When you take the time to fully understand how local SEO works it can have a major impact on your flooring company’s branding and exposure in Google’s search results. When your flooring business is consistently shown at the top of the search results to local consumers looking to hire for a flooring job, it drives highly motivated traffic to your website.
This traffic has the intent to hire a local flooring company, giving you warm leads to convert into customers. When you then begin to rank for multiple high search volume keywords your traffic snowballs and your customer acquisition follows suit. This is how you scale growth and take your flooring company to the next level.
The average consumer has become so used to turning to Google for all of their needs. It doesn’t matter if they are looking to purchase an electrical gadget for their home, clothes, and apparel, or hire a contractor to install new floors – Google is where the search begins more often than not.
Mastering local SEO takes those warm prospects and places your business directly in front of them. From there it’s up to your marketing to attract and command interest through creative campaigns and irresistible offers.
Once you reach your desired position on Google it requires constant work to maintain your rankings while also targeting additional keywords. Once a business gets a taste of organic traffic and the ROI it delivers they want to scale and rank for more terms to drive more website traffic. Here are some floor marketing tips to help you improve your local search engine optimization campaign.
Claim and Optimize Your Google My Business Listing
If you haven’t already claimed your listing on Google, you will want to secure that right away and begin to set it up. This is how Google’s search algorithm “finds” your business and it uses the information within your profile to determine when and where your business is shown in its search results in the local “Maps” section.
This the where you want to be found when someone is searching with local intent for any flooring installation or flooring repair keywords. The local search algorithm is highly sophisticated and knows when a user is looking for local options, so be sure you complete your profile with detailed information.
Rule of thumb: if Google has a spot for information, fill it out. If they are asking for it assume it’s important and the algorithm will use it some way or another. Many businesses will just complete the bare minimum – you’re not going your business any favors if you take the lazy approach.
Be sure to write a long description, using the full 750 characters allocated. Include your main keyword at the beginning and work it in throughout the description a couple more times in a natural way. “Dallas flooring company” and “flooring company in Dallas” are some examples of main keywords – broad yet descriptive and including the location of the business.
Audit Your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) for Consistency
The NAP of your business (name, address, and phone number) needs to be consistent across the entire internet, from your website’s contact page to local business directory listings and review sites. Having inconsistent and mismatched information will result in Google knocking your website down in the search results due to a loss in trustworthiness and accuracy.
If you know where your business is listed online you can do a quick audit to make sure everything is accurate and uniform across all NAP listings, but if you aren’t sure of where your flooring company is listed or if you had an SEO agency working on your website in the past you will want to use a tool like Moz Local to scan the internet, identify listings, and then highlight any discrepancies that need to be corrected.
The little details are important and having something as minuscule as a suite format or street abbreviations showing up differently throughout the web can keep your website suppressed in the search results. Once you do this be sure to follow the same formatting style for all future business directory listings you create.
You will also want to create local listings on business directories that you are not currently listed on. These include listing sites such as Yelp, Manta, and YellowPages.
Optimize Your Blog Content for Local Keywords
When brainstorming content topics for your flooring company’s blog you want to lead with keyword research, and then create titles and topics based on each one. By focusing on one keyword per blog post it enables you to optimize the post specifically for that one keyword, improving the chance of ranking high in the search results.
The little on-page optimizations add up and make a significant impact on your search rankings. So, when researching keywords you want to avoid AI and tools that simply estimate search volume. You need to think like the consumer. What are they going to be entering into Google when looking to hire a local flooring company?
The two most common local searches are generic business type and location and then business type and “near me,” which is the most commonly used word in local-intent searches. So, a flooring contractor in Boston would want to optimize blog posts for keywords like:
- Flooring company in Boston
- Boston flooring company
- Flooring company near me
This is a very basic example just so you understand the two main common types of searches. Then, you can expand your keywords to include things like “hardwood flooring company in Boston” or “title floor installation company near me.”
Make Your Website’s UX a Top Priority
Google doesn’t just display results and call it a day. The local search algorithm considers several other factors, such as the average visitor’s total time spent on the website, whether or not they click over to other pages, or leave after just viewing a single page.
How fast a website loads on the initial visit and how quickly other pages render is also taken into consideration. Mobile-usability factors also contribute – things like font size, button size, navigation, etc. are all important.
Why?
Google wants to make sure that they are sending their users to websites that will provide a pleasant experience in addition to containing the information being searched for. If Google continually sent its users to slow websites that were difficult to navigate they would quickly find another search engine to use.
The reason Google has held a majority stake of all search engine users is because of how good its results are. There are several tools and software that will give you a good indication of your UX and mobile-friendliness, but nothing is better than feedback from real users.
Attract and Respond to All Google Reviews
Google reviews for your flooring company are one of the most important local SEO signals, as they are trust signals, telling Google that your business provides great service and recently active. Again, they want to provide the best possible results for their users and a business that is receiving frequent reviews that are 5-star is likely a good recommendation.
Encourage your customers to leave a review on your Google listing after you wrap a job. All you have to do is ask and you will find that most will gladly honor your request. If you send an email with the final invoice recipe include the ask in that – it’s not intrusive and if you include a direct link to your Google profiles it makes it so easy for the customer, which also improves your success rate.
Also, be sure to take the time to respond to each review. This creates more engagement on your GMB profile and it also shows potential customers that you are actively listening to feedback left for your business. It takes 30 seconds to reply and it helps to build a strong brand image for your flooring company.
Final Thoughts
Local SEO for flooring companies requires the same fundamentals and best practices that all small businesses must adhere to in order to create a strong footing in the search results. As Google’s algorithm constantly changes, you need to be sure that you have the basics covered.
The local search engine optimization tips for flooring companies that we highlighted above will always be the bare minimum needed to gain traction in the Maps and Search results. Many business owners begin to explore local SEO and become overwhelmed with the information out there.
When you break it down into pillars and stages, you will see that the base foundation needs to be laid out before exploring more advanced and aggressive SEO strategies. If you have any questions about the local SEO information above and how it pertains to ranking your flooring company on Google, please do not hesitate to reach out to one of our marketing experts. We are always available to help answer your questions as well as discuss our fully managed local SEO service for flooring contractors.
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