Get More Cleaning Business Leads with Better Google Search Results

This article about getting more cleaning business leads is by Gael Breton, Co-founder of Authorityhacker.

If you want to get more cleaning business leads for your company, the answer could be as simple as improving your Google Search ranking.

Unfortunately, what should be simple is complicated by a lot of misinformation and outright superstition. Let’s break it down for you.

Researching how to rank higher in the search results may reveal a lot of contradicting information and outdated tips. Everybody’s got a magic formula and they can’t wait to sell it to you. Most of the advice you’ll find online is anecdotal. It worked for some people, some of the time, but there’s no guarantee that it will bring you more cleaning business leads in the end.

The Solution?

Numbers. If you’ve been wondering about how to master Google and beat your cleaning business competition in the search results, getting real leads, read on. We’ll delve into proven SEO techniques that have provided results in a statistically significant number of cases.

For this piece, we looked at Authority Hacker’s 1.1 million SERPs analysis and Ahref’s study of 2 million Featured Snippets, both great sources.

The Bottom Line to Generate Cleaning Business Leads

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is all about convincing Google that visitors will have a good experience with your business. This means providing a flawless user experience and valuable content, keeping Google and your customers happy.

If someone is looking for a cleaning company, they’re more likely to go through your funnel and actually book your services when they can easily navigate your website. Add good tips and in-depth articles into the mix and you’re bound to increase sales. People respect you more when they can see you’re an expert.

Small cleaning companies usually don’t have the time or resources to focus on mastering SEO. Read this piece, learn real SEO tips that bring real cleaning business leads, and you’re already one step ahead of your competition.

Don’t expect a walk in the park though. Google’s algorithm takes hundreds of ranking factors into account when deciding who fulfills those two criteria. However, crunching the numbers on millions of search results showed a strong correlation between ranking on top and doing the following things right.

Keywords for Cleaning Business Leads

Both the number and density of keywords matter a lot. Keywords in metadata, h1s (headlines), and title tags show a strong correlation with ranking higher. 

Longer content also works better. Most studies show a correlation between longer content and better SEO, but there’s a catch here.

Studies with big samples can run into issues when assessing the “word count”. Crawlers will also take comments, author boxes or pop-ups into account. Moreover, a lot of these studies are done by companies that sell content marketing services in one way or another, so they’re happy to inflate the numbers.

It’s More Than Word Count

Longer articles work better, but not necessarily because of the word count itself. Having over 1000 words in a blog post means you have plenty of room to insert keywords organically, and that’s what guarantees a top rank. It’s not the word count per se, it’s the keyword count.

The numbers back it up. If you take #1 results into account, the main keyword appears 5.7 times on average in the body of the text, while the average word count drops considerably when you account for adjacent elements.

Keyword Count Isn’t the Whole Story

Studying the numbers behind SEO shows that an even more important metric is the parent topic of your targeted keyword. This word appears 17.2 times on average in top results, and the more that number drops, the lower you’ll appear on the first page.

(Credits to Authority Hacker’s study of 1.1 million SERPs analyzed)

So how do you approach keywords in your content?

1. Focus on the parent topic. If you’re writing about 5 Amazing DIY Home Cleaning Projects, mention “DIY home cleaning projects” wherever you can organically.
2. Pick one long-tail keyword per post – Google likes them as much as they like short keywords with a lot of traffic.
3. Write something long enough to allow for a credible keyword density.
4. Include your keyword in the title and format the content accordingly.

Backlinks

Another important aspect to beat your competition in the search results is being linked to. This helps Google understand that people in your industry recommend your content.

Although link authority metrics like Ahrefs Rank are shown to be less correlated to the actual search result than expected, the number of referring domains to your URL is the most strongly correlated factor for ranking on top.

How Do You Get Backlinks?

First of all, never aim to get backlinks in general. Much more important than the number of links is their quality. To achieve that, here are some tips:

1. Create a killer piece of content, not just a good article. In-depth studies or accompanying infographics work best for this.
2. Let people know about it.
3. Don’t pay for links, and don’t spam links.

For a detailed guide, you can read about Brian Dean’s Skyscraper Formula and Authority Hacker’s Shotgun Skyscraper technique. 

Back End Details

Besides the flashy techniques, you should also get “https” and loading time squared away. The first is a must to rank now, which Google also made very clear recently. It’s a safety measure that every responsible website owner should use.

To make sure you’re covered on that front, get an SSL certificate. A lot of web hosting companies and website builders offer them for free, so it shouldn’t be a hassle. If this sounds like gibberish to you, find out more on Cloudflare’s page about HTTPS.

Loading time is a different story. Page speed matters for ranking higher, but not as much as expected. It’s just a box you have to tick, not a race to see who’s got better loading time. 

To improve that, check GTMetrix. It will analyze your website and provide step-by-step instructions on how to get a decent page speed.

Myths

SEO rumors have been around since the industry was born. If you analyze the matter objectively though, you’ll find that some of these myths are simply not true:

• Google doesn’t treat high volume keywords any differently. Don’t try to rank for them just for the traffic, especially when you could better serve your audience with amazing articles on lower volume keywords.
• Google doesn’t have a preference for YouTube embedded videos over other competitor platforms.
• The length of your URL doesn’t matter all that much. Just go with something that makes sense.

Other Observations

We still don’t know enough. An interesting thing from AH’s study is that the same progression for metrics on the first page — for example, a certain proportion of backlinks the higher you go in the results — can be seen on the second page as well.

This means that there is a fine line between doing all the right things to better serve an audience and appearing spammy in the eyes of Google. We need more studies on that to find a completely dependable SEO technique.

The best way to respond to that right now is a shift in attitude. SEO used to be a niche field dominated by people that employed the right tricks. That doesn’t work anymore. Rather, you should focus on actually helping people as your first priority and then employing what you read today to make sure Google notices that. Make your website attractive to actual customers, and Google will reward you. The expertise on display in your posts will convert cleaning business leads into cleaning business customers.

To Wrap It Up: More Google Tips

Learning how to master Google is not a one-off thing. As much as we’d like to give you the 100% proven technique, there’s still a considerable amount of research that needs to happen for that.

However, based on millions of search results, you should:

• Focus on implementing the right keywords at a proper cadence.
• Employ a link building strategy that actually provides value for your audience.
• Make sure your site is certified and loading fast.
• Don’t listen to SEO hearsay.

At least if you want a better chance of beating your competition in the search results. It won’t be the easiest thing you did for your business, but ranking higher than your competition means getting more traffic than they do, which in turn guarantees more sales. 

The world has set up shop online, and so should you.

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