What is so important about SEO for roofers?

Even if you’ve only just become a roofer, you probably know how useful social media is for their trade businesses. ‘Pay per click’ online adverts might be bringing in new work. But digital roofer marketing is about much more than using social media.

Looking at search engine optimisation (SEO) should be a fairly easy step for roofs to take their digital marketing further. Roofer SEO can help a business website attract more traffic on a long-term basis.

Think of a social media post as a firework. It blazes brightly, but briefly. Then it’s forgotten.

On the other hand, using SEO services for roofers keeps the spotlight on a trade business website for longer. SEO can be a main plank in your digital marketing plans.

What is roofer SEO?

SEO is a way of driving internet ‘traffic’ to your website. Traffic means the number of people who visit your website.

Roofer SEO helps tradespeople to attract more visitors to their websites. By using SEO for roofers, tradespeople can influence who those visitors are. You do this in the words you use on your website.

SEO methods get website pages to rank more highly in internet search engines, like Google or Bing. It works based on the keywords that people use in their searches.

If you include these keywords – or phrases –on your website pages then people searching them are more likely to find your business.

• For example, what would someone living in Leeds with a leaky roof do?
• They are likely to put something like ‘roofer in Leeds’ into a search engine to get help.
• If you are a Leeds-based roofer, then including the most commonly used search words in your website should mean it shows up in their searches.

Another term you may come across is SERP, or search engine results page. That’s what a Google search creates. And you want your business to appear as high up as possible.

Benefits of roofer SEO

• Brings more people to your website
• Gets your business noticed
• Builds a larger audience of customers and potential customers
• Tells people about your skills and experience. With the right content, you can build up your reputation as an expert in the roofing trade
• Targets your local market
• Use free SEO software for your website

If you think your website could do with an update to benefit more from SEO then help is at hand. Avoiding common mistakes on trade business websites includes making the most of SEO.

SEO services for roofers

For roofer SEO to be really effective, you need to keep up with the most current keywords and make sure they appear on your website.

There are plenty of free SEO software tools available if you look online. These can be ideal for small business as they give you a no-expense foot on the SEO ladder.

This should get you going on keyword optimisation for roofer SEO. You’ll also be able to generate information on visits to your website. It’s called analytics, so you can see things like unique visitors and how long people spent on different web pages.

Content creation

In the world of SEO, you’ll hear plenty of talk about content. This means the words you use on your web pages.

Visitors to a website don’t want to see exactly the same content every time. They’ll stop visiting if there isn’t something new to digest.

Regular blog posts are a simple way to keep fresh content flowing on your website. Blogs are also a great way to engage with your audience. You can use the content to demonstrate your experience and professionalism.

Useful blogs with roofer SEO could talk about common problems people have with roofs. They would also include tips and advice for homeowners about their roofs.

You’ll need to think about a content creation plan so your website stays fresh. This will also require regular reviews of keywords that will boost SEO for new web pages.

Keyword phrases don’t necessarily need to be short. You can make it quite long to be more detailed, which is helpful if you want to reach a smaller targeted audience. For example, repairing certain types of roof tiles.

There are plenty of content providers if you do an online search for them. Some offer free content creation templates.

Top tip on roofer marketing using SEO

While SEO is all about including keywords relevant to your trade there is a downside. If you cram your content with keywords then search engines might spot this.

Search engines can see if the content looks unnatural – and doesn’t actually answer the searcher’s question. It can result in your web pages not appearing as high as they could in searches. So, be careful in how you use keywords.

Link building

SEO services for roofers also include help linking your web pages to others. Link building is another important part of successful SEO.

When a search engine ranks web pages it also looks at links between pages. Links, or hyperlinks (also called URLs) can be within your website or to other websites.

Hyperlinks are the unique digital addresses of web pages. As you can see, we’ve included some in this article.

By including links, the internet search engine (Google, Bing etc) will locate your web page via links to other pages.

Some links are better (or stronger) than others. For example, as a roofer, you should think about linking your pages to websites about roofing.

Tips to improve SEO ranking

To help improve your website’s ranking on search engines remember to include:

• Your address, so the location of your business appears on online maps. This helps link you to people searching locally
• Your phone number and email contacts
• Your opening hours
• Photos
• Reviews by customers

Use Checkatrade to boost your local SEO

By joining Checkatrade you get a well-optimised profile page and the chance to receive new customers from our content. We won’t replace your SEO agency but are a great low-cost way for you to get more customers from search engines with Checkatrade acting as an intermediary.

Getting a membership with Checkatrade means that you’ll show up for local searches too!

Going back to our earlier example, when someone does search for “roofers in Leeds”, guess who shows up?

Key takeaways

• Roofer marketing plans can benefit from including roofer SEO as a central plank for the business website
• Roofer SEO, when done effectively, can bring in more customers
• SEO services for roofers can be tailored to match exactly how a trade business wants to operate
• Using an SEO specialist to help you can be a cost-effective way to win more business
• Keep it local: if you want to attract customers in your area, use SEO to emphasise where you are based as well as what you do