Category: PPC Management

As the internet impacts just about every part of our daily lives, it is becoming increasingly important to make your online presence known, regardless of the industry you are in. I get many variations of the same question a lot: “Why do I need SEO for my pressure washing company? We are a small operation.” If there is one lesson to learn about the pandemic era, it is that the World Wide Web is our window to the world, both figuratively and literally.

Back in the day, we had the Yellow Pages, where our fingers did the walking. Now they walk along the keys of our keyboards. Statistics tell us that 87.3% of the American population uses the internet. And 81% of the American public uses the internet to search for a product or service.

Of that 81% of those looking for a product or service, only about 25% will go to the second-page listings, so if you aren’t coming up first, you might as well come up last. SEO might be a long-term strategy, but it is an essential one for your company’s visibility. These are just seven of the benefits of having an SEO campaign for your pest control or pressure washing company.

Some of our clients know what SEO—others give us a puzzled look. SEO, or search engine optimization, is the process of maximizing the number of visitors to your website by ensuring that the site appears high on search engines such as Google and Bing.

Anytime that you ask Google a question or a keyword or phrase, it quickly goes to work matching your words with websites to find the best results for what you are looking for. Google takes the words and content on your pages and then ranks them according to how helpful they are to internet users, which leads to the search engine results page (or SERP).

When someone Googles something related to pest control or to pressure washing, a SERP pops up, and if you are not on that page, it’s pretty likely you will not get a call. If you are on the second page and beyond of a SERP, again… you might as well be on the last.

• Bounce rates – the percentage of visitors to a particular website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page.
• Security – Do you have any security risks on your website that can pose a risk to anyone who visits?
• Site activity – What are internet users doing when they go to your page?
• Mobile-friendliness – Can an internet viewer see your website as well on their mobile device as they do on a computer?

Not all these characteristics are equally critical, but they do all work together to form your placement. The key is to maximize all that you can to launch yourself to the top SERP, where your customers can actually find you. After all, you can have the best-designed, most visually stunning and highly informative website on Earth, but all the effort is wasted if no one ever sees it.

There was a time when advertising was all about having the loudest voice, being the most in someone’s face, and forcing yourself into someone’s daily lives via spam emails, etc… According to the polls, that is exactly what people don’t want. All of those attention-seeking avenues that we once thought were vital? It turns out they turn people away! SEO is about being more targeted and selective and reaching out to people who are already searching for you. SEO tactics are aimed at making the user experience better, not being in their face whether they want you or not. When users are happy, they are more likely to have a favorable opinion of you, and they are more likely to call and schedule an appointment!

SEO is a tool that has your customers coming to you, not the other way around. Your leads from an SEO strategy are people who are already either looking for or needing your service. It doesn’t make much sense to spend resources trying to reach people who may or may not need a service, when you can easily target those who are already in the market and ready to make a decision.

When you have more qualified leads, and a website built to convert, it leads to more sales – for real. 50% of internet shoppers report that they do a Google search before reaching out to a service or buying a product. When you have a well-planned SEO strategy, you have a greater likelihood of being front and center. Not only does this breed familiarity with you as a brand or service; it can lead to loyalty, meaning you have a customer for life – it’s a win-win.

Pay-per-click ads and pay-per-lead strategies are no doubt effective, but are costly and are never-ending. Once you stop ads, that traffic also stops. SEO gives you organic search rankings that will generate revenue for the long run. SEO takes some time to build (so don’t stop advertising altogether), but increasing your visibility for an organic search will help to decrease the amount that you have to spend on attracting customers to your service through paid ads or traditional marketing.

The higher you rank on Google, the higher you will be on the SERP. When you show up first, it is almost as if Google is endorsing you – whether they see it that way or not, the customer does. But Google is smarter than you know. They aren’t just looking for technical stuff like having the right keywords and backlinks; they want to know what customers’ actual experiences are. That is where online reviews come in. Your reviews and reputation are going to affect how Google views you too. 5 star reviews on your Google Maps page and high ranking on 3rd party review sites like Yelp or Homeadvisor are essential to your SERP rankings.

It isn’t that you shouldn’t spend money on things like billboards or promotional materials to send to customers, but they aren’t going to be visible when someone is sitting in front of their computer looking for a service. All those things that you do outside the internet are great to build brand familiarity and loyalty so that when your website does pop up they recognize you. But the reality is without a good mix of both, you likely are just spinning your wheels. Like anything else, marketing is a balancing act that requires you to target your customers from all angles, but SEO is one of our favorite ways to drive revenue.

The numbers don’t lie: SEO can help drive more leads for less money than all other forms of marketing. It might take longer and need a lot of persistence, but once you reach that top spot, you will begin to appreciate its power. And the results will last longer than other advertising and marketing tools that you have tried.

If you are ready to put your marketing resources into a long-term strategy that will drive more leads, give you more visibility, and cost you less, then we are ready to help you dominate the web. Contact Fu Dog Media today to get started!