31 Oct 8 Ways to Get Your Trades Business Showing Up in Google Search Results
As a local trades business, finding new customers is everything. In 2024, one of the best ways to accomplish that is through making sure you show up in Google search results.
After all, a quick Google search is often the first port of call whenever a customer needs a job done.
So, how do you make sure your trades business shows up? Simple – Search Engine Optimisation, or SEO for short.
What is SEO?
In simple terms, SEO is the process of improving your online presence to rank higher in search results on sites like Google, Bing, and other .
Studies show that ranking in the top position of search results dramatically increases the number of people who click through to your website, with an average of a 39.8% increase.
Pretty big, right? Almost 40% of people who’re searching for a product of service will click on the first result in Google, and almost no one will even see the second page of search results. This is why it’s so important for you to land near the top.
For trades businesses who primarily work in a local area, this becomes even more important because you’re competing against other tradies in that area.
So, now that you know just how important SEO is, let’s dive into how you can start improving your search engine rankings.
1. Update Your Google Business Profile
Google is by far the largest search engine in the world, with a humongous 5.9 million searches per minute. With that in mind, it’s clearly the best place to start if you want to reach all the potential customers in your area.
Fortunately, it’s quite easy to see immediate results here with your Google Business Profile. You can access it by logging into your Google account and clicking Edit Profile.
Once you’re in, make sure all of your information is correct and up to date, including:
- Business name
- Address
- Phone number
- Website
- Operating hours
- Services you offer
- Service area (the locations where you operate)
It’s also a good idea to include photos of some of your recent or most impressive projects.
2. Take Advantage of Local Directories
After making sure your Google Business Profile is up to date, you should also make sure your business is listed on local online directories.
Many customers will visit these when looking for a service provider, so it can be an easy way to expose your business to more potential customers.
Unfortunately, with so many different platforms to add your business listing to, it can quickly become a monumental task. With that in mind, it’s worth looking into tools that can help you update your listings automatically.
3. Keep Your Listings Consistent
Whether you use an automation tool or update your listings manually, it’s important that you keep your business information correct and consistent across all platforms.
Your business name, address, phone number, and other important details should always match. This will help search engines recognise that it’s the same business across all the different listings, which will make it easier for Google to recommend you when customers come searching.
4. Partner with Other Local Businesses
Next up, you should consider forming a partnership with other businesses in your area. Specifically, this will help from an SEO perspective by getting other people to link to your website from theirs. This helps search engines understand that your website is trustworthy.
So, keep this in mind for any partnerships you have currently or will form in the future. Ask those partners to link to your website whenever it’s appropriate in the content on their website. This will bring more traffic to your website and give your SEO a boost.
You should also keep in mind that this works both ways and you can link to their website to return the favour.
5. Stay on Top of Your Online Reviews
Another important part of local SEO is making sure to properly manage your online reviews.
This means:
- Actively working on getting more reviews – get into the habit of asking for one after each job is complete.
- Responding to the reviews you already have – and yes, this includes the negative ones. Unfortunately, some jobs just won’t be a five-star experience, but that’s okay. These are opportunities for you to show the world that even if you make a mistake, you’ll handle it correctly and do your best to fix the issue.
Of course, if constantly managing reviews feels overwhelming, you could consider using a reputation management tool to make things easier. It’ll help you quickly see all your reviews, scan your overall ratings, and collect feedback.
6. Fix Your On-Page SEO
Now it’s time to work on your website. This section might be a little more technical, but we’ll do our best to keep it simple. Of course, if you have someone who manages your website for you, flick this over to them and let them handle it!
In simple terms, you want to optimise the pages on your website for search engines so that it’s clear to them who you are, what your business does, and what keywords you should be showing up for in Google search results.
Make sure your target keywords (i.e – plumbing in Footscray) are included in the written content on your site. Specifically, they should be included in:
- The meta titles and descriptions: This is a short description of your webpage. It’s displayed under your link on the search engine results page.
- The title of your webpages
- The body content of your webpages: The text you have on each page.
- The backend image tags on your site: Things like alt text and title tags that you can add to images in the settings.
Most website providers will give you a way to access and edit these elements on your site. Make sure you go through each page and add keywords to them if they aren’t there already.
However, make sure not to overdo it. One to three keywords per page is plenty.
7. Make Sure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
Building on the website improvements above, you’ll also need to make sure your website is mobile-friendly.
With so many people now relying on their phones for internet browsing, it’s key that your website fits onto a variety of screen sizes and is easy to navigate regardless of whether people are visiting via phone or desktop.
To test if your website is mobile-friendly already, visit it on your phone browser and see if the site shrinks down to fit the screen. Elements should be clickable, and content should be easy to read.
If this isn’t the case, you’ll need to swap your website over to a responsive theme – which will automatically adjust your website to different screen sizes.
8. Get Active on Social Media
Just like reviews, social media gives you a free, simple way to boost your online presence. An active presence on social media is just another way that you can help search engines understand who you are and what you do. The only catch is that it can be time-consuming.
For many business owners, finding spare time to post on social media can feel impossible. If that’s something you struggle with, it might be worth looking for a social media management tool to help you do some of the heavy lifting.
For example, Thryv’s social media tool will save you hours of time by:
- Helping you manage all your social platforms from one place
- Letting you schedule posts in advance so that you can set and forget
- Providing pre-made post templates and images to speed things up
- Helping you write social media captions with AI
Get Started Today
The above information might feel overwhelming but don’t let that stop you from taking action.
Take it step by step, working on improvements gradually over the weeks and months. Over time, you’ll start to see a nice boost in how you rank on search engines, and consequently, how many new customers find you online.
[FC1]What is a Search Engine? (& How Do They Work) – Thryv Australia
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