Take Your Company to New Heights in 2023 With SEO Strategies That Work
Updated on 03/20/2023
Marketing your home-building company online can be hard since it can include managing several locations, dealing with competition, and tracking all your efforts.
We’ve compiled together a variety of questions to consider when incorporating SEO for new home builders along with tips and tricks from our experienced team of professionals in order to help.
We’re here to help!“John and his team at Sixth City are smart, passionate, and friendly. A great team to collaborate with!” – Will Duderstadt, M/I Homes
Why Invest in Search Engine Optimization for Home Builders?
Did you know that there are 1.7 million searches on Google for contractors every single month? Without dedicating time to enhance your online marketing efforts, think of all of people who are finding your competitors website instead of yours.
And most times, we see home builders using outdated tactics to generate leads, and they hav no way to track the return on their investment in things like billboards, mail flyers, and radio commercials. In our honest opinion, SEO is the best channel to see ROI within your business. But remember, SEO is more of a marathon than a sprint. The increases in traffic and leads to your site by customers can take up to 3-6 months to get the most accurate of results, but they can be long-lasting.
Home Builder SEO Tactics to Know
Depending on where you are in terms of your marketing, whether starting fresh or being years into trying various approaches, it’s never too late to create a customized plan that can be implemented to give you max results. We recommend getting yourself familiar with the following:
- Content optimization
- Blog post writing
- Google Ads management
- Paid social media
- Local citation creation
- Local link building
- Google Business Profile management
- Internal linking
- Social media marketing
- Email marketing
- Metadata writing
- National link building
- Site speed optimization
- Image optimization
- Website redesigning
- Design for conversion
- Goal tracking and monitoring
Assess Your Current Approach with These Questions
When starting your research for home builders SEO, asking yourself these questions is a great place to begin the process:
- When was the last time I evaluated my website? Google and other search engines are always changing their algorithms, which means that if you have not done proper website maintenance, your site could be behind the curve.
- Do I have marketing in place for all my locations? If your business caters to more than one area, it is crucial that you have landing pages and local listings online to help customers find you.
- Do I have goal tracking in place? If you already have Google Analytics added to your website, you should have proper goal tracking set up that allows you to track form submissions, phone calls, and other lead tracking metrics.
- When was my website built? You may not realize it, but if you have an older website, limitations of older interfaces, or the appearance of an outdated design, could be what is holding you back from obtaining leads.
8 Tips for SEO Success for New Home Builders
Let’s take a deeper look at what SEO strategies you should be incorporating into your home builder campaign:
Claim Google Business Profiles listings for all locations
Customers are going to want a local business they can trust, and if you have more than one location for your business, you want to make sure you have a prominent presence in all your cities. Claim your GBP listing to optimize it thoroughly for search by adding in updated photo, categories, services, and posts.
Pro-tip: While you are only allowed to select one main category on your profile, you are allowed to add up to 5 predefined categories. Ones that are most relevant to your that are available as of March 2023 are:
- Custom home builder
- Home builder
- Construction company
- Construction and maintenance office
- Modular home builder
- Log home builder
Have location pages on your website
On top of the GBP listings, you will want to make sure that you vocalize the different areas you are located in, or serve, on your website. Writing localized landing pages that include helpful, detailed content and relevant keywords will do just the trick. Be sure to include photos and links in those specific regions so users can see for themselves as well!
For example, if you have a business based in Chicago, it may be important to include landing pages about the city itself, as well as the surrounding areas. This can include adding location pages for Evanston, Glenview Oak Brook, and even Naperville to your Chicago website.
Use your blog to answer common questions
One of the best things about a blog is that it can be used for SEO, but also so much more – it really can be whatever you want it to be! And one of the best ways you can get more backlinks and more traffic to your site is to write articles that answer commonly searched questions like “how long does it take to build a new home” and other similar queries. Here are some other ideas to get your creative gears turning:
- Frequently asked questions about building a custom home
- How much does it cost to build a new home?
- Building a new home vs. buying
- Top 10 reasons to build a new home from scratch
Ensure your local citation profiles are complete
Are you present on websites such as Houzz, Yelp, Angi, and more? Be sure you have completed those profiles with key information listed that customers would likely want to see, such as pricing, availability, reviews, and more. These types of websites are the new version of yellow pages, and users often times start their searches using these niche directories to start learning about their options.
Update your site with completed projects
Create a page that acts as a case studies section that shows what work you have completed as well as metrics that users would find useful such as how long it took, materials used, and anything else of interest. You will then be able to have this resource to link from all your other pages and even to include in your email marketing efforts, and more.
Use social media to engage with followers
Alongside posting projects that you are currently working on and have completed, you can also utilize the platforms to ask customers their thoughts on different home styles, landscaping, and more. Social is also a great place to most customer reviews, awards, and anything else newsworthy for your industry that your followers would find useful as they scope out your company.
Analyze your local and national competitors
Creeping on what your competition is doing has always been a great way to get a better assessment of what areas you can improve on internally. Checking their backlinks, seeing what keywords they are bidding on for PPC, and noting how they structure their website are just some of the ways to gain vital information to help you improve and get a leg up.
Use video to take your visuals to the next level
A picture can say a thousand words, but videos can do even more than that. And in the digital age we live in, users love to see as much detail as possible when on the web. From tours to product highlights to different stages of your building process, the opportunities are endless for what you can focus on. And when you embed your videos on your website, and add proper alt tags, title tags, and even schema, it can help your videos appear in search results as well.
Proven Results with SEO for Home Builders
In 2018, our team at Sixth City worked with the Columbus-area company M/I Homes after they redesigned their website. They were looking to increase website traffic and online leads, and with our home builder digital marketing help, we were able to show concrete results.
We accomplished this through tactics such as:
- Keyword research and analysis
- Content writing and website updates
- Google Business Profile optimization
- Google Search Console review
Compared to the previous year for the company we were able to increase:
- Overall traffic by 48%
- Organic traffic by 12%
- New users by 58%
Get to Know Sixth City, Home Builder Digital Marketing Experts
Our team at Sixth City Marketing has a collective 25+ years of experience spearheading SEO campaigns across relevant home-building industries, like construction, contracting, electrical work, painting, roofing, and more. Our in-house staff has the ability to work together to craft the perfect solution for your marketing goals.
With our talented writers, designers, and everyone in-between, we ensure that by choosing our agency, the quality of work produced is unmatched. Not to mention, we can also offer your company paid marketing, website design, and a variety of other online marketing services.
And while we are headquartered in Cleveland, we also have offices in Columbus, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, and Chicago! We would be glad to help you no matter where you are located.
“I briefly worked for Sixth City Marketing a few years ago and had an incredibly positive experience. Not only does John, the founder and owner, care about his clients, but he goes above and beyond to make sure his employees are well-trained, knowledgeable, and happy, as well. When the employees are glad to work for their boss, excellent customer service is a direct result, and this is especially evident at Sixth City Marketing.” – Carolyn Devor, Sherwin-Williams
Get to Know More About Home Builder SEO and Marketing
If you are interested in learning more about what SEO for new home builders can do for your business, request a free website evaluation today using the form above.