile, but once you do, you’ll start getting calls coming in from users who just want to search for an electrician quickly and call the first one that comes up. A surprising number of searchers take this strategy, looking for fast answers in a world with an ever-increasing number of options.