SEO For Roofers

If you have your own business, potential customers need to be able to find you. Most people start with a search online with a search term similar to ‘roofers near me’ or they include the name of the town they live in, for example, ‘roofers in Chester’.

When people carry out this search, you want the name of your business to come up on the first page of the search results because that way, you have a greater chance of a potential local customer clicking into your website. This will lead to more leads and jobs.

How do you get to that first page?

By using SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). It has a lot to do with the content on your website, whether its easy to read on a mobile phone and if it’s easy to navigate.

Local SEO is the process of optimising your website and its contents so that people looking for a business in their local area find you.

In this guide, we’ll tell you what you need to do to optimise your roofing business to come up in local searches without needing technical knowledge, the keywords you need to add to your content, the common mistakes you should avoid and the pros and cons of hiring a professional expert.

Let’s make a start…

What is Local SEO and Why It Matters

Location Matters to attract potential customers in your area. When someone searches for a Roofer near me, the search engine (usually Google) will come up with a list of roofing contractors in the area where they live. If you don’t appear in local searches, then you are potentially losing customers.

One of the most important steps you should take towards optimising your business for local search is to create a Google Business Profile. It doesn’t cost anything to create a profile, and you can upload photos and information about your business. People you have worked for can leave feedback, which will help build your reputation and attract more customers.

Also, make sure our roofing business is included in the listings of local online directories. For example, if you Google local business directories and then add where you live, you’ll find a page full of free and paid advertising opportunities. Make use of well-known website directories like MyJobQuote who direct relevant leads from potential customers in your area.

On-Page SEO for Roofing Websites

On-page SEO means improving your search engine optimisation for that page. For example, each page you have on your website could include the name of your town. For example, your home page could say something like “A roofing Company You Can Trust in Chester” or your service pages could have “Roofing repairs in Chester” as a title.

Create service pages for each service you provide:

• Roof Replacements
• Roof Repairs
• Flat Roof Installation
• Conservatory Roofing
• Fascia and Guttering
• Emergency Callouts

You need to have content on each page with appropriate keywords for SEO. Don’t use the same text on every page because Google recognises duplicate content, and it may affect your page ranking.

Look around at other websites to see how they present their content. It should be informative and written in a way that’s easy for people to understand. Another great way to improve SEO is to include a blog on your website. A blog means you can add keywords to the text and link to other pages on your website, which helps search engines rank your content.

Blog titles could include:

• How Much Does New Guttering Cost?
• How Long Does It Take To Replace a Slate Roof?
• Install a New Flat Roof on a Budget
• Why DIY Roofing Isn’t Recommended
• The Average Cost to Lay a New Roof

Blog posts that give readers valuable information will create trust and demonstrate that you are an expert in your trade.

Another part of your website that will need some SEO work is the backend. This is the inside of your website. It’s the part you go into if you upload a blog post or photographs. You might have an SEO plug-in like Yoast, which will guide you.

For example, if you are adding a blog post, you will be asked to type in the focus keyword. Let’s say this is roof repair. You should have this keyword in your blog post title and in the first paragraph of your blog. You should divide your blog post using headings, like this article does. Use keywords in the headings. For example, a heading could be ‘How long does it take to complete a roof repair?’

Each of your web pages will also need a meta title and description. One page could read Slate Roof Installations/ (your name) Roofing Services in Chester.

Every image you upload needs to have a description. This is called the ‘alt text.’ For example, if you have a photo of a garage with a flat roof you could describe the photo as being ‘Garage Flat Roof Replacement.’

You should also be able to check whether or not your website works well on mobile devices. This is important because most people use their mobile phones to search for products and services. If they can’t read your website properly on a mobile, they will click away and look for another company.

Off-Page SEO Tips

Off-page SEO is how to improve your website’s ranking and visibility without doing anything to your website. It includes building backlinks, encouraging customer feedback and writing guest posts that feature on other blogs.

Building Backlinks

Backlinks are a link from another website that points back to your website. If you have backlinks on a trusted website, search engines see your website as trustworthy too. You can get links back to your website from local trade directories, like MyJobQuote or trade associations such as the National Federation of Roofing Contractors (NFRC). Guest posting is also a great way to get a backlink to your website.

A guest post is a blog you write for someone else’s blog. For example, a blog about building your home might be interested in a blog about installing a roof, and your company name can be included with the author’s name. Alternatively, you could provide a quote for the person writing the blog, who would then mention the name of your company.

Encouraging Customer Feedback

Ask satisfied customers to leave reviews on your Google business page. People will often read reviews before they contact a contractor for a quote. If the reviews are positive, then potential customers will be more inclined to consider your business as trustworthy.

Always reply to each review, and if you happen to receive a comment from a person who isn’t happy, be polite and try to address the problem. This will show potential customers that you care about the standard of work you produce and your reputation.

Social Media

Posting on social media will boost your visibility and encourage people to visit your site. You don’t have to use every social media platform out there; pick one or two and post regularly. Instagram is ideal if you enjoy posting photos of the work you are doing, and you can use Facebook to inform readers about your availability, services and emergency callout number.

Technical SEO Essentials

You need to carry out technical SEO to make sure your website is easily found and understood by search engines. Search Engines need to be able to find your website so they can put it in the search listing.

Loading Speed

One factor is the speed at which your website loads. If it is too slow, the person searching will lose patience and click away. You need a website that loads quickly and works well on a mobile device.

You can test your site speed by using an online tool. Search for a website speed tester. If you have a loading speed of two seconds or less, Google thinks this is fast. If the loading speed is three seconds or more, it is considered slow.

Website Security

Another factor is your website security. If you want your website protected from data theft, then it should have an SSL certificate. If you have a certificate, when you click on a web address in your address bar, you will see https:// at the beginning of the address.

Or you can click on the blue lock icon in the address bar, and it will tell you if the website is secure and if it has a certificate. Google thinks websites with a certificate are more trustworthy because data is encrypted, which makes it harder to steal or hack into and as a result, it rewards these websites with better rankings in search results.

Check with your web hosting company to see if they include an SSL certificate with your hosting service. If not, you can get a free or low-cost certificate from an SSL certificate authority like HubSpot.

Mobile Responsiveness

The main SEO benefits of a mobile-responsive website is:

• Google gives preference to these websites in their rankings
• People are more likely to stay on a website that’s easy to read on a mobile device
• Page load speeds are usually faster when they are optimised for mobile use

Your website layout is an important factor in mobile responsiveness. Text and photographs should be adapted to the screen size, and all clickable buttons should work and take you to another part of the website.

If your text doesn’t fit the screen and people can’t click through to view more information, then they won’t bother staying on your website. Instead, they’ll go to the next roofing company on Google’s list.

Finally, you should have an XML sitemap. This will list the URLs of all the pages on your site which helps a search engine crawl and index each page. By giving search engines a clear and structured list of the contents of your website, important pages are recognised and indexed which will increase search visibility.

Common SEO Mistakes Roofers Should Avoid

Updating Business Information

If you don’t have the time to maintain your website, then find someone to help you. Common mistakes roofers often make is to set up website and then leave it for months or years without updating the information on it.

Don’t forget to keep important information up to date. Your services, business address, working hours, telephone numbers and contact details should be the same on your website and on any directory listings you have.

Keyword Stuffing

Don’t be tempted to use too many keywords in your content. This is called keyword stuffing. This is a good example of keyword stuffing:

‘Chester Roofing contractors offer Chester roofing repairs on all types of Chester roofing’. As you can see this sentence does not read naturally. Google recognises keyword stuffing, and your ranking will suffer. Instead, pick one main keyword per page and use it in your Title, the first paragraph, your subheadings, meta description and the image alt text.

Then you can add keywords that are similar to your main keyword. If you have a 1000-word text then you can use your main keyword between ten and twenty times, naturally, throughout the text. You can then add another 5 to 8 keywords that relate to your main keyword but aren’t the same.

For example, your main keyword could be ‘Roof Repair in Chester.’ And then you can use Chester Roofing Contractors, Emergency Roofing Repairs, Chester, or Affordable Roofing Repairs, Chester.

Ignoring Mobile Users

Make sure you test your website to make sure it is mobile friendly. Most people now use their mobiles to search for information, rather than a laptop or desktop computer.

Should You Hire an SEO Expert

If you don’t have the time to dedicate to your website or business listings or SEO seems overwhelming, then it might be worth you hiring an SEO expert to help you grow your business and attract local customers.

Before making the decision have a look at the pros and cons of DIY SEO vs hiring a professional:

The Pros of DIY SEO:

• ✔ You know your local area and the competition you face
• ✔ DIY SEO will be cheaper than hiring a professional
• ✔ Once you know what you’re doing small tasks like updating information and answering questions or commenting on reviews on your Google business page won’t take too long

The Cons of DIY SEO:

• ✖ You’ll need to learn how to do your own SEO
• ✖ It may be time consuming until you know how to carry out each step
• ✖ A mistake while inside your website may mean you’ll need to pay a professional to put it right

The Pros of Professional SEO:

• ✔ They have the knowledge and experience to create local SEO strategies
• ✔ You won’t need to get involved unless you want to
• ✔ They provide site performance analysis and ongoing support all year round

An SEO company or an individual working as a freelance SEO expert will understand the impact of relevant content and the technical SEO essentials that are needed to optimise your roofing website for a local audience.

And, if you don’t have the time to learn SEO or you prefer to leave it to someone else then hiring an SEO expert is much better than doing nothing with your website.

Cons of Professional SEO:

• ✖ It can be expensive
• ✖ You won’t see results quickly (SEO takes time)
• ✖ There is no guarantee that you’ll end up high up on the first page of Google or that you’ll get more customers

If you decide to look for an SEO expert there are a few things you should be aware of before you take the plunge. Avoid any individual or company that promise to get you to the top of page one of a Google search in a few weeks. SEO doesn’t work like that and any expert worth their salt will tell you that for SEO to work its magic it will take time.

Local SEO is about attracting local visitors to your site. If you talk to an expert who says they can increase your website traffic by thousands, beware. It’s no good having people looking at your website if they are not looking for a new roof or some sort of roofing repair. You want your SEO to attract relevant visitors.

Be wary of experts who offer technical fixes, as these are often not important and never pay an expert for hundreds of backlinks. They will be irrelevant and low quality which might mean you will be penalised by Google for having them.

SEO might seem overwhelming at first, but it is a valuable skill to learn if you want to attract qualified leads from people in your local area. If you are just starting out, then start with a Google business page and use that to help build your reputation.

Have a good look at your website and make sure it is mobile friendly, and your business information is correct. There are free mobile friendly site tests online, like SE Ranking. All you need to do is type in your website address and press the analyse button and it will tell you if your website is mobile friendly or if you need to make improvements.

When you want to extend your business empire or you get too busy to spend the time on DIY SEO, you might then want to think about hiring an SEO expert to help you.

FAQs

How can SEO help my roofing business?

SEO will help people living in your local area to find you when they search for a roofer using a mobile phone, tablet or computer. Good SEO practices will, over time, get you to the first page of Google for local searches and this of course will make you more visible and hopefully bring in more leads.

What keywords should roofers target?

At first you can use keywords which focus on the services you supply and the areas you work in. For example:

• Roof repairs in Chester
• Emergency Roofer in Chester
• Slate Roof Installation in Chester

To find keywords you can use a free keyword planning tools which you will find online. If you want to know more about how to find and use keywords HubSpot have a useful tutorial with content and YouTube videos.

How long does it take to see SEO results?

SEO isn’t a quick fix and if you re told otherwise, beware. You might see some small improvements within a month to three months, but it usually takes between three and six months before any significant changes start to happen and a year before any real results start to become evident.

A brand-new website will take longer because it will need to build authority that older websites already have, especially if they have some SEO strategies in place.

Building a local roofing business will take time, but with consistency and patience SEO will help you increase your visibility and attract more customers.

Should I have a blog on my website?

It is not essential, but it can boost your SEO. By producing a regular blog, you can answer questions potential customers might have about roofing problems. You can put snippets of the blog on social media to encourage readers to visit your website and share the information with friends and family which may attract more leads. If you don’t have time to write the blog yourself, you can hire a freelance content writer to do the writing for you. They can also add keywords to the text to boost your SEO ranking.

Do I need a website?

You can rely on your Google business page or leads from business directories, but potential customers tend to trust a business with a website. Your website is like your shop front and people like to see who is behind the business and work you’ve done in the past.

Being able to view a photograph of you and your previous work creates trust. You can have a website designed for between £500 and £6,000. You’ll also have to pay to have the website hosted which you pay for annually and can cost between £70 and £250 a month.