SEO For Carpet Cleaning Companies: Optimizing for Local Search

This article about SEO for carpet cleaning companies is by David Mulqueen, Senior Marketing Manager of Odd Dog Media.

“I need help growing my carpet cleaning business.”

I hear this often when speaking with potential clients. Local carpet cleaning company owners are some of the hardest working people I’ve ever met. As a result, they’re often juggling a million things at once. This causes them to sometimes overlook the actual growing process of a business.

The sentence “I need help growing my carpet cleaning business” is an all too familiar one for me. Today I’m going to talk about one channel you can use to optimize your business for a local audience. That channel is Local SEO for your carpet cleaning company.

Local SEO for Carpet Cleaning Companies

Wait, isn’t that the same as regular carpet cleaning SEO? One would think so, and while you wouldn’t be entirely wrong, there is a little more to it.

While the basis of Local SEO is extremely similar to Global SEO, results differ. We find that traffic generated from Local SEO converts 4x better than any other source of traffic. For a geolocated business like carpet cleaning, this is critically important. To get local clients, we need a more local approach to our strategy than we would for a national campaign. 

So what is Local SEO? Local SEO is the art of getting your business to show up where your customers are actually looking. For example, below is a search for “Digital Marketing Agency”: 

The three results that are shown below are of local businesses in the Greater Seattle area. These businesses are able to populate in the above results due to a successful local SEO strategy. With a great local SEO strategy for your carpet cleaning company, you can dominate local search results. Those are the ones your potential clients are actually seeing.

Easy enough? Great. See how important it is for a local business? Awesome. Let’s discuss how we can go about executing a successful local SEO strategy for your carpet cleaning company.

Make Sure Your Google My Business Page is Up to Date and Packed Full of Information

This is a critical component of your Local SEO strategy. We’ve noticed a decrease in website traffic from local audiences. This happens because people are engaging with their Google My Business (GMB) page instead of their website. People want information and they want it now.

Give them as much information as possible via your GMB page and see what happens. Pack your GMB full so customers get an understanding of your business, culture, and specialties before they hit your website. It’s a great opportunity for you to differentiate yourself from other businesses in the search results.

You might be surprised at the increase in phone calls, texts and direction requests you receive. If you’d like some actionable tips, check out this Ultimate Guide to Google My Business.

Ensure Your Business Information is Consistent

Your business info should be consistent, on all sites like Google My Business, Yelp, Facebook, Yellow Pages, etc.

This is really important. Take the time to review your business information (name, phone number, address, URL and business description) and ensure it is consistent. One of the ways a search engine like Google builds confidence in your website is by checking online directories. If a search engine can’t find you there or it sees conflicting information, how can it trust your website?

Take the time to go through your top 25 directories to ensure your information is consistent. It’s time-consuming and mundane work, but it’s worth it for its impact on your SEO for “carpet cleaning companies”.

If You Haven’t Already, Install Google Analytics on Your Website

Google Analytics is a powerful, FREE, tool that allows you to track visitor behavior on your website.

This isn’t necessarily a way for you to optimize your business for a local audience. That said, it gives you an understanding of where your users are and how they’re interacting with your website. You can track behavior and also determine where your audience is coming from down to ZIP code.

There is power in data and no better way for a local business to collect data than Google Analytics.

Tackle Some of the Easier On-Page SEO Items

Over the years, I’ve talked to a good number of people about SEO and I’ve heard some pretty wild statements. Some have claimed, “SEO is dead”. If SEO is dead, talk to your developer and ask him/her to “de-index” your website. Give it a week and let us know what happens. My bet is you’ll revert this change pretty quickly.

While some of the tactics used for SEO have progressed, basics like on-page SEO are still important. Make sure each title, header, alt tag and meta description is specific to individual pages. Make sure it also contains local information in it as well e.g. city name. This helps search engines understand that you are a local business and the services you offer are local.

Review Your Page Speed Times to Determine How Quickly Your Website Loads

Have you ever been to a website that takes FOREVER to load? We’ve all been there and it’s pretty frustrating. The end result? An aggravated user and a lost website visitor.

Additionally, search engines actually devalue slow loading websites. Don’t let a slow website ruin the potential of landing new customers. Page speed items vary but you can test your website’s performance using Google Page Speed Insights. It’s a free tool and will give you some actionable items to speed up your website.

You may need a developer’s help with some of these items but it’s a step in the right direction.

Install Local Business Schema on Your Website

Local Business what? Yep, you read that right – schema. The technical definition for “schema” is a structured data vocabulary that defines entities, actions, and relationships on the Internet.

In English, that means your website is easier read by a search engine. You’re essentially marking up your website in a language that is easier understood by crawlers utilized by Google. You can find examples of local business schema towards the bottom of this page.

Make Sure You Have a Strategy for Collecting Online Reviews

Darren Shaw, CEO of Whitespark, ran a study of how reviews help you rank your Google My Business page.

It’s not a huge bump in rankings but is still worth pursuing. It helps improve rankings and is incredibly important in helping convince people to hire you. It’s a source of social proof and helps build confidence in your brand for potential customers.

All About SEO For Carpet Cleaning Companies

That’s it! With these tips, you are well on your way to improving your optimization and results. Remember, SEO takes time to see results. If you’re not seeing improvements after the first month, try not to panic. We sometimes see SEO take anywhere from 3-9 months to start gaining traction.

Be patient and know that the work you’re doing here is a long term investment into your carpet cleaning company. Good luck!

Want to learn about how carpet cleaning software can help you get more bookings and profit for your company? Book a free, private demo of Vonigo.