Executing proper digital marketing and “Garage Door” SEO best practices can be the key to beating your competitors and landing consistent jobs.
You are probably getting hammered by annoying emails and pushy salespeople claiming to be SEO experts.
It’s critical you understand what to takes to drive in clients from modern SEO best practices.
I this guide, I have laid out the argument for SEO and the tactics your Garage Door Company should be implementing. Follow this guide if you are doing SEO yourself or utilize the content to keep your agency partner on track.
Ready to get started? Let’s dive right in!
Compelling SEO Stats
With so many marketing options available to your garage door company, you could be wondering why SEO is the ideal place to focus your time and money. So here is the argument for SEO.
75% of searchers never scroll past the first page of Google results. This means that in order to make SEO worth it, you can’t afford to be ranking on the second page.
In addition, you’ll need organic traffic because 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.
Finally, there are over one trillion searches each month and SEO is your best bet at creating immediate exposure and increasing engagement.
Invest in Technical SEO
Technical SEO involves optimizing your site for the crawling and indexing phase. By improving the technical aspects you help search engines easily access all your content.
Below are some key technical aspects you need to work on in order to improve your garage door SEO.
Create your XML sitemap
An XML sitemap acts as a roadmap of your site that leads Google to all your important pages. It helps Google easily find your essential pages even when your internal linking isn’t good.
It’s easy to create an XML sitemap. If you use WordPress, you can generate it using the Yoast SEO plugin. You can also use Google’s XML sitemaps plugin.
Boost your site’s speed
Speed is a technical SEO aspect you can’t afford to ignore. If your site loads slowly, page visitors will just click back to search results and move to your competitor’s site.
Furthermore, if Google finds people leaving your site within the first five seconds of landing on it, your rankings are at risk.
To speed up your garage door service website:
- Use a Content Delivery System (CDN) like Cloudflare
- Use a compressed image format such as JPG in your posts
- Enable browser caching
- Reduce server time response to under 200ms
- Compress web pages using GZIP
Install your SSL certification
An SSL certificate offers a visual indication that your garage door site can be trusted by internet users. This way, they don’t have to worry about their personal or credit card information being hijacked.
Back in 2014, Google confirmed that SSL certification or HTTPS encryptions are a ranking signal. HTTPS sites will be given preference over non-secure ones. Google further warned that from July 2018, Chrome will warn page visitors if a website is insecure.
There are different types of SSL certificates you can choose from. To identify a site with SSL enabled, it will have the “https” prefix at the beginning of your web address. You ‘ll also find a padlock symbol that can be clicked to reveal the name of the organization running the site.
Use canonical URLs to address duplicate content
You should normally avoid duplicate content on your site. However, there are cases where having duplicate content on your website can’t be avoided. The best option is to add a canonical URL to each page.
To avoid confusing Google, create a canonical URL using the rel-canonical tag. This can be done through the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin.
Utilize Google Search Console
Google Search Console allows you to submit your garage door site for indexing. Google Search Console allows you to:
- Keep an eye on your site’s general performance
- Test mobile usability
- View backlinks
- Access search analytics
- Disavow spammy links
Optimize for On-Page SEO
On-page SEO consists of the content on your site and how well it’s optimized for targeted keywords.
The key On-page SEO elements you need to focus on include:
- HTML elements
- Site architecture
- Content elements
HTML elements
HTML elements consists of:
- Title tags
- Meta descriptions
- Headers (H1, H2, and H3 tags)
- Image alt-text
Site architecture
Site architecture elements include:
- SEO-friendly URLs
- Internal linking
- Silo your services pages
Sites with unorganized content make it hard to understand what a page is all about meaning you can’t rank for your focus keywords.
By siloing your pages, you clarify the message you’re trying to send to search engines. Content siloing involves creating precise content groupings and link signals.
When it comes to your garage door company, some of the services you provide include replacing springs, fixing garage door openers, new garage door installation and residential as well as commercial garage door repairs.
Don’t cram all of these services into one page. This will not only create a bad user experience but the page won’t rank in search engines. Therefore, in your menu navigation, create a “Services” page and then design a sub-menu with options to select one of the following pages:
- New garage door installation
- Spring repair
- Opener repair
- Residential garage door services
- Commercial garage door services
Content elements
In this section, we’ll focus mostly on understanding user intent and how to create content for it. In addition, we’ll look at how to produce long and value-rich content as well as increasing E.A.T.
So let’s get down to it.
Understand user intent and create content for it
At the heart of On-page SEO is page content. It helps you communicate the value your garage door company provides to prospective clients.
To create high-quality content, conduct keyword research to find relevant keywords and topics. You can use tools like UberSuggest, Ahrefs or AnswerthePublic.
The next step is to consider how your content falls into the buyer’s journey to dictate the types of content you’ll create.
Awareness stage
At the Awareness stage, potential clients are just becoming aware that they need to have a garage door installed or fixed. They know little about possible ways to solve this problem.
When researching online, they are just looking for information and are not ready to make any purchase decisions. This is why your content here should focus on nurturing them towards the consideration stage and developing trust without sales pressure. Blog posts, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), videos, infographics, and the homepage are great content options.
Consideration stage
At the Consideration stage, potential buyers are interested in learning about their options for fixing or installing a garage door. They now have an understanding of their problem but they are yet to decide which option is best for them.
They still need help deciding on how to best resolve their issue. So it’s up to you to create content around various options and position your brand in a way that appeals to your target client.
For example, if a potential client finds out that their garage door needs a spring repair, one option is to fix it themselves. You can create content around why they should leave this task to pros and why you are their best choice. The best content here includes webinars, your about page, and downloadable resources such as eBooks so you can get their contacts.
Decision stage
When a potential client enters the decision stage, they are ready to buy. They need information that answers why they should choose your garage door company.
These customers are your most qualified buyers because they’re well-informed about their issues and options for fixing it. Case studies, your contact page, and client testimonials always do the trick in the decision stage.
Produce long and value-rich content
A study by serpIQ revealed that the average length of content in the top ten results of search engine results was over 2,000 words. Long-form content doesn’t just get rewarded by search engines, it resonates with readers.
To make your long-form content value-rich:
- Add engaging visual content
- Incorporate short and long-tail keywords
- Write for a specific buyer persona
- Create shareable content
- Actively solve your reader’s problem
- Optimize for conversions with Calls to Action
Increase E.A.T
E.A.T is an acronym that stands for expertise, authority, and trustworthiness. This framework is used by Google to evaluate high-quality content.
Expertise
To create content that highlights your garage door company as an expert:
- Conduct topic research to create relevant content
- Review other articles that rank highly and find ways to make yours better
- Exceed your reader’s expectations by addressing topics in long-form posts
Authority
Here are some helpful metrics to help you gauge how authoritative your content is:
- Your SEO trust ratio score
- The performance of your content on social media
- Site’s domain authority
- Whether reputable publishers are linking to your content
Trustworthiness
Online reviews are not the only measure to trust. Here are other ways you can create trust:
- Showcase recent client testimonials
- Add an appropriate legal disclaimer
- Ensure page visitors can view your office location
- Include HTTPS for a secure experience
- Add an accessible privacy policy in your footer
Optimize for Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO involves the strategies you implement outside your site that have an impact on your rankings. Let’s look at the Off-page SEO strategies you need to pay attention to.
Link building strategies that work revolves around outreach. This is where you reach out to people in the garage door business and introduce them to your content.
Outreach works best with linkable assets like infographics, tutorials or research studies. Content Explorer is a great tool for finding people who mentioned your target keywords in their posts or linked to similar posts.
Guest blogging is another effective link building strategy. Leverage competitor backlinks for opportunities using tools such as SEMrush or Ahrefs.
Optimize Your Website for Mobile Users
Mobile optimization ensures that page visitors are able to access your garage door site from mobile devices. To set up your site for mobile users, use the responsive design because you won’t have to deal with the shortcomings of Dynamic Serving or the “M” configuration.
Effective mobile optimization to improve your garage door SEO includes:
- Utilizing Google’s Mobile Usability test
- Compressing images to boost speed
- Enabling AMP to speed up content delivery
- Managing the User Experience from Mobile
Optimize for Voice Search
50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020. Compared to typing search queries using a keyboard, searching with your voice is 3.7 times faster.
You might be wondering:
So what’s all this got to do with SEO?
Text-based searches use robotic keywords such as “garage door spring repair”. However, voice searches take a more natural and conversational approach. The above keyword would be replaced like this:
“How do you repair a garage door spring?”
70% of the searches done on Google Assistant use a conversational style. This means that you have to create content that provides direct answers to their questions.
When you voice search online, Google often provides a featured snippet. Therefore, if you fail to rank in the featured section, you’ll become invisible on devices such as Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and Google assistant.
Go All-in with Video
If video isn’t part of your garage door SEO plans, you’re missing out. By 2022, the video will make up 80% of all online research.
With more people searching on YouTube and skipping Google, you have to create and optimize your garage door content for this major search platform. After all, YouTube is the second largest search engine.
That and the fact that Google owns YouTube so you can expect more videos in search results. Fact is, it’s easier to tap into YouTube because most garage door service providers haven’t grasped video marketing.
Create explainer and how-to videos for your garage door services and embed them in your blog posts. Allow the type of video you’re creating to determine its length. But remember that longer videos rank higher. Don’t forget to include a Call to Action in your video content and ask viewers to contact you or check out your website for more information.
Improve Your Local SEO
Local SEO involves optimizing your online presence to attract more business from relevant local searches. Here are the main ways you can improve your local garage door SEO.
Google My Business
Optimizing your site on Google My Business (GMB) is the cornerstone of local SEO. it helps you manage how your garage door business appears on Google Maps as well as search.
Optimizing your GMB involves adding your business name, exact location, business hours, business description, adding services, adding photos, monitoring and replying to your customer reviews.
Citations
Citations are the online mentions of your garage door business that usually display your name, address and phone details (NAP).
Inconsistent NAP details confuse and mislead Google and potential clients. On the other hand, consistent NAP information across the internet verifies the data that GMB has about your garage door company. Always strive to maintain consistent NAP details in your citations/directory listings.
Over to You
I’m certain you have received dozens of emails and unsolicited phone calls around garage door SEO. I understand that this can be quite annoying. Finding a trustworthy and affordable SEO consultant can be a huge challenge.
All I can say is that your garage door SEO is too important to overlook. I hope this article helps you boost more organic traffic and conversions.
If you have any questions on garage door SEO, feel free to reach out and if you’re interested in my professional help, contact me here directly today.
