Attract More Clients With Highly Targeted

Construction Companies SEO

construction companies seo portland
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Written By: Joey Randazzo

Joey Randazzo is the owner and Founder of Portland SEO Growth Partners based in Portland, OR. He’s worked with hundreds of businesses to build growth-centric SEO campaigns.

Updated: January 5th, 2023

This Construction Companies SEO Guide Has Been Comprehensively Updated for 2023

Due to consistent algorithm updates, the relatively recent Helpful Content Update in late 2022, we’ve updated the written content that already existed on the page. We’ve written new content. And we’ve filmed new video content. Everything is up-to-date, fresh, and helpful for your construction business to dominate Google for 2023.

How We Help Construction Companies Grow Their Business & See A

5.7x ROI on Their Monthly SEO Investment

Increase Google Rankings

Increase your visibility on Google by ranking for valuable, industry-related keywords that your target audience is searching for.

More High-Quality Web Traffic

Get more organic traffic to your website that can convert to high-quality leads.

Increased Leads & Phone Calls

Get your target audience to dial your number or fill out lead submission forms.

You Get Your Time Back

Stop spending hours trying to figure out how to manage your digital marketing on your own.

Here's What You Want To See With Your Construction Company’s Website & SEO

When Someone Types "Construction Companies Near Me" Into Google, You Show Up Here …

construction companies featured snippet

When Someone Types "Construction Companies Near Me" Into Google, You Show Up Here …

Most people searching for a construction company are going to pull out their phone and type something like “Construction Companies Near Me” into Google. 

The first thing that will pop up is the maps area of Google. This is called the Google Local Pack, but we refer to this as “beachfront real estate for SEO”.

The businesses that show up in the Google Local Pack are going to get the most phone calls and clicks to their websites.

When Someone Types "Best Construction Companies in [City]" Into Google, You Show Up Here …

construction companies featured snippet

People looking for construction companies often type in modifiers like “best construction company near me” or “best construction company in Portland”. 

Again, the businesses showing up in the Google Local Pack are going to dominate when it comes to clicks to their websites and phone calls.

construction companies featured snippet

When Someone Types Questions Into Google Like "What Construction Companies Near Me Offer Residential Construction Services?" You Show Up Here …

When Someone Types Questions Into Google Like "What Construction Companies Near Me Offer Residential Construction Services?" You Show Up Here …

People looking for construction services ask thousands of questions on Google each day. Here are some examples:

  • “What questions should I ask before hiring a construction company?”
  • “How do I choose the best construction company?”
  • “How long does a commercial construction project take?”
  • Etc.

When you rank for these types of keywords, you are proving to Google that your website is an “authority” in your industry and can be trusted.

People Are Searching Differently For Construction Companies Than They Used To

Just take a look at the changes in people searching for “construction companies near me” over the last 5 years.

SEO-for-construction-companies

See The Common Theme? You Want To Increase Your Construction Company’s Digital Presence Online To Be Found By Your Target Audience

SEO for construction companies boils down to getting in front of your local target audience so you can convert your visibility into leads. Whenever your audience is searching industry-related keywords on Google, you want to show up above your competitors.

How Do You Get Tangible Results With Construction Companies SEO Services?

Step 1: Comprehensive SEO Audit

Most SEO companies skip over this vital step.

How can you increase your SEO performance if you don’t have a baseline to go off of?

This is why we recommend doing a comprehensive SEO audit to establish:

  • How your SEO is currently performing
  • Any current SEO errors
  • Hoe your local competitors are performing
  • How your technical SEO is currently performing
  • And more

Step 2: Local SEO Visibility Audit

One of the main goals for construction SEO is to increase your “local visibility”. 

Using robust, third-party tools, we complete an “SEO visibility test” on your website to determine how visible your business is on Google.

Here’s what the report looks like:

Step 3: Create a Roadmap Based on Data

At this point, we should have a lot of data to work with from the SEO audit and local SEO visibility audit. 

SEO for construction companies should always be backed by data. Many SEO companies work off of “hunches” rather than let the data speak for itself. This does not work.

You should create a comprehensive roadmap based on the data collected. If your data shows that the load time for your website is really slow (which can negatively impact your performance), you should prioritize fixing this first!

Step 4: Implement Highest Priority Changes First

Here’s the cold, hard truth: Not all SEO activities carry the same importance.

Updating the alt text for images on blog posts that you created a year ago is not going to have the same impact as improving the content on your home page.

You need to look for “low-hanging fruit” opportunities that are supported by your data first. 

For example, if you don’t have a Google Business Profile set up, this is something you should do as soon as possible instead of focusing on shaping up your “About Us” page first.

Step 5: Local SEO Best Practices & Content Creation at Scale

Local SEO for construction companies involves tackling the following: 

  • Providing consistent information that Google trusts
  • Increase your authority in the eyes of Google
  • Providing accurate information that is valuable to your target audience

If the phone number on your web page is inconsistent with the phone number on your Google Business Profile listing, that is a red flag for Google. 

Google only ranks businesses that they are confident users can contact. 

This is why having consistent NAPS (Name, Address, and Phone Number) across the web is so critical. 

As for “authority”, this is where your content comes in. If you create comprehensive, high-value content that your target audience is searching for, Google will see your business as an industry authority and may rank you above other construction companies that have less valuable content on their website.

Step 6: Meticulously Track Data

The main goal of construction SEO is to have a profound impact on your business. To increase the number of people visiting your website. To increase phone calls to your business. And ultimately, bring in more high-quality leads that increase your revenue. 

The only way to ensure that your SEO campaign is working is to track the data. A comprehensive SEO dashboard sheds light on important insights like: 

  • Keyword rankings
  • Organic traffic
  • Phone calls
  • And other important KPIs

Top 4 Common SEO Mistakes Made by Construction Companies

Here’s a look at some of the common SEO mistakes we see time and time again with construction companies.

Mistake 1: They Don’t Fill Out Their Google Business Profile in Detail

When it comes to increasing your local visibility, comprehensiveness is key. You should take advantage of every opportunity you have to share comprehensive information about your businesses. 

Do you have 5 photos on your Google Business Profile? Add 20 more and a video sharing what sets your business apart from other construction companies.

Fill out every applicable attribute to your business. Take advantage of every character space on your business description.

Mistake 2: They Don’t List All of Their Services Properly on Their Website

What does your services page look like on your website? If it is a single page with bullet points listing out your services, you need to fix this. 

Again, comprehensiveness is extremely important to Google. Plus, you’re missing out on a great opportunity to increase your visibility and rankings for valuable keywords in your industry. 

Instead, create a main services page with clickable links to separate web pages dedicated to sharing comprehensive information on the specific services you offer. This can include information like project galleries, pricing, FAQs, and more. Go crazy with it!

Mistake 3: They Fail to Create Data-Driven Content That Adds Value to Their Target Audience

You may have an idea of what you think* your target audience is searching online for, only to conduct keyword research and find that you were way off base!

This is why data is so important. Creating comprehensive, data-backed content is the only way to know for sure what your target audience is searching for so you get your content in front of them and answer questions that they are searching for.

Mistake 4: They Don’t Have a Repeatable Process for SEO

SEO is not a one-off. To consistently drive more organic traffic and leads, you need a repeatable process that works. 

Many construction companies have a few web pages that perform exponentially better than the rest of their content. Why? Because they aren’t applying that same formula for success to all of their content. You need to identify what works and use that process consistently.

Construction Companies SEO Services Shouldn't Be 🍪 Cookie-Cutter — Everything Is 100% Customized To Your Business

Construction SEO is unique — it’s not like other types of SEO, Unfortunately, many SEO companies use the same cookie-cutter approach to SEO thinking it will yield the same performance for all industries. This is not the best way to go about it.

At SEO Growth Partners, we understand that your business is unique and take an individualized approach to each industry. For example, a construction company based in New York is going to require a different approach than a construction company based in a small town in Idaho.

5 Tactical Local SEO Strategies for Construction Companies

Strategy 1: Google Business Profile Optimizations

Here’s an example of a Google Business Profile:

best-keywords-for-construction-companies

To be more specific, this is an example of the front-end of a Google Business Profile. This is the listing that users on Google can see.

Before we go any further, let’s take a step back:

Why is having a Google Business Profile listing important for construction SEO? For starters, having a Google Business Profile listing is essential in ranking in the Google Local Pack.

If you can’t remember what the Google Local Pack looks like, here is a screenshot:

SEO for construction

When you rank in the Google Local Pack, you WIN. You can get more clicks to your website and phone calls than your competitors.

So, how do you optimize your Google Business Profile to land on top of the pile?

You’ll hear us say this word over and over … comprehensiveness.

The most effective way to optimize your Google Business Profile is to be as comprehensive as possible. 

Here are some examples of sections where you can provide comprehensive information:

  • Your secondary categories
  • Your services
  • Your business description
  • Your photos
  • And more

Here’s the difference between being comprehensive and not being comprehensive: 

Your main description is a simple, quick sentence like, “We are a construction company that has been serving the Portland area for over 25 years.”

This is ONE sentence … does it accurately paint a picture of everything your business has to offer? The character limit for business descriptions is 750 characters. Use up this space to give your audience as much valuable information about your business as possible. What areas do you serve? What services do you offer? What sets you aside from competitors?

Strategy 2: On-Page SEO for Your Homepage and Location Pages

On-page SEO for construction companies basically involves optimizing all of the content on your website. 

This includes things like:

  • Title tags
  • Meta descriptions
  • Header tags
  • Internal and external links
  • Images
  • And more

Why does on-page SEO matter for construction companies? Because Google cares about it.

For construction companies, your location pages are going to be the most important pages to optimize on your website. 

When implementing on-page SEO, you want to make sure that you are being as comprehensive as possible while following SEO best practices.

For example, instead of a title tag like Construction Contractors – Portland” you can provide more context to Google by writing something along the lines of “Trusted Construction Contractors in Portland – Johnson Construction”.

Strategy 3: Website Architecture Best Practices

Website architecture is an underrated SEO strategy for construction SEO. Your website architecture and sitemap and directly related. 

Google has to be able to understand your site architecture to effectively crawl your sitemap and understand what your website is about. 

Here’s a screenshot of what a sitemap may look like to Google:

SEO construction

Looks a little confusing, right? Don’t put too much thought into this. This is just to show you how Google ultimately understands the content on your website (which is really important for local SEO).

The main takeaway: Your website structure should make sense hierarchically.

Here’s an example using two main services that construction companies typically offer — 1) commercial construction and 2) residential construction. 

Where do these pages belong on your site? Under a “services” page. Your URL structure should look something like this: .com/services/.

Any services that you offer should live under your main services page. So, the URLs should look something like this:

  • .com/services/commercial-construction
  • .com/services/residential-construction

While this may seem obvious, a lot of construction companies get this wrong. They organize every page to live under the home page, like this:

  • .com/services/
  • .com/commercial-construction
  • .com/residential-construction

Why is this an issue? Because Google can’t tell the difference between a standard web page and the services that you offer.

Strategy 4: Content Creation at Scale

This is where things start to get fun. People looking for construction companies are searching for thousands of questions on Google each day. 

Some searches are localized, like:

  • Best construction company near me
  • Best commercial construction company near me

Others are more generic, like:

  • What questions should I ask before hiring a construction company?
  • How do I find the best construction company? 
  • Etc

If you create content that answers these questions, two things can happen:

  1. You may rank well on Google for these keywords, which helps increase organic traffic to your website.
  2. Google will see your business as an authoritative figure in your industry and increase your visibility on Google.

Strategy 5: User Experience is a Bigger Deal Than You Think - Stop the Keyword Stuffing!

The days of keyword stuffing, PBN link building, and other spammy tactics that used to work are gone.

Google is getting smarter every day, and Google is starting to understand that user experience is the bottom line. 

What does this mean for you as a construction company?

  • You need to make it easy for users to find what they are looking for on your website. You don’t want users to have to poke around for 5 minutes trying to find your portfolio.
  • You need to make it easy for users to contact you. Your phone number should be easy to locate and clickable on a mobile device. Make your form submissions SUPER easy for users to fill out and submit.
  • Your content should actually add value to the reader. Vague, thin content is not going to entice users. They want to see comprehensive content that actually answers their questions.

On Average, Our Construction Company SEO Services for Cost

31% Less Than Other SEO Companies

Compared to Other SEO Companies That Average Between $1.5k and $3k Per Month.

FAQs About Construction Companies SEO Services

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions we hear about SEO for construction companies.

What Is SEO for Construction Companies?

SEO for construction is a specific form of marketing that helps increase visibility on Google for construction companies.

Specific SEO strategies tailored to the construction industry may include:

  • Keyword research
  • On-page SEO
  • Off-page SEO
  • Google Maps optimizations
  • Local SEO
  • Content Creation
  • Landing page creation
  • PR 
  • And more

Why Do Construction Companies Need SEO?

SEO for construction companies is important because it allows companies to get in front of their target audience and increase engagements, phone calls, and leads.

Think about how social media marketing for construction companies typically works: 

People scrolling through Facebook may see an ad for a construction company in their city. Even if they are actively looking for a construction company, they may scroll right past it. 

SEO is designed to increase your visibility for motivated buyers:

People actively looking for a construction company are going to type queries into Google like, “best construction company near me” or “construction companies in downtown Portland”. Ranking for these keywords is going to provide a MUCH higher conversion rate than people scrolling upon a Facebook ad.

How Long Does SEO for Construction Companies Take to Work?

It can take anywhere from 1 week to start seeing movement and up to 6 months to see a dramatic difference with construction SEO. Results can vary depending on factors like: 

  • The size of your service area
  • How long your website has been published
  • How high your websites “domain authority” score is
  • The performance of your current SEO
  • Your competition
  • And more

Some of our clients have seen 2x – 3x the phone calls within the same month of launching their SEO campaign. Other clients don’t start to see increases in rankings and phone calls until the 2-3 month mark.

Think about it like this:

If everyone could make tweaks and minor changes to their websites that result in ranking overnight for the most valuable keywords out there, the internet would be in a constant state of chaos.

Google’s algorithms work the way that they do for a reason.

What Construction Companies SEO KPIs Should We Track?

The results of your SEO campaign should be meticulously tracked. This is the only way to know with absolute certainty that your SEO efforts are worth your investment. 

Important metrics that require special attention include:

  • Keyword rankings: Where are you ranking on the SERPs for your most valuable keywords? Are you seeing increases in keyword rankings month-over-month?
  • Organic website traffic: Is your organic website traffic increasing? Which keywords are driving the most traffic?
  • Online lead submissions: Are you seeing more high-quality leads? How many leads are you getting each month?
  • Phone calls: Are people clicking the call button on your Google Business Profile listing? On your website? Are your phone calls increasing month-over-month?

What Type of Content Should Construction Companies Websites Have?

Any industry-related topics that your target audience is searching for, you want to have on your website.

How do you know what your audience is searching for? We use advanced software tools to conduct keyword research and analysis. For example, we can see that 1200 people are searching for “questions to ask construction company”.

We conduct extensive keyword research to notate the biggest topics/questions that your target audience is typing into Google. 

Questions like: 

  • “What is the best construction company in Portland?”
  • “How long do residential construction projects take?”
  • “Can I get a free estimate on my construction project?”

Creating content around keywords like these gives you the opportunity to rank in the SERPs when people type these questions into Google.

As an added bonus, Google can also favor your site over competitors that have less comprehensive content.

What are the Most Valuable Keywords for Construction SEO?

How To Work With Us

We don’t partner with just any construction company — we only work with construction companies that:

  • Are serious about scaling their business
  • Have the ability to handle the growth that may come from working with us
  • Treat their employees and customers with respect

If you feel like your business may be a good fit, follow the process below:

Step 1

Request a 'Free SEO Audit'

This process takes about 2 minutes.

Step 2

Check Your Email

In less than 24 hours, one of our talented SEO specialists will send you a 3-5 minute customized video analysis. It will explain opportunities for you to outperform competitors.

Step 3

Sit Back And Watch Your SEO Skyrocket

Just look at our case studies of the success that other Portland businesses have seen. You can have the same results.

 If you’re looking for SEO growth, contact us today to learn more about our availability and pricing.

Let's Take Your Construction Company From The "Best Kept Secret" To The "Most Sought After Brand"