How To Easily Get leads with Local SEO For Home Builders
SEO is great if you want to get as much real estate as possible on Google.
But there’s something a lot more important that a lot of people overlook.
Local SEO.
In a nutshell: local SEO is ensuring your business ranks well locally, and as a result, you get higher-quality from your area, and not 5 states away.
But there’s more to it…
What's Local SEO For Home Builders
Local SEO, whether it’s for a home builder, a landscaper, or a hardware store, is making sure that business ranks very high in a certain area.
You do that by giving Google various signals that your business is serving that specific area.
1. Optimize Your Google Business Profile
Your business profile on Google is by far the most important aspect in your local SEO strategy.
It’s the business page that pops up when users search for ‘home building company in Denver’, and it looks like this:
When optimizing your GBP, you need to set the right business category for your profile (home builder in this case), add photos, link your website, include your correct phone number and address, and get reviews.
We’ve made a post about optimizing a Google Business Profile for home builders, and you can read it here.
2. Sign Up On Business Directories For Contractors
First of all, what’s a business directory for contractors?
In short, a business directory is a website that lists multiple businesses. Think of Angi’s List, Nextdoor, Home Advisor, Yelp, and even Google Maps.
Having your business listed on any of these means a citation, which basically increases your relevance and prominence online, and as a result, your local SEO will grow.
We’ve created a short list with the best business directories for contractors. You’ll find a lot of value in reading it and adding your business in all of these sites we mention there.
3. Optimize Your Website Content
As I mentioned earlier, if you’re a home builder in Denver, you want to emphasize that throughout your website and give Google hints that you’re only building homes in that specific area.
You’ll want to mention neighborhoods, nearby cities and towns, and add these locations throughout your website. Mix them with keywords for your services, and you’ll start seeing a steady growth.
Here are some good places to add location hints:
- In your site's title and meta description.
- In the first headline of your homepage.
- In the project case studies you have on your website.
- In the reviews people leave you, like '... says a homeowner in Denver'
- In your blog post content
Very important: Always make sure your blog posts are also relevant locally. For example, ‘the best home building materials’ turns into ‘the best home building materials for Colorado’s climate’. This way, you have a higher chance of ranking and you’ll get more valuable clicks.
4. Get relevant links to your website
This is a challenging step, but it can potentially have the biggest impact on your business.
Websites that point back to your website are called backlinks. And if there are many websites that link back to yours, than it means your up to something, and Google notices that.
If the websites are also local, like the BBB, the local Chamber of Commerce, a local home building association, a local interior design company, or a local hardware store, your local SEO will greatly improve.
If you follow the #2 step on this list, you’ll already have a backlink from all the business directories that you sign up for.
5. Get Involved Locally
Although an offline effort, getting involved with the local community will always pay off one way or another.
Sponsoring local evens, sports teams, participating in fairs, or even installing a banner or a yard sign could get you some great results.
This is what can happen:
- You could get mentioned in the local newspaper
- A lot of neighbors can see your brand
- You could get backlinks from the websites of the school, tradeshow, or sports team
- And ultimately, people will start talking more and more about your business
6. Start Doing Social Media
I know what you’re thinking, people scrolling trough Tik Tok or Facebook are not planning to build a home, but realistically, you can’t know for certain.
Besides, it’s not even about getting leads directly through social media, but more about building a recognizable brand image so that whenever someone thinks about building a home, your name comes first to their mind.
I’ve seen and heard of so many businesses who popped just because of a Tik Tok video that went viral.
So get out there, create content, and go viral for the sake of your local SEO.
SEO Vs and Local SEO For Home Builders
Both SEO and local SEO are important when you want to get leads online, and they ALWAYS work hand in hand.
The main difference is that local SEO is great for local businesses such as a home builder, and SEO is great for an online retailer that sells clothes worldwide.
With SEO you’re trying to rank nationwide, but with local SEO you’re trying to rank locally, which is a lot easier, faster, and more lucrative for your home building business.
Local SEO and Google Maps SEO
You could say these are one and the same, but not quite.
Local SEO has a lot to do with your website, Google, Google Maps, and other websites.
Google Maps is purely about your Google Business Profile and how it ranks on the Maps and the map-pack (the first 3 businesses returned on local search queries).
As a rule of thumb, most of these complement each other even if sometimes they might not directly impact each other.
Finding A Local SEO Expert
Most SEO companies can also do local SEO, they just need to know how to prioritize them.
We’ve seen companies how put a lot of effort into ranking nationwide and never succeeded, and those who succeeded were getting leads from several states away, leads impossible to close.
If you’re getting ready to talk with an SEO agency, make sure to ask about their local SEO strategy and the results you should expect along the way.
Closing Thoughts
If you’re planning to grow your business and get more leads from online, you should know that local SEO should be one of your top priorities.
From what we’ve seen so far in over 10 years of working with home builders and contractors from different niches, this is your best chance to get some quick, easy wins to get you going.
Sure, having a great website, doing ads, and creating social media content will ALWAYS help, but your local SEO will get you local, qualified leads who want to build a home with you!