SEO Services for Electricians:
Free Local SEO Guide

Electricians face increasing challenges in finding new customers. While word of mouth can help build your business, many people just run a quick Google search for electrical services and call the first electrician or two in the search engine results list. To grow your customer base, then, you need to find your way to the top of Google search engine rankings.

We will guide you step by step through our proven process for catapulting your company to the top of the search engines. 

The Yellow Pages Are Out, Google Search Results Are In:

Until quite recently, electricians could take out an ad in the Yellow Pages and wait for the phone to ring. Now, a whopping 97% of people check out local search results for local businesses, and Google search results are at the top of the heap.

Search Engines Provide Free Organic Traffic:

Things are starting to change, but advertising remains one of the biggest costs for many small businesses. Boosting your Google search engine ranking provides a constant stream of free organic traffic, just waiting to be converted to paying customers.

Local SEO Efforts Can Produce Speedy Results:

When national and international companies launch a new SEO campaign, they have to wait an average of 6 months to a year to see their Google rankings move significantly. As an electrician, though, you have a tremendous advantage. You are competing with other electricians in your local area, not across the country, and many of your competitors are not using local SEO. With a targeted campaign, you could jump to the first page of local Google listings in just 30 days!

Start your keyword research by sitting down and making a list of keyword ideas that align with your local services. For example, you might try “electrician”, “electrical work”, “commercial electrician”, “residential electrician”, or “electrician services”. When your list is fairly complete, sign up for a free Google Ads account.

There is no need to build or fund an ad campaign. The Google Ads account lets you access the free Google Keyword Planner. This tool shows you how much traffic your keywords drive and suggests related keywords that might not have occurred to you.

With these results in hand, you can finalize your keyword research. All relevant keywords fall into 2 loose categories:

• Buying Intent: Buying intent keywords signal that a prospect is in imminent need of your electrician services. For example, a search for “I need an electrician Chicago” is a clear sign that the prospect needs specific work done now.Your initial focus should be on buying intent keywords, which drive fast results. They should be featured on your homepage and on separate service pages.

• Research Intent: A prospect searching for research intent keywords is just looking around. He might need an electrician someday, but not today. For example, someone searching for “how do I install a ceiling fan” is planning a DIY project. These keywords don’t drive rapid conversion, so they should be of lower priority. However, they are excellent for blog posts and FAQs. These posts serve as your introduction to prospects who might remember you when they need your services. 

Now that your keyword research, you are ready to optimize your electrician seo keywords in 2 places—your Google Business Profile and your electrician website. Here’s how:

Google Business Profile

Think of your Google Business Profile as a sort of mini-website for Google’s “Maps” section. It provides a short glimpse of your company and increases your online presence. It can also boost your rankings fast, as it is easier for Google Business Profiles than for websites to get highly ranked.

To optimize, completely and accurately fill out all of these elements:

• Verification: Before you do anything else, claim your page and submit it for Google verification. You will know this is done when a checkmark and the word “Verified” appear next to your company name.

• NAP: Make sure that your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) is correct and is exactly the same across the entire internet. Reassure Google that yours is a local business by using a local phone number rather than an 800 number.

• Categories: Google categories are oriented toward services rather than results. As you might suspect, for an electrician, the primary Google category is simply Electrician. If you provide other services, you can list those as well. Listing 3 to 5 categories is desirable, but not required.

• Description: The description is a brief introduction to your company, ending with a call to action. It should be 100 to 200 words long and formatted similarly to: {Name of Company} offers {electrical services, or similar} in {Your City}. {Give some information about your business and/or why customers love you.} Call {Phone Number} today for 10% off your first service.

• Hours: Make sure that your office hours are accurate, and are correctly listed across the internet.

• Images: Images are vital to boosting customer engagement and showing new prospects what to expect. Add some photos of your office, your technicians, or even your satisfied customers (with permission). Make sure your images are sharply focused, sized between 10KB and 5MB, and have a minimum resolution of 720px x 720px. Also consider replacing the generic Google Business Profile background image with a branded image.

Electrician Website Optimization

Changes made to your website are considered on page seo efforts. The first priority is to optimize your homepage and service pages (“priority” pages) for your buying intent keywords. When that is done, you can optimize your FAQs and blog posts (“content” pages) for your research intent keywords. Here’s how:

Homepage:

• Title Tag: The title tag is the single most vital element on your homepage. It is like the chapter title of a book, and should be just 50 to 65 characters long. Try this format: Electrician in {Your City} | {Name of Your Business}.
• Meta Description: The meta description should provide a 100 to 150-character overview of your main services and close with a call to action. Format it something like this: {Name of Company} offers quality {electrical work, or similar} in {Your City}. Call {Phone Number} today for 10% off your first service!
• H1 Header: The visible headline, often referred to as the H1, must contain your primary category. Format it similarly to: {Electrician} in {City, State}.
• Page Content: Write your 500 to 1000-word page copy last. Clearly written and strongly edited, it should describe your company, briefly detail your core services, and end with a strong call to action. Sprinkle in your primary keyword as it naturally fits in the copy.

Electrician Service Pages:

• Build a service page for each core service, optimized like the homepage but focused on the relevant keyword. 

Technical SEO:

• Audit your website to make sure you have the proper schema markup included, ensure that your web pages are loading quickly, your site has proper canonicalization, and scan your website to look for improper title tags, meta descriptions, h1 headers, or content length. This can be done manually, or you can use one of many seo tools like Ahrefs.com or Semrush.com to audit the site.

With the framework of your local SEO campaign in place, you can gather citations and links. Both off page seo efforts improve your online reach and boost your Google rankings so you show up higher in local searches.

• Citations: A citation is simply an online listing of your business NAP (name, address, and phone number) in a directory. There are general national directories such as Facebook and yellowpages.com, general local directories such as your Chamber of Commerce website, and targeted trade directories. Ensure that your NAP is exactly the same across all listings.Note that some directories require payment for listings. Look into Google Analytics before you commit. There is no reason to pay a site that does not drive traffic and conversions.
• Link Building: Reaching the top of Google rankings requires inbound links from authoritative, credible websites. Develop relationships with companies that offer complementary services to your own, such as plumbers and general contractors. Then ask to trade links. You can use a tool such as the Moz Link Explorer to see where other electricians’ links are coming from.

Customer reviews play two very important roles in your local SEO campaign: they help convince prospects to try your services, and they reassure Google that your business is legitimate. While all reviews are worthwhile, your rankings will see the quickest boost from reviews on your Google Business Profile. Send your happy customers an email with a link to your page, and ask them directly to write a review. Do this regularly, and you will soon see a steady stream of recent reviews.

Tracking your results is the only way to understand whether your local SEO campaign is working well, and to isolate the parts of the campaign that still need tweaking. You can analyze your data many different ways, but these 3 core metrics are the most critical:

Rankings:

Google customizes the rankings it displays according to the browser’s past activity. That means that you need to use a tool to learn your actual rankings. Ask your webmaster to install the free Google Search Console (formerly Google Webmaster Tools), and make time to track your rankings at least once a month.If you want to dig below the surface of your rankings, consider switching to a paid tool, such as the one offered by RankRanger. This tool will track your Google My Business page and your individual webpages, and will automatically update ranking data from all of your SEO campaigns.

Organic Traffic:

To track your website visitors, Google Analytics is the best choice. You can view not only your total traffic, but also the organic traffic for each webpage, as well as the percentage of traffic that found you in Google search. Check your report at least monthly, and see if there are any long-term trends.

Conversions:

A conversion is a specific action that you want prospects to take, such as contacting you for 10% off their first service. In Google Analytics, you can track phone as well as web conversions. You can also see which services drive the most conversions, and even discover which of your webpages have the highest and lowest conversion rates.

Now you know why a targeted local SEO campaign is the key to building your customer list. Work through the steps in order, taking care to complete each step before moving on to the next. Here is a recap of the 5 steps:

1. Keyword research
2. Keyword optimization
3. Citations and Links
4. Reviews
5. Tracking

At Main Street ROI, our SEO experts specialize in helping electricians attract more local customers through Google. If you’d like help with your SEO, contact us for a free quote.