Want more construction projects? Master these SEO basics

Construction firms want more leads? But are often reliant on costly Google Ads - so effectively have to pay over the odds to get them and once the ad tap is turned off those leads stop. But, there is another way to drive traffic to your website for free, and if then have engaging, compelling content that helps customers find you and turn from warm into hot leads who want to buy from you. This process starts with SEO - Search Engine Optimisation.

How Google ranks your website will impact where your construction company appears in Google Search rankings. SEO is a great way to drive traffic to your website 24/7 and as a result build brand awareness of your building firm and potential projects.

If you want to get more leads via SEO, it is important to understand that a lot of SEO is going to be not just down to your actual content, but also doing the back-end (meta tagging, headings, keywords) performance related basics to also help to improve your rankings. You need to do the little things consistently behind the scenes to help get better results over time.

Improving your construction website performance

But before you even get into the tactical aspects of SEO, you need to have a well-built website that has a good range of content and performs well

And in terms of performance, I mean things like:

• having a fast page load speed,

• being optimised for mobile

• not having too much animation that distracts

• having a clear site structure that’s easy for Google to crawl.

• have images that are optimised for the web, again to not diminish the overall loading speed..

SEO tips for construction companies

• Set up Google Search Console:
  Sign up for Google Search Console - it’s free and tells you all about your website SEO performance. It’s also taking a look at some YouTube tutorials on how to use it.

• Focus on keywords:
  Keywords are the main words you want your content to be discovered for. Sprinkle them into your page title, meta description, and subheadings and throughout your content. Other tools that can help you identify which keywords to focus on include Keywords Everywhere, Ubersuggest, AHREFs, SEMRUSH

• Allocate time for SEO:
  I set aside time each month to look at the dashboard reports about my websites’ performance each month from SEMRush and AHREFs then click on the tutorials on how to fix things. Between these reports and Google Search Console you can really make a difference. So, make time each month to tighten up and look at your site. Fix page errors and add missing elements, such as meta descriptions, to keep your page on top in terms of performance.

• Craft ‘perfect’ titles:
  To be fair there’s no such thing as ‘perfect’ when it comes to titles but do spend time crafting a SEO friendly titles for your website content and pages. I totally love the Headline by CoSchedule app that helps you to craft compelling headlines that people are searching for now and even scores them for you - My aim is always to get above 80.

• Use subtitles/subheaders
  Make sure there’s a hierarchy for titles H1, H2, H3. And then use your target keywords in your subheadings to again help your construction firm rank even more.

• Write meta descriptions
  Create meta descriptions so people know what to expect on the page and want to click onto your website. They should be less than 160 characters so that they are optimised for mobile search and summarise what your content is about . Meta descriptions are the couple of lines that sits under the headline when you do a Google Search and are designed to encourage the person to want to learn more by clicking through to your website.

• Optimise before publishing
  Make sure all your backend sections are set up properly. Check that alt tags, image descriptions, titles, and SEO elements are complete and optimised to improve the ranking of your content.

• Refresh pages in Google Search Console
  If a page is just published or you’ve updated it, you can go into Google Search Console and put in the page address to refresh it. This helps keep Google up to date with your site.
  

• What is SEO?

  SEO stands for Search Engine Optimisation, and in its simplest form is about getting yourself ranked high on Google to get more click-throughs to your website.

• Why is SEO important?

  SEO is important because it’s a free way to get more traffic to your website. Businesses that are on page one of Google are more likely to get more website visits.

• What can you do easily to make a difference?

  Make regular updates to your website SEO. When you upload new content, make sure it is optimised with all the relevant information inputted and keep updating old content to keep it current.

---

Get in touch

I’m Ayo and I’m a built environment and infrastructure (particularly rail) nerd. I’m a marketer by trade who loves to create thought proving plans and content for firms who want to make a positive impact.  Do DM me if you want to talk about how I can help your firm.ayo@abbasmarketing.com.