SEO for Contractors & Attorneys

This will be an multi-part Local SEO guide meant to help Local Service providers like Roofers, Plumbers, Remodelers and Attorneys to get more organic traffic to their websites.

Ultimately, marketing is just a numbers game:

More Traffic = More Leads

More Leads = More Customers.

Tip: You can bookmark the page for future reference.

This Guide Will Go Over:

• How Search Engines Work
• Getting Started On SEO
• Running Website Quality Audits
• Building An SEO Strategy
• Technical SEO
• Creating Better Content
• Getting Better Backlinks
• Setting Up Tracking
• Hiring An SEO Provider

Why So Many Local Businesses Have Trouble with SEO

Trying to do SEO on your own as a local service provider can be a daunting task. Trying to play a game where you don’t understand all the rules. How can you sort through all the contradicting information on SEO? And trying to learn SEO can be a lot like trying to drink water from a firehouse. Information overload!.

Not to mention, it takes your time away from other tasks, like running your business. Yet, you know you NEED to do SEO to get more organic traffic and you just feel stuck.

Google accounts for over 90% of all search results, and it remains tight lipped about how its algorithm works. They do this because if how the algorithm worked was public knowledge it would be easy to game the system to rank anything, regardless if it was a relevant result or not. And Google’s goal is to provide the best search experience possible.

So if the spammers were able to get to the top, we’d be back to crappy sites ranking like it used to be back in the early 2000’s. This would make Google suck. No one would use them. And all their revenue from ads would go up in smoke.

That said, Google does still share some info on how their search works.

They have regular Google office hours usually on Google Meet or YouTube where Google mouthpieces (currently John Mueller and previously Matt Cutts) answer questions from the public. Google says they want local businesses to work WITH them to give users the “best” query results.

Yet, many marketers have their own opinions and thoughts on the Google algorithm and SEO.

Some of these opinions are based on efforts to decode the algorithm, or past results they achieved though certain methods. This is why there are so many contrary recommendations on just what you need to do to rank your site high in the SERPs.

They are always in search of the shortcut or the magic bullet. This is why there are so many videos, blog posts, podcasts, infographics, white papers, downloads and all kinds of other information on SEO. And sadly, the more you read, the more confusing it becomes…

Why?

• SEO can be used for all types of niches. Local Services, B2B, Legal Services, and Medical Services, are just a few. Each Niche will have different things to focus on for their audience.
• Each niche market is unique. A great SEO strategy for a Houston Med Spa is not going to work as well for a Roofing Company.
• SEO is constantly changing. Unfortunately, many SEO techniques don’t last as the methods can become dated with an update or change in how users search. What may have worked 2 years ago is likely to get you penalized today.
• Many marketers can just be lazy. The Search Engines are tools that are always changing and improving their processes. Lots of marketers don’t invest the time in keeping their tactics and knowledge base up-to-date. They find one tactic and stick with it, even after it stops working.
• There is A LOT of false information out there. All of these things cause some “SEOs” to use ineffective strategies that can hurt your chances of growing.

Once you do decide to try SEO, you can either do it yourself or hire an agency to do it for you.

If you do SEO on your own, you’ll have to spend a lot of time, energy and money learning how to do it while also taking care of all your other duties. If you go through an agency, you risk getting locked into a contract with a business that you can only hope will get you results.

Neither of these situations is good.

So, getting SEO for your business can be scary, frustrating, and risky in terms of money.

But things don’t have to be like that.

This guide will teach you how to tackle your SEO to get real results.

These are the methods that Local Juggernaut™ follows because right now they work. We made this guide to give you a clear plan for SEO that gives your business an edge.

What is Local SEO?

Local SEO is the process of getting your website and Google Maps listing to rank higher in the SERPs for important search terms, bringing in more organic traffic and website leads.

With a good SEO strategy, local service providers and law firms can stand out as reliable service provicers and build a more consistent and scalable sales funnel.

How do Local Service Providers get Leads?

Local Service Providers usually get leads from three places:

• Referrals
• Google Maps and The Search Engines
• Paid Ads

But of these 3 Google Maps and Search are the only ones that are scalable and cost effective.

1. Getting Leads from Referrals

Referrals from your partnership network and past clients bring relevant leads to your site, which increases your revenue. Most businesses that offer local services get a large percentage of their business from referrals.

But what happens when those referrals stop sending people to your site?

Referral business is golden, but it is just not a consistent and scalable source of leads.

2. Getting Leads from Google Maps and Search

It’s been over 5 years since Google started making search results more proximity based. What this means is based on where you are when you search for something, Google will serve up results that are in closer proximity to where you are. Over 90% of all searches happen on Google. And of those over 70% are on mobile devices. So folks could be searching for your services from anywhere in town.

If you are a local service provider, you likely have a radius or market area that you serve. And ranking in the top 3 results in maps (called the maps 3-pack) is critical to getting more calls. On a mobile device and even on a desktop, maps show up first right below the Google ads.

And right below maps are the organic search results. So being in the top results for both maps and organic will get you the lion’s share of the traffic. You want your business to dominate the share of the local voice in your market area.

3. Leads From Paid Ads (PPC)

You already know you need more traffic to your site to get more leads. Paid traffic is a way to get that traffic immediately, but it is much more expensive than Local SEO.

Google ads and all the ad platforms work on an auction basis. Many companies competing for the same traffic. The traffic goes to the highest bidder with the best ads. And that cost just keeps going up as companies compete for that top spot and those clicks. It is a race to the top of bids. And many studies over the years have determined only about 20% of searcher will click on the ads, because they know they are ads.

Many of our clients will run small ad campaigns while working on the SEO as it can take a couple of months or more to start seeing organic results whereas, paid traffic is immediate.

You have to determine if that is a good call for your business. But 80% of all clicks ore going to the organic search results. So that’s where our focus is.

Local SEO:

• Can increase your visibilty and get more traffic to your site
• Can focus on just the areas your business serves
• Can return a much higher ROI than paid traffic
• Can help increase the leads from your website
• Can increase revenue without running PPC ads all the time
• Can build a revenue stream without relying solely on referrals

You can see how investing in search positively impacted this fence company:

1000% organic traffic growth over a 2 year period (that lead to tremendous revenue growth)

Key Steps in Local SEO

These are some of the fundamental key steps when starting your Local SEO.

Setting Up Tracking with Google Analytics

To figure out how well your SEO campaigns are doing, you need a baseline of data and a way to track events and goals. This important first step is a must if you want to get the best return on investment (ROI).

Our guide will cover:

• Auditing your existing analytics
• Setting up GA4/GSC
• Setting up event and goal tracking
• Setting up easy to understand reports

How to Do an SEO Audit (Website Quality Audit)

Most SEO Audits are just crap. Full of useless vanity metrics. We teach you how to get the data that actually matters, evaluating your website, and assigning on-page actions to make sure SEO best practices are met.

Our guide covers:

• Running an audit
• Checking page speed
• Pulling and sorting keyword data
• Checking backlinks with Ahrefs
• Pulling GSC (Google Search Console) data
• Pulling GA4 (Google Analytics 4) data
• Evaluating the results and assigning on-page actions

Keyword Research Tactics

Your whole SEO campaign is based on the keywords you find. To make sure you spend your time and money on the right topics, you should avoid common research mistakes.

Our guide covers:

• How to setup a master kw spreadsheet
• How to interview your sales team to get ideas
• How to run a competitor kw gap analysis
• How to evaluate your competitor kw
• How to find link-worthy topics
• How to critically examine the keywords
• How tochoose the right topics

Fixing Technical SEO

The technical side of SEO is not for the faint of heart. There are dozens of ways to make mistakes, it’s easy to get lost in these technical tasks.

Our guide covers:

• Focusing in on what gets results
• 301 vs 302 when to use each one
• Why speed matters for a site
• Selecting a CMS
• The best plugins for WordPress

Creating Better Content

It’s hard to write blogs. You don’t want to spend a lot of time and money on content that doesn’t bring people to your website.

Our guide covers:

• How to write better blogs
• How to do better writing
• Important SEO changes every blog needs
• Getting writers and training them

Link Building – Getting High Value Links

Backlinks are a very important SEO ranking factor. But getting them is usually a frustrating and time-consuming process.

Our guide covers:

• What are “backlinks” and why are they important
• Which pages need links
• Qualities of high-value links
• Link outreach campaigns you should avoid
• Strategies for backlinks that work
• How to make your backlink campaigns more successful