Using Search Engine Optimization to get more Garage Door Customers
SEO is one of the most important digital marketing strategies for garage door companies. A garage door business owner would be wise to implement a marketing campaign with search ads, while at the same time deploying a sound SEO strategy. Both can bring in more potential customers to your business. Both are much more effective than social media marketing and traditional garage door marketing methods (like print, tv ads, or radio ads).
For a garage door company, search engine optimization involves taking the steps necessary to get individual services pages for garage door websites to rank high up on in the search engines – especially on Google. In many cases, you will also want to get your home page to rank high up on the search engine results page – like for general “garage door repair” queries.
When pages for your site rank high up in the search results, you’re more likely to get clicks that cost you nothing – and get more traffic to your garage door repair company website. More traffic = more leads coming in, and you’ll have increased opportunities to convert an incoming lead into a paying client.
Unlike paid advertising with Google, the clicks you get from SEO are free. Each lead does have some cost associated with it – as there is work involved in getting your website to rank for services you provide.
The benefits can be huge, though. You may find that business generated from garage door SEO marketing provides a lower overall cost per lead than online advertising with Google Ads or Bing Ads.
Let’s take a look at the search results page to get a better idea of what SEO is all about….
Where are the SEO results on a Search Engine Results Page?
When you are working on an SEO campaign, the objective is to appear high up in the organic search results. When someone clicks on an organic search result listing, they are taken directly to the website, and the owner of the website isn’t charged anything (unlike Google Ads).
To get a better understanding, please take a look at the Google search for “garage door repair lone tree, co” below. Please also note that other search engines – like Microsoft’s Bing – display search results in a similar format.
The search results for “garage door repair lone tree, co
As you can see in the image above, there are results, but none of the results are organic. There are only two sections “above the fold” (meaning you have to scroll down to see other results). We have Local Services Ads for Garage Doors at the very top – followed by the map pack which usually contains 3 listings of garage door repair companies near your location.
This search results page is quite typical. Usually, you’ll see ads for servicing residential garage doors on the top – either Local Services Ads or Google Ads. Google is a publicly-traded company and ads are their main source of revenue, which is why ads are always prominently featured in search results. You’ll usually see the map pack right below the ads.
As we scroll down, we get to the organic listings. Below is a larger screenshot of all of the search results.
(A) This is the section where typically you’ll see Google Local Services Ads or Google text Ads (or both) for competing Garage door companies. Note, you may also see ads at the very bottom of the page.
(B) Right below the ads are business listings on Google Maps – which is commonly referred to as the “map pack”. There are typically 2-4 business listings in this area for other garage door installation companies and repair companies.
(C) Organic listings. These are the free (organic listings). You almost always have to scroll down the page in order to see these organic business listings. As a garage door company, this is where you want pages for your business website to appear. Being listed here can result in customers contacting your business for services like garage door installation or replacement.
SEO Results for Garage Door Companies Are Way Down on The Page
Does anyone scroll down far enough to read these results?
Google encourages clicks on ads to generate revenue which is why they’re always shown at the top. However, a SimilarWeb/SparkToro study showed that searchers (your potential customers) are roughly 27 times more likely to click on an organic (free) listing than a paid advertisement.
Apparently, there are a lot of searchers who don’t trust advertising and will scroll down past the ads to click on an organic (free) listing. A smart strategy for would be to incorporate BOTH Google Ads and garage door SEO into your digital marketing plans. They are both highly effective at bringing in new business.
The SEO Benefits to Your Garage Door Repair Business
Having a well-constructed garage door SEO campaign for your business can result in a lot more free clicks through to your website. If your website is properly designed for converting prospects into customers, this can result in a lot of benefits:
Less Ad Spend – I’m a big proponent of both SEO and Google Ads for garage door companies. However, the more successful your SEO campaign is at bringing in customers, the less budget you’ll have to allocate for advertising.
Pick and Choose Your Customers – If you’re getting more quality leads coming in, it really allows you to use more discretion in who you want to serve as a customer. You can tighten your service area to be closer to your office. You could also focus on more high-income demographics with higher profit margins. It gives you flexibility in working on the jobs that you want to work on most.
Raise Prices / Expand – Getting more high-quality leads through SEO also means that you could potentially raise your prices as you don’t have to win as many jobs. You could potentially take in the same amount of revenue for a bit less work. Alternatively, you could expand your staff and take on more jobs – thereby increasing
The Three Main Components of Search Engine Optimization
In order to market your garage door business effectively on search engines, you need to know what is involved. There are literally hundreds of ranking factors that Google uses as part of its search engine ranking algorithms. Google isn’t exactly forthcoming with how it ranks websites, but there are 200+ known factors at last count.
I’ve distilled these ranking factors into three major areas: Links, Content, and Technical (On-Page SEO). If you’re evaluating Internet marketing agencies, all three of these must be part of their SEO services.
Note that you’ll also need to have a clean, easy-to-navigate web design that makes it easy for a potential client to find exactly what they’re looking for. For more information, check out our article on garage door websites.
1) Links to Your Garage Door Company Website
Links are a key component of effective SEO. Google views backlinks (links from other sites to your site) as kind of like “votes”. The more links you get from high-quality websites – or websites that are local to your service area – the more likely it is that Google will value these links as votes.
The more important the website, the more impact the link will have. A link from a local newspaper or local chamber of commerce will be valuable. If your niece builds a hobby website and links to your garage door site, this will have almost no value.
What About Linking to Other Websites FROM My Garage Door Website
Linking to other websites won’t help with SEO – but it won’t hurt you either – and it may help you long term with your local customer base.
As an example, if there are jobs that are too small for you to come out and service a customer (e.g. lubricating garage door rollers) – feel free to link out to an appropriate lubricant page from an online store. This won’t help from an SEO perspective, but the customer may remember you the next time they need more substantial garage door servicing.
How Do Garage Door Companies Get Links?
Content is a key way to get links and is discussed in the next section.
Another way to get links is to think of the relevant relationships that your garage door business has. Think of companies you work with or areas that you work within where it would make sense for them to link to you. Examples may include:
- Local business directories
- Chambers of Commerce
- Garage Door Industry Associations (like IAD)
- Garage Door Parts Suppliers
- Property Managers
Can I Buy Links for My Business?
Don’t buy links from other websites. This is a “black hat” SEO tactic. Doing so is against Google’s webmaster guidelines and puts your business website at risk of getting deindexed and no longer showing up in the search results at all.
How Many Links do I Need?
Small businesses operating in a local service area don’t need a ton of links when compared to a national e-commerce site. The goal is for your backlinks to compare favorably in quality and quantity to your competitors.
There are search engine optimization tools like ahrefs that you can use to view the backlinks for garage door companies who are competing with your business.
In the screenshot below, we have plugged in a competitor that appeared on page 1 of our original search (“garage door repair lone tree, co”). They have links from 54 domains. You can analyze the incoming links to determine their value. You may even be able to get some of the exact same links for your garage door repair website.
2) Great SEO Content Showcasing Your Services
For your garage door digital marketing efforts to work, you need to have good content. Content marketing is mandatory in order for your company to rank well in search engines. There are two types of content to focus on for your garage door repair business: content that attracts customers and content that attracts links.
SEO Optimized Content that Attracts Customers
If you want your services pages to rank well on the search results page, you must demonstrate that you deliver great services.
The best way to do this is to document your jobs. If your garage door technician is doing a new garage door installation, have them document the entire door installation process. Take photos, include video, and show step by step how they set up the garage door opener, assembled the tracks, installed the springs, rods, pulleys, and cables. Include before and after photos of the entire door installation – and everything in between. Also, have them document where the job took place. Do this for as many jobs as possible.
If you’re a garage door service provider in metro Phoenix and you replace a torsion spring in Tempe, document it and turn it into a blog post. When someone in Tempe searches for “Broken garage door spring Tempe” or even just “broken garage door spring”, you have a solid chance of showing up on the search engine results page.
Content that Attracts Links to Your Garage Door Company Site
Getting links is notoriously difficult for home services professionals. Google’s popular answer to obtaining links is to just write good content. The theory is that people will recognize your great content and link to it. This is much harder than it seems.
Instead, stand out from other garage door companies and write about things people are actually searching for – not what you think would make good content. Your goal is to provide the answer for whatever they’re searching for.
This means effectively using keywords. Keywords are words used in digital marketing campaigns for both paid advertising and SEO. Keywords connect your repair services to what the search phrase the user enters in a search engine. You’ll want to develop your web content around terms that people actually search for. Your goal is to
To have success, you’d be better off using keyword research tools to find garage door related keywords that have low competition and high search volume. A couple of articles about DIY garage door repair and servicing would probably work best. For more information on how to find content ideas like this, be sure to check out our post on keywords for garage door services.
3) Technical Considerations (Including On-Page SEO)
The last major consideration for getting your site to rank well in Google are technical considerations.
On-Page SEO is related to formatting the content that is on your web pages. This applies to both the content that the visitors can see – as well as the content that Google sees.
Title Tags and Description Tags
The two main tags we’re going to discuss here are title tags and meta tags. You can see in the screenshot below, we have page one organic search results for our original “garage door repair lone tree, co” search. The title tags are denoted by the red (A), the description tags are shown by the purple (B).
Title Tags (A)
Each page on your website has a title tag that you can and should customize as part of your SEO process. The title tag must clearly indicate what the web page is about – which is also the keyword that you’re trying to optimize for. Google places quite a bit of weight on the content of your title tags.
Note that all three results shown above have garage door, repair and lone tree CO in their title tag. All of these phrases were contained in the original search.
These results all appeared on page one in part due to the title tag – but also incoming links and the actual content on these pages played a large role as well.
If you’re in Houston, and you have a services page on your site for garage door openers, your title tag should contain text about Houston and garage door openers in order to increase your chances of ranking high in the search results. All of your services pages need to have properly crafted title tags for proper search engine optimization.
Meta Description Tags (B)
Meta tags appear below title tags and provide a bit more insight about the services you provide. You can put information about quality of service, response time, and specials related to that particular service page. Your meta description should also contain the keyword that you’re trying to optimize for in order to add relevance to the searcher – so that they know your page will meet the requirements of their search.
The description tag’s role in SEO is to encourage users to actually click through to your website.
Heading Tags (h1, h2, h3…)
Heading tags are like subtitles within the body of your text. Heading tags – especially H1, H2 and H3 are given a bit of special emphasis by Google. The heading tags are larger than your main content and serve as subtopics within your page.
The heading tags on your pages should contain keywords that you’re trying to optimize for – but don’t overdo it – you really shouldn’t even have to try to add keywords. You should be writing content on the page that satisfies the reader’s questions. These headings just serve as an introduction for the text that is below.
As an example, on an informational page about Torsion springs, among the many headings on your page, you may wish to include the following headings with relevant content underneath:
Torsion Spring Life Cycles
write a few paragraphs about life cycle ratings
Torsion Spring Maintenance
write a few paragraphs about extending the life of your garage door springs
Difference Between an Extension Spring and a Torsion Spring
explain the differences
Speed
Speed is another big ranking factor for SEO and falls under the area of technical considerations. I discuss how to test your speed in the post about Garage Door Company Websites. The article also discusses the importance of conversion-oriented web design for your garage door site. You need to have a fast site that looks great, with content that answer’s the user’s search query.
What About Local SEO?
You may have heard of Local SEO. While there is a lot of overlap between SEO and Local SEO – they are a bit different. Doing well in one generally helps the other.
Local SEO has more of a focus on getting your site to rank well in the map pack and having a strong Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) listing.
Local SEO is an essential component of your overall digital marketing strategy and will be covered in a future article.
Do It Yourself – Find the Right SEO Company
If your team is big enough and technically inclined, it is possible that you could perform most of your SEO tasks in-house. Regardless of whether or not you hire an SEO company, you will need to be creating content in-house.
This means taking photos and videos of repair and installation jobs for your website. Having this rich digital marketing content will give you a huge leg up in terms of SEO when compared to your competitors on the web.
Unless you wish to get up to speed on the ins and outs of SEO, you may wish to outsource many of the tasks to a digital marketing service.
SEO Services You Need
As discussed, your business – or an SEO company – will need to implement the following as part of an effective overall SEO strategy:
- Developing quality content
- Building Links
- Performing on-page optimization
Digital marketing agencies should have SEO specialists that can perform the above tasks. If you do hire an SEO company, perform extensive due diligence. Many will claim that they are seo experts, but make sure they have solid, verifiable results – and talk to their customers directly to get their perspective on the SEO services provided by the company.
If they have already provided great results to other garage door companies, that is a bonus. Just make sure that they aren’t doing online marketing for garage door competitors in your local market.
Effective SEO for Garage Door Companies: Wrap Up
The first three components to implement for successful garage door online digital marketing campaigns are:
- Have a great content-rich website that converts prospects into garage door customers
- Run Google Ads
- Implement an SEO Campaign
Google Ads and an SEO Campaign should be done simultaneously.
You’ll find that the SEO strategies laid out above are highly effective at getting garage door companies like yours in front of potential clients. All will likely provide better returns than wasting your time on social media platforms like Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
