Why is SEO for Electricians Important
Eventually, everyone needs an electrician. As we approach 2024, there are a lot more people working from home, putting additional wear and tear on their homes leading to an increased need for electrical services. Those seeking out electrical services need to be able to quickly and easily find you. SEO for electricians allows you to position your electrical business right in front of potential clients looking for your electrical services.
Google spends a great deal of time and resources to learn and understand what makes a web page high quality. SEO for electricians consists of recommendations from Google on how to improve your website. These improvements make your website easier for searchers to find. When SEO is properly implemented, we ensure a high-quality experience for the potential clients viewing your website. As Google recognizes these changes, your website will rank better, attracting more visitors.
Algorithm Updates
Google updates its algorithm as often as 10-15 times per week. These updates impact who ranks where in the search results. It is of the utmost importance to stay aware of and ahead of these algorithm updates to avoid losing visibility and position. Moz publishes an up-to-date log of Google’s algorithm updates.
Additional Benefits of SEO for Electricians:
- Improves user experience
- Improves conversion rate
- Increases the number of visitors to your website
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Understanding SEO for Electricians
SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization” or “search engine optimizer.” In this case, an SEO is a person or agency providing optimization services for your electrician services website. Hiring someone to optimize your electrical contracting website can have a profoundly positive impact on your rankings, which in turn increases the success of your business. Conversely, the wrong search engine optimizer can cause damage to your site, which jeopardizes your Google ranking.
Google has created a support page that guides business owners through the process of hiring their ideal optimizer. We always recommend you follow Google’s recommendation on hiring a professional SEO. Watch this video to learn Google’s perspective on hiring an SEO specialist.
What is White Hat Vs. Black Hat SEO?
When performing a search engine optimization one can choose to follow Google recommendations or one can choose to attempt to ‘trick’ Google in an effort to bolster rankings. Search engine optimizers who follow Google recommendations (AKA ‘Webmaster Guidelines’) are considered White Hat. Those SEO companies or individuals who try to trick Google’s algorithms are considered “Black Hat.”
At Spark Rankings, we are white hat all the way! We firmly believe that working with Google provides you with better, long-lasting results. Google gives us the tools needed to help you achieve optimal search results. Working with them is only logical.
Webmaster Guidelines
VIDEO: Webmaster Guidelines by Google
The foundation for our process is based on information directly from Google. They’ve released an article listing 4 steps to a Google-friendly site. By following the advice given to us by Google, we make your website easily accessible to those who need it.
4 Steps to a Google-friendly Site
- Give visitors the information they’re looking for.
- Make sure that other sites link to yours.
- Make your website easily accessible.
- Things to avoid.
Give visitors the information they’re looking for.
Google suggests that providing high-quality content on your homepage is the most important thing. You should provide in-depth information and informative content based on the things your clients are searching for. Tracking and measuring the results of your content will help you understand what people are looking for.
Understanding what your clients are searching for is covered in our Keyword Research section below. Implementing this content is found in Onsite Implementation. Creating and structuring this content is found in recurring (Monthly) SEO.
Make sure that other sites link to yours.
Google suggests link building to improve your ranking. Even though Google has made this recommendation, link building can be a very tricky and sometimes dangerous activity. It will not harm you physically, but – if done incorrectly – it is a quick way to get penalized by Google. Done the right way, you can improve your rankings and drive quality traffic to your site.
Make your website easily accessible.
Google is a computer that uses machine intelligence called ‘RankBrain’. Having a logical link structure and a fast, easily crawlable site helps Google gather your information. The easier Google can gather your information, the faster it can determine how to rank your site.
Things to avoid.
Do not try to trick Google. They want to put the best results in front of the searcher. The best way to be the best result is to BE the best result. Check out this article about the six things electricians should avoid when doing SEO.
Local SEO Guidelines for Electricians
Local SEO is focused on ranking a website or webpage based on the searcher’s location. Google experiences a high volume of webspam from black hat SEO individuals attempting to rank locally.
For electricians, local SEO is extremely important. Most who are in need of an electrician will need one who is nearby. By using local SEO guidelines we can rank your electrical contracting business in a given service area.
Searcher Intent
When performing SEO, it is important to understand the searcher’s intent. In other words, why do they go to Google to search? Ranking for the wrong keywords or providing an answer to the wrong question can have a negative impact on the overall SEO of your website.
Additionally, a misguided SEO campaign can be costly and have a negative return on investment when you misaligned the search intent.
Understanding Website Goals
For electricians, websites can be lead generators as well as reputation boosters. With these goals in mind, we optimize the website to attract the right visitors. We also ensure the content they find when they land on your site has the desired impact.
How Search Engines Work: Crawling, Indexing, and Ranking
Having a basic understanding of how search engines work can help you understand how SEO can benefit your website.
How Search Engines Work
Here is a guide, published by Google, explaining how search engines work: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/
Crawling
Google explains how they crawl all the websites on the internet to create a Search Index: https://www.google.com/search/howsearchworks/crawling-indexing/
Indexing
When crawlers find a webpage, Google’s systems render the content of the page, just as a browser does. Google takes note of key signals and keeps track of it all in the Search index.
Ranking
Google ranks your webpage to appear in the SERPS based on the relevance of the content to the searcher and their intent
Keyword Research
It is important to be clear about what services you want to be found for and to understand what your ideal client is searching for. There are two main areas of keywords we want to focus on:
- Core site keywords (aka ‘Head Terms’)
- Content keywords (aka ‘Long-Tail Terms’)
Core Keywords
Core site keywords (head terms) will be set up for all of your website’s main pages. The goal is to have consistency across your site. This allows Google, as well as your users, to resonate with your site.
SEO for electricians is primarily local SEO. Local SEO means that you want to rank your head terms or keyword phrases for local or location-based terms.
Keyword Planner Tool
There are several ways to discover your core keywords. Google tells us what keywords are searched the most in their free Adwords Keyword Planner Tool. Use this tool to discover the best keywords with the highest volume to attract the most traffic to your site. This tool will also give you ideas on what people are searching for and how they are phrasing it.
Generally, if you are a location-based business you will have your city or region + your product or service as your main site keyword (Ex: Seattle electrician).
We have compiled a list of the 114 best keywords for electricians.
Long-tail Keywords
The content keywords (long-tail) are those keywords that will rank within your blog. Content keywords drive traffic to your site through your blog. When people do specific searches related to your electrical services, these long-tail keywords will rank.
For example, an electrical shop that tends to get more searches by homeowners experiencing problems with their light switches may blog about troubleshooting light switches. This blog then becomes the most valuable and profitable part of your site.
Google’s keyword planner tool will also give you ideas for blog topics. Using it helps us discover keywords that we want to rank for that are smaller, lower volume, long-tail keywords. These then become the topics of our blog posts, custom category pages, and silo pages.
There are several methods and resources to discover content keywords. Ideally, we are looking for content ideas that provide value to your target client. We look for ideas that are trending, popular, and widely shared.
There is an endless supply of blog content topic ideas, but we achieve the most success when we stay focused on the overall goal of the site.
Research Tools
Here are a few of my favorite tools we use to discover content ideas:
- Answer the Public: https://answerthepublic.com
- Buzz Sumo: https://buzzsumo.com
- AHREFS: https://ahrefs.com
Competitor Analysis
Once we have your keywords figured out, we’ll take a look at the competition. The best way to discover your true SEO competition is to search for the keywords we’ve identified. The websites on page one for those target keywords are your competition.
They have the coveted spot that you want. A true analysis of the competition requires another tool. I recommend using the Moz Bar Chrome or Firefox extension. It’s a free tool that uncovers the SEO aspects of any website.
Onsite Optimization
When performing onsite implementation, also known as on-page SEO, there are specific elements that impact your SEO. These elements need to be formatted in a very specific way. There are many platforms available with varying pros and cons when it comes to SEO.
Content/Body Copy
It’s important to take a look at your body copy for each page. You want to make sure you always have a minimum of 300 words on each page. The more words – the better, but if you can meet the minimum of 300, you’re doing well. Be intentional and descriptive in your copy.
A rule of thumb that we use is the 3-paragraph rule. It just takes three good paragraphs to get the 300-word count. So for example, you could do three paragraphs about a recent electrical project. Google wants to be able to read the first couple of sentences of your post and know exactly what it is going to be about.
Begin your blog with a brief summary paragraph, integrated with all your keywords. For electricians, this would be the type of project, some form of the word electricity, the business or residential area, city, state. Check out these blogging tools for electricians to help improve your content.
URL Structure
Next is the permalink, also known as the slug or URL. Automatically the entire title is put as the permalink but you can customize it to be whatever you want. In the example below, I’m going to simply copy and paste these first two sections of the title. Once you click “OK”, it automatically formats it by taking out the spaces and caps, etc. The reason we take out the third section is that we don’t want it to be too long.
Title Tags
Title tags (aka Page titles) are a core element of on-page SEO. Title tags are used in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP). This is one of the few signals we can control in the SERPs. Page titles tell Google and visitors what a page is about. A proper title will compel searchers to click on your result over others in the SERPS.
Here are some parameters you should follow when crafting Page Titles:
- Describe your business in a concise, informative phrase
- Needs to be unique for EACH page
- Keep the character count between 30-65
- Use title case
- Include your business name (Core Pages)
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are used by Google in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages). Electricians use meta descriptions to provide a brief summary of what a user may find on the page being described.
Here are some parameters you should follow when crafting Meta Descriptions:
- Describe what users may find on the page
- Needs to be unique for EACH page
- Keep the character count between 70-165
- Use sentence case
- Include your keyword for the page, your business name, location (if a local business), and a call to action.
Header Tags
When writing content paragraphs, you want to have H2 Tags. This titles each paragraph so your reader can easily navigate your post and decide what section they want to read. It also adds the H2 to the coding, creating another way to get some keywords in for Google to recognize.
To do an H2 tag ,you just highlight the text you want, make sure that the “toolbar toggle” is clicked, change it to “Heading 2” and that’s it! We have more information on how electricians use header tags in our blog.
Alternative Text (Alt Text)
Let’s look into the settings of your images. You want to make sure all of your images have alt text. Alt text serves several different purposes. If the photo cannot load for some reason, the alt text is what will show up in its place to let the viewer know what is supposed to be loading. Also, it adds it into the coding of the image and Google can pull from that for a Google image search.
Technical SEO
Technical SEO focuses on a website’s coding, structure and architecture to improve the readability of the website. This is done by examining the backend of a website to see how each webpage is “technically” set up and if Google can crawl the website. Hubspot says, “Google cares as much about the code of a website as it does its content, making this specialty quite important to a website’s search engine ranking.”
Website Set-up
The way your website is set up can have an impact on your ability to rank competitively. Your hosting, security settings, and caching are all important factors Google considers when scoring your website.
Speed
Website load speed can have a profound impact on user experience, site quality, and conversion rates. A faster website performs better. When trying to attract a customer to your electrical business, speed is of the essence. Here is a video by Google’s Search Team about page speed and how it affects your SEO.
Core Web Vitals
Core Web Vitals is an initiative by Google to provide unified guidance for quality signals that are essential to delivering a great user experience on the web. The metrics that makeup Core Web Vitals will evolve over time. The current set for 2022 focuses on three aspects of the user experience—loading, interactivity, and visual stability—and includes the following metrics (and their respective thresholds):
- Largest Contentful Paint (LCP): measures loading performance. To provide a good user experience, LCP should occur within 2.5 seconds of when the page first starts loading.
- First Input Delay (FID): measures interactivity. To provide a good user experience, pages should have a FID of 100 milliseconds or less.
- Cumulative Layout Shift (CLS): measures visual stability. To provide a good user experience, pages should maintain a CLS of 0.1. or less.
Link Building and Authority Building
Links & EAT
EAT stands for Expertise Authority and Trustworthiness. When another website links to your website (or a page on your website), that link sends a signal of Trustworthiness about your website or page. You’ll need both internal and external or inbound and outbound links throughout your site. External or outbound links are links to another website.
You can simply read through your text and look for keywords that might link to a website and use that link on your site. For example, it’s likely that the city you are located in has their own website you can link to.
An electrical product you commonly use may have its own website that could be linked. Another place to look would be the website for any certification boards in the electrical industry.
Then there are internal or inbound links. These are links within your own site. You can type out a sentence referencing other similar posts. Link up to them by selecting the text you want, clicking to add a link, then do the drop down “Link to existing content” and select the post or page you want to link to.
Building Links
Links to a website comprises the largest part of how Google’s algorithm determines who outranks who. The more relevant and authoritative links you have to your website, the better you will rank.
‘Link’ is short for ‘hyperlink.’ It’s how people navigate the Internet. Search Engines also use links to navigate (or ‘crawl’). Search engines like Google, use links to discover new web pages and to help determine how well a web page should rank in their results.
Essentially, links are a vote from the link source. Search Engines use them to determine authority. Additionally, links will also provide traffic to your site.
Citations
Citations are links that you get to your website from other sources. Some examples of citations are Yahoo, Google My Business, and MapQuest. Citations give Google an opportunity to peruse the entire web and find other sources that validate you. Google wants to verify that your electrical business is actually an operating business.
Unfortunately, there are plenty of nefarious, negative things people like to do with SEO like trying to spam or trying to find a way to illegitimately get into the search results.
When you’re building citations, it’s important to have broad coverage of several citation sources. We are allowed to use citations to disseminate those trust signals throughout the web so that we can have a variety of sources pointing back to back to your electrical business. You’ll want to find core citations for your electrical business, then build the citations to be accurate and correct.
Make sure that you have your name, address, and phone number mentioned in all citations. The name of your business, the address of your business (actual physical address), and the phone number need to be consistent on all citations. Additionally, anytime you create citations, they need to be tracked and logged so that if you ever need to change it, you can go back and update the citation so it remains consistent.
From time to time, you might move your business, you may change a phone number, or you might even slightly change the name of your business. When Google starts seeing different phone numbers in different locations throughout your site, it diminishes trust. Consistency is key.
Video: Citations for Electricians:
Video about citations for electricians.
Measuring, Prioritizing, and Executing SEO
It is important for electricians to properly measure the success of their SEO campaigns. Search engine optimization takes time and money to execute properly. It is best to have an understanding of the effects of your search engine optimization campaign on your sales and revenue.
If your SEO campaign is unsuccessful and costly, you will not have a positive return on your investment. Ideally, you are making more money than you are spending on SEO.
SEO Goals to Measure
The ultimate goal to measure for any search engine optimization campaign is revenue as a result of organic searches. This means you can directly attribute revenue to your website’s appearance in the search results.
Prioritizing SEO Improvements
You should review the success or failures of your SEO campaign and decide on which improvements to prioritize. The recommendation is to prioritize improvements that will increase revenue.
Executing SEO
Once you have measured and prioritized SEO actions, it is time to implement the optimizations onto your website.
SEO Glossary
- Alt Text – Descriptions of images on a web page. Also known as “Alternative Text.” It is an accessibility feature originally created for the blind.
- Canonical Tags – Tags used to give precedence between multiple, often similar, pieces of content.
- CDN – Content Delivery Network. A CDN is an alternative method to deliver images to a web browser.
- Domain Authority – (DA) is a website metric developed by Moz. It is one of the most important numbers known to SEOs. The greater your DA, the more likely you are to have strong traffic and high rank.
- H1 (Header Tag) – Visible version of the page title.
- Links – clickable text or images that lead to another page or resource on the internet.
- Meta Description – A short description of the content of the page often used in the SERPS.
- Meta Robots – Tags or text files used to allow or disallow Google from crawling or indexing specific pages or resources on a website.
- Page Title – The main title of any given web page. A page title should describe what the page is about often used in the SERPS.
- Schema – Schema markup is code (semantic vocabulary) that you put on your website to help the search engines return more informative results for users. If you’ve ever used rich snippets, you’ll understand exactly what schema markup is all about. Here’s an example of a local business that has the markup on its event schedule page. You can find more info at https://schema.org.
- SERPS – Search Engine Results Page
- URL – Uniform Resource Locator