SEO for a Contractor: Traffic Up 638% and Conversions Up 56%

SEO for contractors isn’t all that different from any other local service business, and the fundamentals of SEO apply here. We have been working with this client over the last several years and had a strong relationship with them, so we wanted to make sure they were able to succeed in spite of Covid-19. We needed to do much better for them in 2020 and 2021 to accomplish that goal, and I think you’ll agree that the results show we were able to do just that.

• 638% more site traffic
• 56% more conversions
• Keywords in Rank 1-3 up 125%
• Keywords on Page 1 up 89%
• Net Keyword Rankings up 223%
• 73 new referring domains
• 2,675 new backlinks

At RSM Marketing, we’re proud of our Search Engine Optimization Services!

Content Marketing Strategy

The first step to most projects of this nature starts with content and the keywords we were targeting. Comprehensive keyword research dives into many different categories, and I typically split them into a few groups:

1. Current Keywords
2. Competitor Keywords
3. Audience Keywords
4. Discovery Keywords

We’re huge fans of SEMRush over here, so we typically use that as the hub for keyword research and strategy type of work. Ultimately, what tools you use and the processes you use don’t matter if the keywords you end up with aren’t selected to help achieve business objectives.

Another reason to do projects like this regularly that we’ve found is the speed that keyword intent seems to be evolving these days. Some of our clients have lost 40%-50% of their net keyword rankings, but their site traffic has actually grown! Not updating a strategy for too long can very easily lead to stale targeting and lost ranks over time. Not good!

On top of that, the rapidly evolving situation in early 2020 and the world moving to work-from-home, the amount of time people spent online drastically changed how they interacted with Google and, in turn, the SERPs changed to reflect that.

Backlink Outreach

Active backlink outreach doesn’t have to blow away the competition with volume if you start with good content and get just enough links to let the algorithm do its thing. We’re not reinventing the wheel with our outreach – we use SEMRush to find great backlink opportunities and we reach out to those sites to get content published.

Keyword Growth

The thing is, even during that down year we had solid keyword growth month-over-month. SEO for contractors is not about reinventing the wheel, so the client was content and even had to reallocate some of his paid ads budget with us to hiring instead of lead generation!

Over the course of these 24 months, we increased Top 3 keywords by 125%, page 1 keywords by 89%, and net keyword rankings by 223%!

A key part of this growth was blog content as well. Very few of the conversions in either 2020 or 2021 were generated by the blogs, but 3 of our 10 most linked pages are blogs that grew entirely organically. You really can’t overvalue a well-planned and executed blog strategy, especially when you pair it with SEO services and Paid Ads for remarketing and acquisition.

In particular, we’re excited when we see a report like this one. Most websites we start out working lean very far in the direction of branded keywords. Branded keywords are great, don’t get me wrong. If your business already has a strong brand, you’d be a fool to not include it into your overall SEO strategy. That said, most small and even some medium businesses really underestimate the value of showing up for branded keywords, much less making them into SEO targets.

If the rest of your SEO is good, you’ll rank for your brand.

Backlink Growth

The backlink results speak for themselves. We actively built 36 links total through our outreach. The results of all of our work, though, were actually 73 referring domains and 2,675 backlinks.

How did we improve the link profile so much with 36 guest posts? There’s nothing complicated about contractor SEO, so the quality of the execution makes a big difference at every level.

• The website is technically sound and doesn’t have common Technical SEO issues.
• It is organized effectively and has strong internal linking.
• The blog section produces content regularly and brings traffic and authority to the site.
• The service page content is clear and concise with obvious and effective CTAs.

When you work with RSM Marketing, that is what sets us apart – our quality.

Traffic and Conversions

The 2 years leading up to 2020 were very good years for the client – they grew steadily, at least in part due to leads from the website. 2020 and 2021 were different for them, though – the massive growth in traffic and leads put them in a tricky situation, for a time, in which they had to pass on jobs because they couldn’t handle the capacity for the work.

Those are the types of problems we really love solving because they only happen alongside success – what contractor doesn’t want too much work?

December 2021

In December of 2021, a Google Update came out that was focused on Local SEO, and Local SEO for contractors was no different. However, as you can see in this Authority Score Trend graph, we had a solid bump in Authority in November (the update started deploying November 30th!) that stuck through December and then rose again – significantly – in January 2022!

In Conclusion

All of the charts in this post were taken from either Google Analytics or SEMRush and show very clearly what success can look like with SEO for contractors. This can be the success you see with your website!

This client was and still is a subscriber to an Outsourced Marketing Department package, giving us and them the flexibility to achieve results like these. SEO for Contractors doesn’t involve magical formulas, and it doesn’t require spending tens of thousands of dollars every month to get to the top of Page 1 of Google. When you work with a company that puts quality first as we do at RSM Marketing, you don’t need fancy solutions – just good ones.

Give us a call!