To be blunt: Roofing contractors who don’t have a responsive website or invest in digital marketing for roofers are missing out on their market share.
84% of consumers don’t trust companies without a digital presence, i.e., a website. But this is only one part of digital marketing. You can have a great website that renders you invisible online. Why? Because it lacks roofing SEO.
Popular all-in-one SEO software suite MOZ describes SEO as: “A set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results.” An SEO strategy combined with an overall SEO services package makes your website more visible to clients who are looking for solutions that your roofing contractor provides via search engines like Bing, Yahoo!, and Google by improving your organic search results. It is made up of multiple elements. Knowing what they are and how they work is key to climbing in search results and improving cash flow.
Let’s take a deep dive into roofing contractor SEO and look at how it works and how using it properly can generate more traffic and opportunities to convert your prospects into customers.
What Is SEO for Roofers?
Search Engine Optimization for roofers can improve their website ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs) by using different techniques. Roofing companies’ SEO involves improving your website so that it appears higher in the search results for keywords related to your services. The higher you rank, the greater your chances are of getting visitors and customers to your site.
How Search Engine Optimization Can Benefit Roofing Companies?
Search engines like Google aim to provide the most relevant information to their users. So, if a prospective client types in “roofing business in Chicago,” it will scan all websites with that phrase (keyword) and rank them in order of relevance in search engine results pages (SERPs).
Google uses 200 ranking factors to determine a web page’s rank, of which search engine optimization is a crucial factor. A roofing SEO strategy can improve your website’s position in these search results pages. The higher your roofing website ranks, the more people will see it, and the more revenue you’ll make.
Presently, you might be wondering why you can’t do business the good old-fashioned way? Well, 97% of people online use search engines to find a local business. Technically, if you’re not investing in a search optimization strategy, you’re losing out on a massive percentage of leads and income.
High ROI and Low Costs
Clients new to internet marketing often ask us why they need to consider SEO and digital marketing services at all when they can just invest in roofing company ads. While paid advertising is valuable and lucrative, SEO still offers a higher ROI. Ideally, a roofing business should invest in both.
But, back to SEO. One of the greatest benefits of SEO is that it is low cost. Unlike paid advertising, where you constantly pay for traffic to generate leads, SEO generates more leads over time. Research suggests almost 50% of businesses claim organic search has the highest ROI. It’s good to think of search engine optimization as a 401K investment. You don’t need to worry about the cost of each click. More importantly, the true power of roofing SEO is the ability to scale exponentially over time.
Want better results from Facebook & Instagram? Read our roofing social media marketing article!
PPC or SEO for Roofing Companies?
With paid advertising for roofers, your traffic diminishes the minute you stop spending. SEO, on the other hand, works 24/7. Once implemented, it offers lasting, semi-permanent value for your roofing business regarding web real estate, referral traffic, and domain authority. SEO can bring 15 times more clicks than pay-per-click advertising. It is a long-term strategy that takes between six and 12 months to yield results. As you invest over time by regularly publishing targeted content, the size, and ranking of your site effectively ‘snowballs.’
Struggling with paid ads? Check out our roofing PPC article to maximize your ROI.
High-Quality Lead Generator
SEO campaigns work hand-in-hand with lead generation because the more times your roofing website appears on search engine results pages, the more potential customers interact with your business.
93% of online experiences begin with a search engine. For instance, let’s say the client types in “roofing business in Chicago.” If your website is correctly optimized, it should appear in Google search results, meaning qualified leads already seeking your services will see you rank in search results, and hopefully make contact.
The more often your website shows up on Google’s first page, the easier it is for your target customers to find and learn more about your roofing services. SEO for roofing companies is about targeting the right users with the right keywords (using the same phrases or words they use to search online) so that your web content pops up in their searches. It is based on data and research, so when done correctly, produces accurate results. With more than one billion websites online, you don’t need to appear in every search engine result, only the relevant ones that matter and an search engine optimization strategy will help get you there.
Want to boost customer retention? Read our guide on roofing email marketing.
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How to Improve Your Roofing SEO Strategy
Roofing SEO helps businesses create fast, robust, and user-friendly content and websites that garner qualified traffic and improve income. If you want to benefit from SEO, there are a few basics you need to master first.
1. Conduct Keyword Research
Keyword research is the process by which you research popular search terms people use in Google and other search engines, and include them strategically in your content so that it ranks higher. This is a fundamental SEO practice.
A great keyword matches user intent and is defined by relevance, authority, and volume. When deciding which roofing keywords to use, you may want to consider the following:
- Relevance: Your content needs to answer users’ questions, and be among the best-qualified resources to do so. Therefore, how much traffic can you expect from a keyword?
- Authority: By providing clear and helpful information on selected topics, you position your roofing business as an authority. Which keywords are genuinely relevant to your roofing business?
- Volume: Keywords with a high search volume are great, but they can also be very competitive to rank for, as there are likely a hundred other websites trying to do the same. Consider if there are any keywords you currently rank for and can build momentum off?
It’s also important to understand the value of long-tail keywords. For instance, a search for a single word like “roof” will result in very different content than a search using a phrase or even a short sentence like “how to fix a roof.” Long-tail keywords are more specific and often less competitive, making it easier to rank higher for them.
This distinction can help you choose terms that are a closer match to what your target audience is already using.
Types of Roofing Keywords
You’ll also need to consider the different types of keywords (informational, navigational, commercial, and transactional) and how they fit into the buyer’s journey. A potential client looking for signs of roof damage is not at the same stage as a client that’s deciding to hire roofing contractors. Hence, you have to use different targeted keywords.
Google Keyword Planner and other keyword research tools like Moz Keyword Explorer and SEMrush can help you find topic ideas and keywords users are searching for, which you can use to plan your content strategy and optimize your website.
Important Roofing Keywords
Here’s an example of some popular roofing SEO keywords to keep in mind while conducting research or creating content. As you can see a lot of people look for roofing companies ‘near me’ when they search on Google. This is an important piece of information that can affect the way your website, content, and overall SEO strategy develop.
| Keyword | Difficulty | Traffic potential |
| roofing company near me | 43 | 83000 |
| roofing company | 60 | 11000 |
| best roofing company near me | 45 | 58000 |
| local roofing company | 30 | 1000 |
| best roofing company | 31 | 2300 |
| commercial roofing company | 52 | 700 |
| roofing supply company near me | 75 | 156000 |
| american roofing company | 45 | 400 |
| commercial roofing company near me | 39 | 3300 |
| baker roofing company | 22 | 7700 |
| metal roofing company | 72 | 17000 |
| premier roofing company | 24 | 4200 |
| the roofing company | 37 | 11000 |
| residential roofing company | 61 | 700 |
2. Focus on Local SEO for Roofing Contractors
Google’s 2016 Possum update began to leverage a user’s location to more accurately determine what businesses were both relevant to their query and proximity. Today, local search engine optimization utilizes local directories as well as Google My Business accounts to help websites rank higher whenever a local search is found.
Why Does Local SEO for Roofing Contractors Matter?
Firstly, 46% of all Google searches seek local information. Secondly, general SEO attracts website traffic regardless of its geographic relevance for your business. It might be great to rank internationally on Google, but if the clients aren’t local, you probably won’t derive many sales.
What’s more, 44% of people who do a local search will click on the first three locations in the local 3-pack (the first three businesses listed in local search results). This means most will not look at any business beyond the top results, which highlights the importance of ranking at the top.
How Roofers Can Rank for Local SEO?
To rank for local SEO, you need to set up a free Google My Business (GMB) account. This Business Profile allows you to take charge of the way your roofing company’s website appears on Google Search and Google Maps. Combined with positive reviews, listings in other directories, and a local SEO content strategy, a Google My Business account can increase calls by 61%. Local roofing companies with a GMB profile improve their visibility and searchability. After all, if you’re serving a particular area, you want to ensure you’re doing the most to reach people living there!
3. Implement On-Page Optimization
On-page SEO is the process of optimizing a webpage’s content for search engines. Its ultimate goal is to speak the ‘search engines’ language’ and help their crawlers understand the meaning and context of your roofing website and marketing content.
During the indexing and ranking process, search engines try to associate web pages with keywords and search terms users use. Hence, the importance of using the right keywords. Once you’ve decided on which ones to use (keyword research), you need to integrate them into your pages.
You’ll want to check your keywords’ relevancy once every three months to ensure you’re still using the best ones. If it’s the first time you’re implementing a roofing SEO campaign, we don’t recommend doing anything for at least six months to one year; otherwise, not enough time has passed to gauge your strategy’s success.
Need inspiration for your roofing ads? Check out the best roofing ads examples!
How Can You Get Updates on Your Roofing SEO Efforts?
Staying abreast of keyword trends also ensures optimal search engine performance. If you’re not working with a marketing agency that has an SEO team you can outsource your SEO to, you can use Google Trends.
This free analytics-measuring tool allows users to tailor searches for relevant terms and phrases and monitor SEO trends across any set duration of time. You can identify trending topics or subtopics within your industry, as well as trends in your local area.
4. Don’t Forget About Titles, Meta, and Images
There are certain places on your website (besides the general content) that are optimal for on-page SEO: titles, descriptions, image titles and alt text, and URLs. Optimizing these will give you the most bang for your buck.
Image Optimization for Roofers
You can include keywords in your image alt text and titles to improve overall SEO.
- An image alt text: This tells search engines what your image is about.
- An image title tag: This is shown when a user hovers their mouse over an element.
Include target keywords at the beginning and separate them with hyphens. Avoid underscores because search engines don’t recognize them and won’t be able to make out if you have individual words.
The alt text and title tag should make sense to both search engines and humans. For example, if the original name for your image is “roof235.jpg” you can rename it with a clear and descriptive title like, “red-roof-chicago.”
Want a high-converting roofing website? Get inspired by the best roofing websites!
Optimize Meta Description for Roofing SEO
Another aspect to consider is meta descriptions. This HTML element provides a brief summary of a web page. It’s displayed as part of the search engine snippet in Google’s search results and is meant to give the reader an idea of the content that’s on the page.
Meta descriptions serve the function of advertising copy by encouraging organic visitors to click through to your site. Writing them well and using them to encourage users to click through to your website is a great way of bringing more targeted traffic to your website.
5. Publish Quality Content That’s Unique
We can’t speak about SEO for roofing without addressing the importance of content marketing. Content is any intellectual material that your roofing business produces: educational articles, blogs, podcasts, videos, email campaigns, etc.
Quality content is not about what you’re selling. It’s the material produced to inform your audience about who you are as a roofing business, the knowledge you have to share, and what products or services you offer to make your customers’ lives better.
When you publish unique content that’s valuable (with keywords), you strategically position your company in front of its target audience, so it feels more like they stumble upon you. Ideally, they should find you an excellent resource—the type of company they want to engage and work with.
Learn how to create high-converting Facebook Ads for roofers! Click here to read more.
How to Write Roofing Content That Will Bring Clients
In a 1996 essay, Bill Gates wrote in an essay that “content is king,” which by now, most are familiar with. Since then, it’s become more challenging to create unique content. And there’s no golden formula to do so.
However, when brainstorming ideas and creating different types of content, you might want to consider:
- Making it personal
- Offering a different perspective
- Going in-depth on relevant topics
- Solving customer pain points
- Using different formats (video, infographics, interactive media)
Above all, create content with integrity. If you’ve never done any branding exercises before, or you haven’t put much thought into it, now would be the time to consolidate your roofing company’s branding as this will inform how you execute your marketing.
Struggling with marketing? Our roofing marketing ideas will help you stand out!
6. Technical SEO for Roofers
Technical SEO is a process that involves auditing and optimizing technical elements of a website, so it meets search engine requirements to rank higher. Websites with a poor structure, slow page load time, and shoddy redirects can be penalized by Google.
Without proper intervention, these issues can result in a steep drop in search rankings and organic traffic. At the core of search engines is to provide the best user experience possible, and technical SEO supports these endeavors.
Technical SEO is more complicated than on-page SEO, so most contractors in the roofing industry hire marketing agencies to help them with the following:
URL Structure & Internal Linking
URL and internal linking structure affect how quickly, and how thoroughly, a search engine can index your content. The URL of each of your website’s pages should be carefully optimized to reflect the contents of that page.
As a rule of thumb, your website’s content should also be organized into a pyramid-shaped hierarchy with your home page at the top, the core page on the next level down, and a wide base of supporting content underneath.
Both robots and humans should be able to find all your content using internal links (any link from one page on your website to another page on your website). We recommend every piece of content on your website be accessible within a maximum of three to four clicks from your home page.
Video marketing is the future! Learn how roofer video marketing can grow your business.
Page Speed
Every marketer knows that page speed is a ranking factor for Google. The search engine uses measurements from its servers and user behavior data to assess the speed and performance of every page it indexes and ranks.
A webpage that takes longer than 2 seconds to load undoubtedly leads to a higher bounce rate, and lower conversions. On the contrary, faster page loading times correlate with more time spent on roofing websites, as well as increased conversions and revenue.
You can use Google PageSpeed Insights to find out how quickly your web pages load and identify opportunities to improve their speed.
Security
The standard technology for securing a data transfer between your website and a client’s browser is called Secure Sockets Layer (SSL). Secure URLs begin with “HTTPS” rather than “HTTP.” Search engines such as Google prefer to rank websites with a valid SSL certificate because it reduces the risk of data breaches for users.
To find out more, you can read Google’s HTTPS guidelines. The multinational cybersecurity company Kaspersky sums it up well:
“Websites need SSL certificates to keep user data secure, verify ownership of the website, prevent attackers from creating a fake version of the site, and convey trust to users.”
We can teach you how to build a digital storefront that wows your customers and ranks above the competition. Dive into building a great roofing website with our expert tips
7. Link Building
Part of off-page SEO is the practice of building one-way hyperlinks to your website with the goal of improving search engine visibility. For Google, an important part of identifying what pages are relevant and trustworthy is understanding if other prominent websites link back to yours.
Links as a Part of Roofer SEO
Backlinks are votes of confidence for your site. Because pages with more high-quality backlinks rank higher, it’s crucial to:
- Create high-quality (unique) content that is worth linking back to, and
- Use digital marketing strategies to bring in more backlinks
Link building is probably the most arduous aspect of roofing company SEO. Unlike on-page SEO, it’s often not in your control and takes a long time to build. Common link-building strategies include content marketing, email outreach, broken link building, and online PR.
Want to rank higher? Check out our list of the best roofing SEO companies today!
How to Choose a Roofing SEO Company
Business owners unfamiliar with roofing SEO run the risk of falling prey to marketing opportunists who promise results too good to be true and under-deliver. When choosing an SEO company, you’ll want to do the following:
- Examine the agency’s portfolio and case studies
- Check for positive reviews
- Trust your gut
To be absolutely clear: Cheap, fast, and easy local roofing SEO just doesn’t exist. SEO professionals that promise results within a few weeks are certainly taking you for a ride. A reputable company that’s worth the investment has:
- A defined process to exercise strategies, which they’ll be happy to explain to you in detail.
- A diverse team of specialists (on-page vs technical SEO requires different skills).
- Authentic customer testimonials and reviews.
- The ability to honestly communicate expectations and provide realistic offerings.
For instance, at Comrade Digital Marketing Agency, we conduct an SEO audit free of charge.
Then, during a discovery call, we assess whether we’re a good fit and if we can actually provide value.
With all SEO clients, we also provide a detailed report with how various tactics performed, as well as suggestions for improvement. And, we’re always available to answer questions or clarify things clients aren’t sure of.
Remember, SEO success requires a long-term strategy, so you have to trust and enjoy working with the people you hire to achieve positive outcomes. Before you can do that, you need to figure out which areas of your online presence you want to improve.
You might need a new website, or perhaps just SEO. A good agency will have the tools and data to help you assess your needs if you’re unsure.
Increase Your Leads With a Professional Roofing SEO Agency
SEO is an effective and necessary tool to boost your roofing company’s potential and ROI. You’ve probably dedicated considerable time and effort to building your company, so allot time to do proper research to understand more about how SEO works and companies that offer roofing SEO services.
If you’re on the hunt for help with roofing SEO, we can help. As an award-winning digital marketing agency, we have a robust track record in custom websites, PPC, and SEO. We’ve completed over 240+ SEO projects, all of which have an average ROI of 65%. Why not contact us to schedule a free SEO audit and learn how we can boost your organic traffic?
