Updated on August 23, 2023
For many small businesses with limited budgets, driving as many new customers in without spending the big bucks is a priority. For appliance repair companies, that can be achieved through search engine optimization (SEO).
Don't just take our word for it. In a survey we recently conducted on search marketing, we found that 83% of small business marketers felt that SEO was an effective part of their overall marketing efforts.
That means, if you're not already using SEO to grow your appliance repair company, it's time to start or you'll risk falling behind the competition!
But how do you get started with SEO? It can be intimidating if you don't know where to begin. In this blog post, we will walk you through the basics of SEO to show how your appliance repair company can drive more organic traffic to your website.
By the end of this blog post, you'll be equipped to get started on your own SEO strategy!
Before diving into the nitty-gritty of how to use SEO to bring in more appliance repair customers, it's important that you understand the basics of SEO.
SEO is the process of improving the visibility and ranking of your website on search engines like Google. When potential customers in your area search for appliance repair companies online, you want your website to appear as close to the top of the search results as possible. This is where SEO comes in.
By optimizing your website for search engines, you can increase your chances of being seen by potential customers and generate more leads for your business.
While there are many different aspects to SEO, some of the most important factors include keyword research, title tags, and backlinks. If you're not familiar with these terms, don't worry—we'll cover them later in this post.
For now, just remember that SEO can be a powerful tool for growing your appliance repair company and attracting new customers.
There are two main places where appliance repair companies can appear organically in Google: through a listing on Google Maps and through the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google Maps listings are becoming increasingly important as more and more people use mobile devices to search for businesses. If your company appears in the top Google Maps listing for your product or service, you're more likely to get clicks and customers.
SERPs are the traditional place to have your company appear in Google's search results. When someone searches for a specific term, your appliance repair company's website may appear in the SERPs if it is relevant to the search term.
However, SERPs are becoming more crowded as Google includes more and more information in the results pages (such as snippets from reviews or Wikipedia articles). This means that it is becoming harder for companies to stand out on SERPs—but not impossible with the right SEO strategy!
With SEO, your overall goal is to increase the visibility of your appliance repair company, which means appearing as high up in both of these locations as possible.
When potential customers search for businesses in their area, Google Maps is often one of the first places they'll look. In fact, a study found that 42% of searchers click on the listings inside of Google Maps results. That's why it's so important to make sure your business is appearing as high up in the listing results as possible.
Fortunately, there are a few simple things you can do to improve your ranking:
We'll go into more detail on each of these steps next, and by following them, you can help ensure that your appliance repair business will be seen by the people who matter most—potential customers.
Google Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses, brands, artists, and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.
By verifying and editing your business information, you can both help customers find you and tell them the story of your business.
In addition to being able to control what information about your business appears on Google, verifying your business gives you access to valuable insights into how customers are finding and interacting with your business online.
One of the first and most important things to do once you claim your appliance repair company's Google Business profile is to make sure that your NAP information is up to date and correct.
NAP stands for Name, Address, and Phone number, and it is one of the key factors that search engines use when ranking websites.
If your NAP information is inaccurate, it could hurt your chances of being found online because it tells Google that you might not be reliable. Moreover, if potential customers see that your NAP information is out of date, they may not trust your business.
Therefore, it is essential to keep your NAP information accurate in order to improve your SEO and build trust with potential customers.
The next element of Google Business for appliance repair companies that you should focus on is customer referrals and reviews. Testimonials can be a powerful marketing tool, as they provide potential customers with an opportunity to see what others think of your business, and Google Business provides a place to easily display these reviews.
These reviews can help to build trust and credibility, as potential customers see that your business has a track record of satisfied customers. In addition, testimonials can also be a valuable source of feedback, as you can learn about what people like and don't like about your business.
The best way to acquire more testimonials is to simply ask customers to review your appliance repair business and make it as simple a process as possible. We found that 71% of consumers said they were likely or very likely to provide a review after being satisfied if the company made it easy for them to do so.
One of the most important things you can do for your business is keep your Google Business profile up-to-date.
Your Google Business profile is one of the first things potential customers see when they search for your business, so it’s important to make sure it’s accurate and reflects your current offerings.
You should regularly update your Google Business profile with:
It's also important that you regularly respond to all reviews, good and not-so-good, in order to reassure potential customers that you are dedicated to providing the best customer service possible.
Keeping your Google Business profile up-to-date is also key to maintaining good SEO for your website. Google crawls and indexes Google Business profiles, so the more accurate and up-to-date your profile is, the more likely it is that your website will rank high in search results.
As anyone who has ever tried to search for something online knows, the higher up on the list of results you are, the more likely you are to be clicked on. This is especially true for the first few results, which tend to get the majority of clicks.
In fact, the top organic result is 10 times more likely to receive a click compared to a page in the number 10 spot. This phenomenon is known as the "SERP effect," and it's one of the main reasons why companies invest in SEO.
By optimizing your appliance repair website for popular search terms, you can increase your SERP ranking and get more traffic. It's also important to keep in mind the various ranking factors that Google takes into account when diving into the world of SEO.
In addition to bringing in more visitors, a higher SERP ranking can also have a positive impact on a company's brand image. After all, appearing at the top of the list is a sign that you're an authority on your topic.
User experience has always been a major factor in ranking, but it's become even more important as Google continues to evolve.
In order to rank higher in the SERPs, it's essential that your website performance is optimized for both users and search engines. Here are some key factors to keep in mind:
Consider this: 25% of people report that they will leave a website that takes 4-6 seconds to load. Additionally, 80% of smartphone users will buy from companies with mobile-optimized websites.
That means, if your website is slow to load and/or is not easy to navigate on a mobile phone, you could be missing out on a massive portion of new customers. Plus, Google takes all of this into account when determining how well your site serves customers.
By ensuring that your website meets all of these criteria, you'll be well on your way to earning a higher ranking.
Metadata is the information that appears in the search results, such as the title and description of a page. Pieces of metadata are not displayed on the page, but they are used by search engines and searchers alike to get an idea of what can be found on any given appliance repair webpage.
Because of this, metadata has a significant impact on organic search ranking. That's because Google uses metadata to help determine the topic of a page and how relevant it is to a user's query.
So, if you want your pages to rank well, be sure to include relevant and keyword-rich metadata. It could make all the difference in your organic search ranking.
If you want your website to rank high on search engines, you need to make sure it contains high-quality content. Search engine algorithms are designed to reward websites that offer users valuable, relevant, and well-written information.
There are a few things you can do to ensure your content is working in tandem with your appliance repair SEO strategy:
These elements will help your site stand out from the competition and get noticed by searchers and search engines alike.
Put yourself in the place of a potential customer and imagine what they might be searching for on Google. They could search "appliance repair near me", "oven repairs", or "washing machine leaking". All of these elements are keywords that your appliance repair company can use when building out website content.
Including these keywords and phrases in your website's content makes it more likely that your appliance repair site will be found by people searching for information on the topics you write about.
In addition, keyword-rich content can also help to improve your website's ranking in SERPs because Google is looking for websites that are most likely to answer searchers' questions.
While 24% of small businesses report that keyword research and content planning is their biggest challenge in SEO, if you treat each piece of content as a potential place for keywords you will see success.
If you're having trouble, we recommend using site pages to write focused, keyword-dense content without keyword stuffing.
Example: Dunmanelectric.com
With 40% of consumers stating that being able to read more about a company and their knowledge in their blog would make them more likely to patronize that business, blogging is more important than ever.
Each blog post is another entry point, or door, that potential customers can use to find your appliance repair website. The more doorways you have, the greater the chance that someone will stumble upon your site and become a customer.
When you write a blog post, you create an opportunity to include relevant keywords and phrases that drive more searchers to your site. Plus, Google's algorithms also pay attention to the frequency with which you are blogging, which helps your website rank higher in SERPs.
Blogging gives you a chance to establish yourself as an expert in your industry, which can help build trust and credibility with potential customers. For appliance repair businesses looking to boost SEO, blogging is a crucial step.
The graph above shows the high spike in traffic we saw at Service Direct when we started regularly blogging. It was getting our site in front of so many new people and it will do the same for your appliance repair company.
Earlier, we mentioned backlinks as an important part of SEO. But what exactly are they, and why do they matter?
A backlink is simply a link from one website to another. The more backlinks a website has, the higher it will rank in SERPs because backlinks are seen as a vote of confidence by search engines: if other websites are linking to a site, it must be good.
In addition, backlinks can help to increase traffic to your website by giving people an easy way to find it. So if you're looking to improve your website's SEO, focus on building up your backlink profile. You'll see your SERP ranking improve in no time.
Now that you've done all this work to get your appliance repair website to appear higher in SERPs, your work is done, right? Not quite.
Even if your site is high up on the results page, you still need to do everything you can to encourage searchers to click on your site. The number of searchers who click on your listing is known as your click-through-rate (CTR).
While there are a number of factors that can influence CTR, one often overlooked method is the use of schema markups. Schema markups are a type of code that helps search engines understand the content on your website. By adding schema markups to your website, you can improve your CTRs by making your listings more relevant and informative.
In addition, schema markups can help you take advantage of rich snippets, which are special search results that include additional information about your listing. These snippets can greatly improve your site's CTR and be the final piece of your SEO strategy.
By now you should have a good understanding of what SEO is and how it can help your appliance repair company succeed in the digital age. Keep in mind that there are tons of techniques available to boost your organic search ranking, so don’t feel like you need to do all of them at once.
Start with the tips in this blog and then move on to more complex methods as you get comfortable with SEO. If you want more in-depth tips, be sure to download our appliance repair marketing guide. It’s packed with information on everything you might need to thrive in the digital age as a small business.