Website Leads For Contractors Near Me?
Website leads are what we all want!
I was searching for contractors near me in Naples Fl and found a few contractor websites lacking proper SEO content for website leads generation. When you get right down to it content is king when it comes to getting found on Google, Bing, Yahoo, and even Ask.com.
Of course, a website’s performance is critical too but, I have worked on many websites where they were loading as slow as 5 to 7 seconds and were still able to hold their position on page one in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs). In my opinion SEO content still prevails over page speed when it comes to established high-quality content websites that have a history. But with newer and eCommerce sites optimizing your website’s core vitals for page speed, is critical since the latest algorithm release (June 2021).
If your website loads slower than 3 seconds, especially for mobile then this could have a negative effect on conversions. In other words, no one will stick around and wait for your page to load unless the reason why they’re there is for high-quality content. Most likely you’re here to learn how to write SEO content and if you sign up for any of this websites notifications you will get these tips as I publish them.
What is content optimization?
Content optimization is about creating content that is understandable to search engines. It’s known as “high-quality content” or SEO content. There are certain steps that you need to take to optimize your content for organic search and rankability. It’s not likely every page can be fully optimized but you want it as close as possible.
Website Leads come when your website’s content is search-friendly. What’s important is directing Google and all search engines to what your website, pages, and posts, are about. Pages are static content that does not change often so adding a blog to your website is ideal for dynamic content which Google loves. A blog is like a journal where you write about your daily business and or personal day depending on what your website is used for.
When branding yourself today and your blog is part of your website it’s best practice to stay within the subject matter of your website. For example, you can’t have a website that’s focused on a roofing business and add a page about travel insurance. Entries that you publish are called “Posts” and when new posts are added it keeps the search engines busy with updating and indexing the new content for the search engine results pages (SERPs).
But what’s current today could be outdated tomorrow depending on what’s trending and getting searched. It’s a continuum that doesn’t rest and why “blog posts” are a good way to keep search engines coming back to “crawl” your website. You see every time you add or update something on your website it triggers search engines to send bots to crawl your website so they can add or update what you have already indexed on the internet.
Each time you publish a new post or page that is one more page that gets indexed on the internet and another source of web traffic. The more you have the better your chances are of getting found in the SERPs, but remember blog posts are dynamic and will prevail over pages unless of course, you update the page which I will cover in another post.
You can also bring visitors/subscribers back to your website with notifications via automation whether it is with a newsletter, push notifications (SMS), or an RSS feed. However, there are specific things you need to know about to tell the search engines how to index your updates or new posts.
It’s not uncommon for those who do not know how to optimize their website content for SEO/SEM to generate website leads. It really isn’t as difficult as you might think and could be why you are here reading this.
Simply put if the content is not optimized for SEO, or organic search, commonly known as Search Engine Marketing (SEM) then your website just will not perform well for getting the internet traffic you need to turn conversions into website leads for your business, art sales, events, storefronts or whatever the case may be.
Read SEO and Marketing
How do I write SEO content?
High-quality content needs to be helpful, informative, systematic, and compelling for a good user experience (UX)
This takes me back to when I first started working with WordPress in 2003. Not a lot was known about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) as King Google was only 5 years old and Matt Cutts was still experimenting with search and still discovering that those are not tootsie rolls he’s finding in the proverbial sandbox.
A lot of progress has been made both good and bad that have affected how websites are indexed and found over the years. Thousands of websites lost page rank because of these changes and many never recovered. Back then it was a free-for-all and put thousands of online businesses out of business as the quality of content became more in demand.
Who knew that what was working then would be called Semantic Search only to come full circle to what it is today. Structured high-quality content has not changed in the way it should be written however it’s the low-quality poorly written content that will suffer in the SERPs and page rank and will not be found unless you pay for it.
There is an excellent book about Semantic Search by David Amerland who is an authority on the subject that I would recommend reading to get more in-depth information, history, and the future of search and where it’s going I believe.
Actually, there’s no silver bullet to getting website leads but with the use of short-tail keyword phrases like contractors near me, it is possible to get a good position on the first page within the SERPs.
Google and other search engines need to be told what your content is about and if it’s all over the place with different and unrelated topics then it makes it difficult for the search engines to index your website to a specific place in the SERPs. Using a keyword phrase that is searched regularly with Google, Bing, Yahoo, and even Ask.com, such as contractors near me is a broad term that will get general results
As a “short tail keyword phrase” this can create a directive to a more specific keyword term known as a “long-tail keyword phrase” if you add another searched keyword like “Roofing” you then have “Roofing contractors near me”.
This result will certainly narrow your search down but only to roofing contractors in general which can be anywhere, but search engines are smart enough to generalize the search term for your area but that could be within a 100 mile radius or more.
To add a location, specific to your market area or local SEO I would add my location to the term (i.e. mine is Naples Fl), and now you would have;
Naples Fl Roofing Contractors Near Me
This obviously would be a long-tail keyword phrase but if you look closely at it there are 3 things that make this phrase a great title for a post that makes this work;
- “Contractors near me” is a highly searched short tail keyword phrase.
- “Roofing” is another well-searched keyword and when added it’s now a long-tail keyword phrase.
- “Naples Fl,” gives the long-tail keyword phrase a location and anchors it for local SEO
Creating a systematically organized post directs not only the search engines to what your post is about but also creates a great user experience (UX)
Of course, there are many other things that attribute to high-quality content for posts and pages but realize that these are two different types of content in regards to Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and SEM. It’s typically done the same way but it’s a bit more detailed for page content. But first, let’s focus on the blog post since over time this will be the majority of your content and how you will bring organic web traffic to convert into website leads or sales.
Because blogs are dynamic with the consistent posting of high-quality content search engines will increase your page rank and put you in the SERPs quickly. Every time a blog post is published it triggers the search engines to send out bots to “crawl” the new or updated page. So it’s important that you write the post in a way that makes it topic-specific and keyword-focused in ways that work best for you and your market but again it should stay consistent and systematic throughout the website.
For example, if you use italics (what I use) to decorate your keyword phrases then dedicate the italics to the keywords phrases throughout the post. You can italicize other keywords but keep them low because you want your post focused on one topic. Consistency makes Google happy and when the bots crawl your site the decorated text is predominant over paragraph text.
HTML tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) directs the journey and decorated text directs to details, and finally, the paragraph is of course the details.
So now that we have “Naples roofing contractors near me” not only does it anchor the search down to a point-specific term but it also nails down the location which converts to “local SEO”. This enables the search engines to pinpoint what the viewer is looking for and then will show all the roofing contractors who have optimized their website content properly to appear on page one in the SERPs.
This is just an example but the more consistent you are using short and long-tail keyword phrases the more you will appear in the searches.
How do I optimize my content?
This is the $20,000 question because there are many ways that this can be done but once you have come up with a system you must stay consistent with it every time you publish a blog post, a new website page, Notice that the keyword phrase contractors near me are written in a couple of different ways but still consistent in the sense that the terms are what’s called “text-decoration”. Some are bolded, others are bolded and italicized and others are just italicized.
This is a technique that I have used personally for the last 18 years for websites that I owned, designed, and optimized to perform not only for myself but also for my clients. What I do as part of my web design service is I teach my clients how to write their posts effectively so they get “conversions”. Of course, there are other factors involved to get a post on the first page in the search engine results but understanding the basics and power of keyword phrases is the first step and this is part of my web design consultations. Here’s a bit more on what you should know about consultations
What are conversions?
For conversions, you need an SEO strategy. In short a conversion is when your website visitors take action on what you want them to do, whether you are just collecting email addresses for a newsletter or you are trying to sell a service or a product for example I sell website listings for artists on The Creatives Daily Presents. When you click on the image or link that is a conversion which then turns into website leads.
The whole point of your website whether you are an artist, roofing contractor, painter, doctor, an eCommerce site, or whatever the case may be is to convert visitors into website leads and sales.
Website leads are a result of a conversion here are a few;
1). Sign-up
Is generally the first conversion to get visitors to sign up for your email list. This usually consists of a newsletter, RSS feed, or in some cases which are becoming more popular is “Push Notifications”
2). Form Submission
Like in our case above about “contractors near me” we would want to get our visitors to submit a contact form which would need to be easily accessible to them because the whole reason they are on your site is that your website was easily found on the first page of the SERPs as a result of well your content was optimized. Contractors, artists, doctors, brick and mortar businesses whatever the case may be as long as your content is optimized it works for everyone.
3). Button/Link Click
Say you have just published a new post and there is a new service, product, gallery showing or maybe you are holding a webinar and want to invite those on your mailing list and/or social media platforms. Then you would want what’s called a “button/link click”. You then would write your content focusing on that “call to action” (CTA) and in most cases, you would offer that link or button as a means for your website lead to click on to take them to another page post, sign up form or even another website.
4). Account Creation
Is typical at the checkout process when making a purchase of a product, service and in some cases when gaining a membership. This conversion could even be a requirement. such as medical websites, utility companies, ticket purchasing websites, car rentals, etc. It seems these days that you need to create an account on any website when it comes to this conversion.
4). Shares
Share conversions are when someone shares your page/post content with others through social media, email, or forwarding a newsletter. When your content is compelling and informative visitors will share it across the web. This is great for gaining backlinks to your website which increases website trust and eventually shows Google that your website has quality content. I always add share buttons at the bottom of the websites I design for artists and contractors alike to give the user a good a “User Experience” or UX.
5). Contests
Everyone loves contests especially if it results in a free product, download, discount, or giveaway. Depending on your market or your service you can get website leads from visitors that sign up.
6). Rating a product or reviews
Reviews and product ratings are relative to word-of-mouth advertising. They boost your product’s description and creates trust in what it is your offering. A positive experience builds confidence with the consumers will increase your conversions and is a valuable asset for your SEO strategy.
7). Live Chat
This one is great for website lead generation. Live Chat has made an enormous impact online and offline for businesses large or small. Consumers nowadays want instant gratification and since I have added live chat to a few of my clients’ websites their conversion rates have increased in some cases as much as 30 to 35% especially in niche-specific markets.
In Conclusion;
These are only a few conversion ideas for website leads some may work for you and others will not. You just need to do your keyword research and find the ones that work for your market. If you build your post titles based on your search and use them as I have shown you here you will already be ahead of your competition but it doesn’t stop here
There is of course more to optimizing your content for SEO than what I have covered so far however if you get David Amerland’s book Google Semantic Search and put these strategies in place I think you will see an increase in website leads and conversions.
There is much more to cover and I will be posting more on how to reach a good position using organic search for search engine marketing you may want to sign up for my newsletter below.
If you need help with your website, just whistle 😉
Until next time…
