Introduction
If you are a business owner that maintains a website then you have heard about the importance of having good SEO. You’ve also likely heard lots of different pitches from individuals or agencies that are looking to sell you search engine optimization services for your moving business. But does SEO really move the needle for a moving company, and if it does, what are the best SEO strategies to incorporate on your website? How do you know if those strategies are working? And most important of all, how do you measure your SEO returns into how many more new moving jobs you are booking?
So let’s talk about the elephant in the room that has the letters “SEO” printed on the side. We’re a digital marketing firm that specializes in leads for moving companies and storage facilities, so we know what the important questions are to ask potential partners. We’ve had challenging websites to optimize in the past and we’ve been asked to fix websites that have had horrible SEO implemented on them. Let’s talk about SEO for a moving company from our perspective as people that have seen a lot of this sort of business, and what we think the best practices are to make SEO work (and what strategies will blow up and make your website fail.
Why SEO is Important for Moving Companies
Here is the absolute basic fact about modern SEO for moving companies: if you are running a moving business and have any kind of online presence, you need to be thinking of SEO.
The majority of people turn to a search engine like Google to find the moving services they need. Your company’s online presence, or lack thereof, can significantly impact your ability to generate new leads and grow your business. Conversely, if your competitors have superior SEO tactics in play they will get those moving leads, not you.
So what are the ways that SEO works for your moving biz?
Increased Online Visibility
Imagine a homeowner in need of moving services. This moving lead is likely to start their search online, typing in something like “best moving companies near me.” They aren’t looking up your company by name; they’re searching for the service that you (and your competition) provide.
Now, if your moving company’s website is optimized for local area search engine results, it has a much higher chance of appearing on the first page of search results. This visibility is super-critical.
Time and time again, studies show that the first page of Google captures the vast majority of traffic, with a significant drop-off for pages two and beyond. Therefore, your moving company needs to be on that first page of results.
If your moving company website isn’t showing up on the first page then you need to improve its SEO. If you can take steps to rise in the organic search rankings you will be getting more visibility to potential customers, and more leads will roll in through your website.
Targeted Traffic Generation
SEO isn’t just about attracting any traffic—it’s about attracting the right kind of traffic, people that are looking for movers to help them move right away.
Through targeted keyword optimization, SEO helps attract users who are specifically looking for moving services. You can target different local areas, or specialized moving services, or focus certain of your website pages on attracting commercial or residential moving jobs.
The more targeted that the traffic coming to your webpage pages are, the more likely these visitors will convert into leads and, eventually, customers.
By laser focusing on relevant keywords on specific landing pages you can drastically increase the quality of your leads, making your marketing efforts more effective and efficient.
Better traffic = better quality of leads = more business won.
Key SEO Strategies for Moving Companies
Now that we’ve been refreshed as to why we want to do this SEO work, it’s crucial to understand and implement effective strategies tailored to your moving company. The keyword phrase here is “your moving company”, not your competition. It can be easy to focus too much on what you think your competition is doing to attract leads. That can cause your SEO strategy to be weakened or diluted.
Here are some key strategies our team has implemented that help improve online visibility, attract more targeted traffic, and generate more leads for moving companies in competitive markets.
Keyword Research and Optimization
The first step in any effective SEO strategy is thorough keyword research. This involves identifying the terms and phrases that potential customers are using to search for moving services online.
We use tools like Google Keyword Planner or SEMrush can help us discover what these valuable keywords are in your target market. There are even seasonal keywords that can be focused on to attract lead flow during peak times of the year.
Once your target keywords have been identified you need to integrate them naturally into your website’s content, titles, meta descriptions, and URLs.
Remember, the goal is to make it easy for search engines to understand what your website is about and match it to relevant searches. Focus on one primary keyword per landing page; mudding up your pages with too many broad keywords related to moving services is diluting your maximum potential results.
Local SEO Optimization
For moving companies, local SEO is paramount. Most of your business likely comes from within a specific geographic area, so it’s crucial that your website be optimized for local searches.
This includes claiming your Google My Business listing, working to obtain local backlinks, and ensuring your NAP (name, address, and phone number) information is consistent across the internet. We’ve seen loads of moving companies not even have these basic items checked off their to-do list.
Improving your local SEO helps your business show up in local search results and Google Maps, making it much easier for potential customers in your area to find and contact you.
Content Marketing for SEO
Next, let’s talk about your site content.
Creating valuable, informative content is a powerful way to improve your website’s SEO. There are lots of potential content ideas that can be on a moving company’s website: blog posts, moving tips, packing guides, and other relevant copy like this can attract visitors to your website and keep them engaged. Even better, this sort of content begins to establish trust between the lead and your business, setting things up for the next phase of doing business.
Relevant content creation that includes your SEO strategy establishes your company as a trustworthy authority in the moving industry. The longer that you do it, the stronger your site will grow. An effective content marketing strategy can lead to better website metrics, which are the ways you can prove that your SEO work is paying off. Metrics can come in the form of higher engagement on your website, longer website visits, phone clicks, leads filled out, and, ultimately, more conversions from prospective customers to actual clients.
By understanding the importance of how to measure your SEO work and implementing these key strategies, moving companies can begin to dramatically improve their online visibility, attract more targeted traffic, and generate those valuable moving leads.
Investing time and resources into content is not just a smart marketing move for your SEO—it’s essential for staying competitive in the increasingly competitive moving industry marketplace.
Benefits of Optimizing Your Website for Moving Leads
Let’s dive deeper into what those juicy rewards are that you can measure your SEO work against. What do those geeky digital marketing terms mean, and what is the real world payoff from better results?
Higher Conversion Rates
One of the primary benefits of SEO is the significant boost in conversion rates it can deliver. A conversion can mean a number of different things but for the sake of simplicity let’s define the ultimate conversion as booking a new moving job.
By targeting specific keywords related to moving services, you started to have your website attract a better caliber of visitors, one that is further down the sales funnel and ready to hire movers.
With your SEO improved website, these new site visitors are now more engaged and thus more likely to take the next step in the moving process with you. You’ll want to make sure that your site makes it really easy to book an appointment, request a moving quote, answer a question, field a call…whatever it is that gets you more business.
More conversions will mean fatter revenue.
Improved User Experience
Every SEO strategist worth their weight knows that their work is all about providing a top-notch user experience. Search engines favor sites that load quickly, are easy to navigate, and offer valuable content to users. By optimizing a movers’ website, we’re not only improving its ranking on search results but also ensuring visitors have a pleasant experience. We want their experience to be enjoyable because that wins our clients more customers.
This can include making your website more mobile-friendly to capitalize on the huge percentage of people using their phones to book a moving service; by having clear calls to action on the moving website; or by highlighting and increasing the visual presence of useful information about your moving services.
Bottom line: a user-friendly website encourages visitors to stay longer, reducing bounce rates and increasing the chances of converting leads into customers. Even if you think that your moving website is doing a decent job of providing a pleasant user experience, what if you could increase conversions by 5% or 10% more. Would you turn down those extra moving jobs?
Enhanced Brand Credibility
Strong online presences significantly enhance your moving company’s brand credibility. It’s like giving your SEO efforts a wax and shine; all that work that you put into the body now shines even moreso.
Human psychology is an interesting thing. When a website appears at the top of search engine results, it’s seen as a tacit endorsement by Google or Bing.
An elevated visibility conveys authority and trustworthiness, key factors that potential customers consider when selecting a moving company. When those site visitors roll on to your moving website, helpful content, like packing tips or moving checklists, further establishes your brand as an industry leader. Better imagery, or imagery that conveys a professional image, also connects better psychologically. No one wants to spend thousands of dollars on movers that have dirty trucks or dark images on their site.
And I haven’t even touched on how great imagery can improve your SEO ranking by having the right keyword descriptions as part of the metadata.
This one area alone can supercharge a moving company’s website and move them dramatically higher in the search engine rankings, yet it’s something that still gets overlooked by many web designers.
Practical Tips for Implementing SEO for More Moving Leads
Alright, so you want to reap these benefits. Let’s break it down into some actionable tips.
Mobile Optimization
Fact #1: having a mobile-optimized website is non-negotiable if you are running a moving business. A significant portion of online searches, including those for moving services, are conducted on smartphones. Ensuring that your website is responsive and offers a seamless experience on mobile devices is crucial. This means quick loading times, easily clickable links, and content that scales properly to fit smaller screens. What works for a desktop visitor doesn’t always work for a mobile site visitor.
Mobile optimization is not just about user convenience; it’s also a ranking factor used by search engines to determine your website’s placement in search results. No excuses; you need to have thought about a stand-alone mobile strategy. If you don’t have one your competition will, and they will book those extra moves.
User-Friendly Website Design
A user-friendly website design is now a part of a smart SEO strategy. Your website needs to have a clean, intuitive layout that makes information easy to find. Your services, contact information, and customer testimonials should be front and center.
Additionally, incorporating visual elements like banners or infographics can make complex information more digestible.
Remember, the goal is to guide visitors smoothly from their initial interest in your moving services to contacting you for a quote or more information. Imagining the flow of a user, from first impression to sending off a contact submission, is required when you think about your website design.
Link Building Strategies
Link building is a crucial component of modern SEO, especially one that includes local search.
You need to find reputable websites that will link back to your site. These backlinks signal to search engines that other sites consider your content valuable and trustworthy, which can significantly improve your search rankings.
I know, it’s tough to imagine why another business would link to your movers site, right? Nevertheless, it’s not only possible to make it happen, it’s needed to move the needle and rise above your competitors.
To build links effectively, consider guest blogging on reputable sites related to moving or home improvement, complementary local businesses and organizations.
Additionally, creating share-worthy content like moving guides or infographics can encourage others to link to your website naturally. There’s good statistics and information out there to be found.
Remember, the quality of the links is more important than quantity, so focus on building relationships with authoritative sites complementary to the moving industry.
Finally, by implementing these tips not only will you enhance your online visibility in moving related search results but also solidify your reputation as a trustworthy and reliable moving service provider.
Conclusion
There is a lot of information to digest here but that was what I said upfront; this is a guide to how our team sees SEO for moving companies. These strategies work; we have used them for our clients and continue to build upon these strategies.
SEO for a moving website isn’t just ticking off boxes on a task list. Your ultimate goal should be to continually improve the user experience of your site, creating a user-friendly, informative, and engaging ground base that guides potential moving clients smoothly from discovery to decision.
Rome wasn’t built in a day, and the most powerful websites that convert site visitors into paying customers weren’t built overnight as well. Develop a strategy and plan and then slowly execute the tasks. If you need help in checking off the tasks or in coming up with a plan to rank higher in the search engines, schedule a meeting with our team today. We’d love to hear from you.
