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How to use SEO to grow your business.
An interview with Andy Walker, Founder of Stryker Digital.
Bryan Shankman
April 25, 2024
Welcome to this week’s edition of The Workbench, a resource-rich weekly newsletter and podcast for home service business owners.
In addition to writing The Workbench, I am building a SaaS tool for home services businesses, and I am EXTREMELY excited to announce that ToolDesk is now available on the Jobber App Marketplace!
If you’re using Jobber to power your home services business, install ToolDesk today to use marketing automation to get more customers, get quotes approved faster, get invoices paid quicker, and more.
ToolDesk in Jobber
For this week’s newsletter, I had a great conversation with Andy Walker, Founder of Stryker Digital.
Stryker Digital helps home service businesses grow organic leads and accelerate revenue growth through a proven SEO strategy.
In my conversation with Andy, we covered everything you need to know to improve your website’s SEO to start ranking on Google and getting leads.
Before we dive into the nitty gritty, here is a quick overview of SEO.
What is SEO?
SEO, or Search Engine Optimization, is the practice of enhancing a website to improve its visibility when people search for products or services related to the business in search engines like Google.
The goal is to increase organic traffic to the website by optimizing content, structure, and on-page elements like keywords, meta tags, and links, making it more appealing to search engine algorithms.
For home services, this means ensuring that when people search for [your service] in [your service area], you are one of the first options they see on Google and Google Maps.
The 9 Key Takeaways
Below are the 9 most essential insights from my conversation with Andy that you can apply to your home services business today.
1. The Three Big Factors for Successful SEO
Andy reiterated the three crucial components of a successful SEO strategy for home services:
Content
Backlinks
Reviews
So, to boost your website's ranking on Google:
Create relevant, location-specific content
Obtain high-quality backlinks from reputable sources
Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews regularly
For local SEO, the big three elements to focus on are your content, your backlinks, and your Google reviews. Each one is critical in enhancing your website's authority and visibility to potential customers in your area. Properly balancing these elements can significantly boost your online presence and searchability.
2. Common Mistakes to Avoid When Doing SEO
Highlighting common errors, Andy warns against prioritizing quantity over quality in SEO tactics.
It’s essential to ensure that backlinks are from credible sites and that the content is abundant but also tailored and relevant.
Avoiding shortcuts and unethical practices is necessary to maintain the integrity and effectiveness of your SEO strategy.
The biggest mistake I see is people focusing too much on the quantity of backlinks or content without considering the quality. Another error is ignoring the potential penalties from spammy practices, which can severely harm your SEO efforts and credibility.
3. Why You Need Pages For Every Location
Andy emphasizes the importance of targeted and localized content and the crucial role that location-specific pages on your website play in SEO performance.
Having location-specific pages with content describing your business's services ensures Google accurately indexes your business information and increases its visibility in local search queries.
For example, a plumber looking for clients outside of Austin might have a web page titled “Plumbing - Dripping Springs,” with details that specifically resonate with Dripping Springs residents, another page titled “Plumbing - Driftwood,” with details that resonate with Driftwood residents, and so on.
Providing detailed and relevant information on individual pages tailored for specific locations and services significantly draws potential customers from those areas.
For effective SEO, it's imperative that Google understands exactly what your business is about—where you operate and what specific services you offer. Our approach involves detailed content creation unique to each location and service because that’s what effectively feeds the SEO beast. By including local keywords, region-specific services, and linking out to relevant local resources, we help ensure that our web pages fully resonate with both search engines and local clientele.
4. Building Credibility with Backlinks
Andy highlights the need for securing authoritative backlinks, akin to professional endorsements, to enhance a website's SEO.
It’s recommended to prioritize securing a smaller number of high-quality links over a large volume of low-quality links, which significantly bolsters their site's credibility and search engine ranking.
Quality backlinks should ideally come from reputable and relevant websites to your industry.
Backlinks are like third-party endorsements for your website. However, quality trumps quantity. You do not need thousands of irrelevant links, but those few credible ones from respected sites can boost your SEO standings. It's like getting a strong recommendation in a job application scenario.
Effective methods for obtaining these backlinks include creating valuable content that inspires others to naturally link to your website, participating in industry communities, and guest posting on reputable websites.
This strategic approach ensures each backlink enhances your site's authority, improving your SEO profile and visibility.
5. Why Reviews Matter for SEO
Andy emphasizes the critical role of customer reviews in enhancing both a home service business's credibility and its SEO performance.
Positive and regular customer reviews affirm the business's activity and trustworthiness and improve its visibility in search engine results.
Be proactive in encouraging customers to leave reviews, which reflect the ongoing quality and reliability of your services and will attract more local clients by boosting search rankings.
Regular and authentic reviews signal to Google your business’s active engagement and reliability, enhancing your visibility in local searches. It's important also to note the value of recent reviews. They reflect the current state of your business and show prospective customers that your service quality is consistent and trustworthy. This proof from real customers builds trust towards new clients and feeds into a positive cycle of increased search rankings and business growth.
6. The Best Website Builders for SEO
Andy highlights the best tools for building a website in the home services sector. Because of their SEO-friendly features, Andy recommends:
Webflow
WordPress
WordPress and Webflow offer easier content management, better page speed, and effective site structuring, significantly contributing to a website’s SEO success.
When setting up websites for optimal SEO performance, our preferred platforms are WordPress and Webflow. These platforms provide the flexibility and extensive SEO functionalities crucial for structuring a user-friendly and optimized site for search engines.
7. Structuring an SEO-Optimized Website
An SEO-optimized website is essential for a home service business's online visibility.
Key elements include a logical site hierarchy, clean URL structures, and optimized meta tags, facilitating easy search engine crawling and indexing.
A mobile-responsive design and effective internal linking enhance user experience and search rankings. This integrated approach boosts visibility and helps convert visitors into customers.
Building a website that’s optimized for SEO involves more than just creating content; it involves structuring it in a way that search engines can understand and analyze easily. Every element from the site map to metadata plays a crucial role in how effectively search engines can index and rank your site.
8. Essential Tools for SEO Success
Andy emphasizes the critical role of SEO tools such as AHREFs and SEMrush, which provide comprehensive analytics that guides strategic decisions to better understand their search engine standings and make informed adjustments.
These tools help identify what terms customers use to find services, track how well the business ranks for these terms, and understand how different SEO tactics impact overall performance. By leveraging these insights, businesses can focus their efforts more effectively and improve their SEO results.
Utilizing tools like AHREFs and SEMrush provides the insights necessary to continually tweak and refine our SEO strategies. These tools are indispensable for understanding competitive landscapes, tracking keyword rankings, analyzing backlink profiles, and identifying SEO health issues.
9. SEO Is A Long-Term Game
Andy stresses the long-term nature of effective SEO, setting realistic expectations for business owners about the time frame required to observe significant results.
He highlights that achieving and maintaining high search engine rankings necessitates persistent effort and a strategic, ongoing approach.
SEO success usually unfolds over six to twelve months, based on factors like market competitiveness and the original state of the website's SEO.
This understanding underscores the need for patience and consistent application of SEO tactics, which supports sustainable business growth over time.
SEO isn’t an overnight success but a long-term strategy. It requires patience, consistency, and a true partnership between the service provider and the client to yield the most impactful results. Remember, the efforts you put in today might not show until several months down the line, but they are crucial for establishing a resilient online presence.
Wow! You made it to the end; thanks for sticking with us.
The full interview with Andy is available on YouTube below, Spotify here, and Apple Podcasts here.