Search engine optimization sounds complicated, but it doesn’t have to be. Simplifying your SEO strategy for your contractor website can be essential for reaching new customers. There are a few components of your website that you can add or modify that will make a positive impact on your SEO strategy.

The team at Contractor Charlie has 3 methods that you can do to improve your website and your page rank.

Use Your Meta Tags

According to WordStream, meta tags are snippets of text used to describe the contents of a webpage. These snippets are used by search engines such as Google and are visible in the page’s source code.

Two of the most important meta tags are the title tag and meta description. These are what you see when looking at a search results page.

Title Tag

Title tags are used to display the title of the page or post. Your title should be brief and straight to the point. To avoid getting cut off in the search results page, the title should be between 50-60 characters in length.

Moz’s title generator is a great tool to use for seeing how visible your title is.

Meta Description

This is used to describe the contents of the page. While it doesn’t have a direct impact on how well your page will rank, but a survey done by SurveyMonkey showed that nearly 44% of people click on a search result due to the meta description. This indicates that you should use this to encourage people to visit your website.

Moz suggests a character limit of around 300, although you might be safer with around 155-160  characters.

Optimize Images

Using relevant images to go along with your content cannot be overlooked. They can serve multiple purposes:

• They help paint your brand in a flattering manner.
• They help give the website visitor a better idea as to what you do or sell
• They make your web pages much more appealing by breaking up long blocks of text

But images that are properly optimized may provide a boost to your rankings.

How do you optimize them?

For starters, alt tags are used as a text alternative when the web browser cannot display the image. These tags are used to describe the image. Search engines such as Google read this text to understand the contents of the image and to associate keywords with them.

Choose appropriate keywords and content when you are writing the alt text. Not only will this help the search engines, but it makes your website more accessible for people with disabilities.

Search engines also use the file name of an image to figure out its contents, so it’s important to ensure that this is given using a descriptive or informative name. Whether you’re using an image of a German Shepherd from your camera, or if you paid for an image from iStock, or were given permission to use a photo submitted to Flickr, you need to rename the file name something along the lines of “german-shepherd.jpg.”

Making Company Reviews Work For You

Many businesses place reviews from satisfied customers on their website. You should be doing this as well, since 93% of consumers read online reviews, according to a survey from BrightLocal. This form of social proof can show others that your products and services are reliable and popular.

You should include reviews on your website, as it is fresh content that appears on your website. Search engines like Google lean towards fresh content. It may also help boost keyword traffic, as customers may use terms in their reviews that are similar to what others are searching for.

If you have a dedicated page for customer reviews, an image of either the customer or their business logo could be helpful. This will then allow you to optimize the image file name and alt tag. It also adds trust, signifying that it’s a real person behind the review.

Let Us Simplify Your SEO Strategy

If you’re still feeling overwhelmed, or if you have questions about these methods, contact Contractor Charlie today. We specialize in applying different methods to enhance your SEO and increase your site visibility.

We are happy to discuss how these can be applied as part of your strategy, and how to attract the right kind of customers to your website.