Increase your website traffic?
Written by: Benjamin Paine
Managing Director at Digital Nomads HQ
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SEO for Tradies - Complete Guide
There are millions of local searches daily, which is why it has become more important than ever to step up your tradie SEO game. Think about it this way: if users are searching for trade services in your area and can’t find you, then how can they hire you?
Established in 2018, our team of SEO experts at Digital Nomads HQ (DNHQ) has extensive experience in the trade industry, operating in the Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, and more! With this extensive experience, we know what customers are looking for (location-specific) and how to connect local customers with your tradie business.
In this guide, you can expect to gather all the necessary information you need in order to get targeted and relevant traffic for your trade business, free from fluffy words, over-exaggeration, and hidden SEO secrets.
Tradie SEO Basics
What is SEO?
In the simplest of terms, Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a digital marketing strategy designed to get businesses (like yours) in front of potential customers who are searching for them on search engines like Google, Bing, and others.
Why is SEO Important for Tradies & Contractors?
An effective SEO strategy for tradies is important as it will increase your website visibility, which means that there will be more opportunities to convert prospects into customers. In other words, the more visitors you have on your site, the likelier it is you’ll increase your number of customers.
Specific to the trade industry in Australia, you can see that thousands of people are searching for tradie services.
Many people even search for specific types of services within the trade industry:
If you don’t show up on Google or Bing when potential customers are conducting these searches (specifically in your area), then you’re for sure missing out on business. Here are a couple of stats to keep in mind:
- 97% of people search for local businesses online; however, only 37% of small businesses are actually found.
- Every month, there are over 5,000 people in Australia alone searching for “plumbers near me.”
But don’t just hear why SEO is important from us; hear it from a fellow tradie!
Can I Do SEO for My Tradie Business Myself?
Yes, of course, you can implement SEO efforts for yourself. We’ve outlined the steps you can take to implement some strategies. However, we’ve seen time and time again that tradies simply don’t have the time to invest in SEO as they have to focus on growing their business.
Even though the basics of SEO are simple, you may need help with more complex customised SEO strategies like link building and fixing technical issues. Also, it might even cost you more to implement these strategies by yourself as you’ll need access to advanced tools.
If you’re looking for an SEO agency to put you in front of your potential customers’ eyes on Google, look no further. We’ve been helping tradies like you rank higher on Google for many years so you can focus on what you’re good at – your trade!
Best SEO Strategies for Tradies
Part 1
Google My Business Profile Optimisation
If you take anything away from this guide, it should be optimising your Google My Business profile! It is relatively easy to implement, and you will definitely see results from this specific SEO optimisation strategy.
Google displays two types of results for local search queries (e.g., “electrician near me” or “carpenter in [city]”):
- Map Pack Results
- Regular Organic Results
You can rank in both of these; however, to get listed in the map pack, you have to claim and optimise a free Google Business Profile. Let’s break down how you can claim and optimise your Google Business Profile:
1. Claim and Optimise Your
Google Business Profile
A Google Business Profile is a free local listing from Google that allows your business to rank in the map pack.
Here’s how to claim and optimise your profile for maximum visibility:
- Add or Claim Your Business
Start by adding or claiming your business through Google Maps. - Set Your Business Category
For most tradies, the primary category will be pretty obvious. For example, electricians should choose “Electrician,” and carpenters should choose “Carpenter.” However, if you specialise in a particular service, you should select the most specific category available. For example, some options for specific trades include: - Air Conditioning Repair Service
- Fence Contractor
- Roofing Contractor
- Kitchen Remodeler
- Window Installation Service
- Set Your Service Area
Indicate the areas you serve so potential customers know if they are within your reach – Google allows you to list up to 20 service areas, but be sure that these don’t extend beyond about two hours of driving time from your base location, as per Google’s guidelines. - Add Basic Business Information
Ensure your profile contains all the essential details a customer might need, such as your operating hours, phone number, and website (rather leave out information if you don’t have the specific detail, like a website, for example). If possible, include images of your work—whether that’s completed electrical wiring, plumbing jobs, or freshly built decks. - Add Services
Listing your services helps potential customers quickly determine if you can meet their needs. This step can also save you from receiving irrelevant inquiries. For example, if you only handle large construction projects or specialise in air conditioning installations, listing those services clearly can help filter out leads that aren’t right for you.
Make sure to list all the relevant services you provide, such as:
- Home Renovations
- Roofing and Guttering
- Emergency Plumbing
- Electrical Repairs
Note:
You’ll need an optimised Google Business Profile for each location if your business operates in multiple cities or regions with different offices.
Simply repeat the steps above for each office to ensure customers in each area can find and contact you easily.
Looking to find an SEO agency but aren’t sure where to start or know what to look out for? Check out our complete guide on this!
2. Get Listed in Directories
In addition to optimising your Google Business Profile, you’ll have to focus on getting listed in business directories, as this will also improve your visibility in local search results.
These listings typically include your business name, address, and phone number, commonly referred to as NAP citations.
Follow these steps to ensure your tradie business is listed in directories:
- Get Listed with Big Data Aggregators
Data aggregators distribute your business information to various directories, helping you secure hundreds of NAP citations. In Australia, the key data aggregators to consider include:
- Sensis (the company behind Yellow Pages in Australia)
- Neustar Localeze
In addition to data aggregators, you’ll want to list your business with major directories and platforms such as:
- Google Maps
- Apple Maps
- Yelp
- Bing Places
- TrueLocal
- Get Listed in Industry and City-Specific Directories
Next, aim to get listed in directories specific to your trade and location; again, this will improve your local SEO so that nearby customers can find you more easily.
For instance, if you’re a plumber or electrician, you’ll want to be listed in trade-specific directories or local Australian business directories. To find these, you can use the competitive analysis tool in Ahrefs’ Site Explorer. This tool allows you to see which directories link to your competitors but not to you.
Here’s how to use it:
- Go to Ahrefs’ competitive analysis tool (click more), and select ‘referring pages.’
- Paste your website in the ‘this target doesn’t rank for’ section.
- Enter the homepage URLs of 5–10 competitors.
- Hit show link opportunities.
- Review the results for relevant industry and city-specific directories.
3. Get More Customer Reviews
Reviews are a determining factor in your ranking in the Google Map Pack, so in order to get more positive reviews, do the following:
- Use Google Business Profile Manager to create a review link that you can easily send to satisfied customers.
- Turn your review link into a QR code and print it on your business cards, making it convenient for customers to leave a review.
- Call previous customers and politely ask them to leave a review if they are happy with your service.
- Add the review link to your website, making it accessible to any visitors who want to share their experience.
Part 2
Keyword Research
While many customers click on map pack results, many also click on regular organic search results, meaning you can’t solely rely on your Google Business Profile to drive business, and you’ll have to optimise your site for relevant keywords, too. If you build a good reputation and earn some quality backlinks (more on that later), your homepage might rank for obvious terms like “electrician near me” or “roofing contractor near me.” However, not every customer searches this way; rather, they search for more specific services, like “emergency electrician” or “roof leak repair.”
In short, you’ll have to create additional pages on your site (whether it would be blog articles, landing pages, or something else), to target these specific terms. We’ll discuss how to do this in 3 steps next.
1. Find Service and Industry Keywords
Begin by listing the specific services your trade offers; you can do this by putting yourself in the customer’s shoes and thinking about how they would search for these services.
Here’s what that might look like for different tradies:
- Plumbers: Drain unblocking, pipe repair, Tap installation, water heater repair
- Electricians: Lighting installation, circuit breaker repair, ceiling fan installation, electrical safety inspection
- Carpenters: Custom cabinetry, deck building, timber framing, furniture repair
Roofers: Roof repairs, gutter installation, roof inspections, metal roof installation
Note
To streamline this process, you can check the services that are already listed on your Google Business Profile to give you a head start in identifying core services.
Next, take your service list and paste it into a keyword research tool like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer. Select your target country, check the “Matching terms” report, and add the phrase “near me” to the “Include” filter. This helps you find local search variations for the services you offer.
For example, if you paste a list of plumbing services into Keywords Explorer, you might see search terms like:
- “Storm drain cleaning near me”
- “Commercial boiler repair near me”
- “Emergency plumber near me”
- “Gas pipe repair near me”
Eyeball the results and update your list by adding any services you may have missed.
2. Check Relative Popularity
You’ll want to create pages for all your trade business’s services – it’s wise to prioritise the services that potential customers search for most frequently.
To determine which services are the most popular, follow the same process outlined earlier with your complete list of services. In most keyword research tools, like Ahrefs’ Keywords Explorer, search results are sorted by monthly search volume by default, which will help you find the keywords that are the most popular. Keep in mind that the search volume displayed will typically be national data rather than local data.
3. Assign Keywords to Pages
Most service-related keywords will benefit from having their own dedicated page on your website. However, if multiple keywords are very similar and Google tends to rank nearly identical results (you can look at this by simply performing two Google searches and taking a look at the search engine result page), grouping them on a single page may be better.
For example, the searches for “roof repair near me,” “roof leak repair near me,” and “emergency roof repair near me” are likely to return almost identical search results. In cases like these, you don’t need separate pages for each of these variations—just create one page that covers them all.
Note
If you’re unsure whether to create multiple pages for similar keywords, ask yourself whether splitting the content would actually benefit your site visitors. If the answer is no, then consolidating similar keywords onto a single, well-structured page is usually the best approach.
Part 3
Content Creation
Knowing the right keywords to target is important, but the real value lies in creating pages that target those keywords. In addition to service-specific pages, there are other key pages you should consider adding to your website. Let’s walk through the essential pages.
1. Create Service Pages
Each of your main services should have its own dedicated page. This helps ensure you’re targeting relevant keywords while providing clarity to potential customers about what you offer.
Service Page Tips for Tradies:
- Clarity: Clearly explain the service and connect it to customers’ potential problems. For example, if you offer house washing, mention the build-up of dirt or moss that can damage exterior surfaces.
- Catchment: Let visitors know if you operate in their area (use maps or lists of suburbs, cities, or regions you service).
- Confidence: Build trust by including reviews, accreditations, certifications, or even before-and-after photos of your work. Here, highlight any unique selling points that set you apart.
- Contact: Make it easy for customers to get in touch – Include a contact form, phone number, and other relevant contact details (make this clickable for a better user experience).
2. Create an "About Us" Page
Your website’s “About Us” page is super important, even if it may not appear regularly in search results. It’s key to building trust and demonstrating E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), which will ultimately help build momentum for all your pages and help Google view your site as the perfect click.
Here’s how to effectively use your “About Us” page to showcase E-E-A-T:
- Explain the origin of your business—how and when it started.
- Highlight your years of experience in your trade.
- Include your certifications, accreditations, and any relevant licences.
- Mention your insurance coverage to reassure customers.
- Add reviews and testimonials from satisfied clients.
These elements help build trust and can encourage potential customers to choose your services.
3. Create a Location Page
If your business serves multiple areas, creating a location page to list where you operate is helpful, especially if you have multiple bases or service areas across different cities or regions.
You can either create:
- A single location page listing all the areas you service, or
- Individual pages for each location can help with local SEO if you want to rank separately in those areas.
For example, take a look at what we did on our DNHQ site to improve local SEO. Here, we listed each location we serve individually while having sub-pages to specific services for each different location.
Part 4
On-Page SEO
Creating service-specific pages is a significant step toward boosting your business visibility in search results, but to fully optimise them, you’ll need to fine-tune a few key on-page SEO elements. Here’s how to get the most out of your service and location pages.
A. Create Compelling Metadata
Title tags and meta descriptions are an important part of the process as they appear in search engine results, giving users a first impression of your business. Poorly executed metadata can lead to fewer users clicking through to your site and, of course, can lead to Google having issues understanding what your content is about.
Title Tags
For trade service and location pages, simplicity and clarity will be your friend. Your title tag should include your main service and your business name, separated by a pipe (|).
Here’s a simple formula:
[Service] | [Business Name]
Example: Pressure Washing | ProClean Solutions
For location-based keyword pages, add the specific location:
[Service] in [Location] | [Business Name]
Example: House Washing in Brisbane | ProClean Solutions
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions provide a brief summary of your service or location, which appears below the title tag in search results. They should be clear and concise and provide useful information about your service (Keep these under 120 characters to prevent truncation).
Example:
- “Need house washing services? ProClean Solutions offers expert house washing in Brisbane with guaranteed results.”
A tool like Portents’ SERP preview can help you preview your title tags and meta descriptions to ensure they’re within the correct character limits.
B. Use Short, Descriptive URL Slugs
A URL slug is the part of the web address that comes after your domain name; it helps searchers quickly understand the page’s content. Keeping it short and descriptive is key.
Here’s the best practice for tradie service pages:
service-name
Example: pressure-washing
For location pages, the format is similarly simple:
location-name
Example: brisbane
Part 5
Technical SEO
Yes, having pages optimised for search engines is a step in the right direction, but if Google can’t find and index them, your marketing efforts will be in vain. That’s where technical SEO comes in.
Technical SEO may seem intimidating to you, but the fundamentals are straightforward. This section will guide you in setting up your website for technical success and monitoring its SEO health over time.
A. Site Structure
Site structure refers to how your website is organised; this is important for SEO because it helps:
- Visitors navigate your website easily.
- Google discover and index all your pages.
Here’s a good example of how a tradie website might be structured for SEO:
- Homepage
- Service Pages (e.g., house washing, pressure washing, concrete sealing)
- Sub-Service Pages (e.g., high-pressure cleaning, driveway sealing)
- Location Pages (e.g., Brisbane, Sydney)
- About Page
- Contact Page
- Service Pages (e.g., house washing, pressure washing, concrete sealing)
Note
You can also interlink relevant pages. For example, if you offer pressure washing in specific locations, mention and link to those areas on your pressure washing service page.
B. Use HTTPS
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) is a secure way for visitors to access your website. It’s important to understand because it’s been a lightweight ranking factor since 2014. Secure websites display a lock icon in the search bar.
How to check if you’re using HTTPS:
- Visit your website and check the search bar. If you see a lock icon before the web address, your site is secure.
If your website is not yet using HTTPS, ask your web developer/ SEO specialist to implement an SSL certificate to switch from HTTP to HTTPS. This adds security for users and gives your site a slight ranking boost.
C. Monitor Your Websites Health
Your website’s SEO health affects its ranking and visibility; issues like broken links or slow-loading pages can harm your search rankings, but more severe issues, such as a noindex tag, can stop your page from appearing in search results entirely.
For example, the following code tells search engines not to index the page:
<meta name=”robots” content=”noindex” />
This may seem minor, but it would prevent Google from showing your page, even if it’s ranked #1.
There are so many technical SEO tools out there to help you monitor your site’s health, so instead of listing a couple, it would be better for you to use what you already have rather than spend more money on this resource.
Part 6
Off-Page SEO
Backlinks are still one of the most influential ranking factors for Google in 2024. If you don’t know anything about backlinks, know this: It’s not about the number of backlinks you have but about the quality of those backlinks. For example, it doesn’t matter if you have 100 links from sites outside of the trade industry, but if you have one link from an authoritative website within trades, that will most likely be more valuable.
Link building is arguably one of the hardest SEO strategies to pursue (but, oh, so worth it)! Before we go into the details of backlink strategies, it’s important to note that we don’t recommend going in alone as a trade business, as you can do more harm than good if you don’t build links correctly (and ethically).
Here are a few proven tactics for building high-quality backlinks:
A. Guest Blogging
Guest blogging involves writing articles for other websites; this offers exposure, builds relationships, and generates backlinks to your website. Here’s an example:
A plumbing company in Australia wrote a guest post for Porch.com, a home improvement site. The post featured a link to the plumbing firm’s website, providing an SEO benefit.
B. Spy on & Replicate Competitors’ Backlinks
While you can’t replicate all your competitors’ backlinks, you can replicate some. To do this, analyse the backlinks of top-ranking competitors and see which ones are attainable for your site.
How to replicate competitors’ backlinks:
- Enter a competitor’s domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.
- Select the “Exact URL” search mode.
- Filter for DoFollow links, which pass on SEO value.
Recommendation:
Be selective when replicating backlinks, as not all links are beneficial, so focus on those from high-quality, relevant sources.
C. Reclaim Lost Backlinks
Sometimes, websites delete or move pages, which can cause you to lose valuable backlinks. You can reclaim these by redirecting the old URL to its new location.
How to reclaim lost backlinks:
- Enter your domain into Ahrefs’ Site Explorer.
- Go to the Best by Links report.
- Filter for 404 Not Found pages.
Here is a more in-depth podcast on the best link building strategies for 2024:
Part 7
SEO Content Marketing
Ranking service and location pages are important, but that’s not the only way to drive organic traffic and nearby customers to your website. You can also create and rank helpful content that addresses common questions or concerns your potential customers may have.
Here’s how to approach content marketing with SEO in mind:
A. Find a Proven Topic
A proven topic addresses a question people are searching for and is not overly competitive to rank for. The easiest way to identify these topics is through keyword research (as we mentioned in part 2 of this blog article).
To confirm the difficulty of ranking for the topics you’ve chosen, click the SERP button and examine the top-ranking results. You want to target topics where:
- There are few or no backlinks to top-ranking pages.
- The ranking pages are from businesses of a similar size to yours.
- The pages receive consistent search traffic.
For example, let’s say a small plumbing company in Brisbane ranks 1st for your target query with just six backlinks, and the page attracts 1,034 monthly visits; then, this is a low-competition topic worth considering.
B. Publish an Optimised Blog Article
Once you’ve chosen a topic, the next step is to create an optimised blog post.
Here are a few tips to ensure your content ranks well:
- Match search intent: If users are looking for a list, write a listicle. If users are looking to learn visually, embed a video. If a guide is more appropriate, craft a guide. In other words, always align your content format with the top-ranking results to meet user expectations.
- Make it easy to read: Break up the text with images, bullet points, and subheadings to make it skimmable and digestible.
- Write an engaging title: The title provides a descriptive, helpful summary of the content and avoids being exaggerated or shocking.
There goes so much into creating an effective SEO strategy, and rarely will one person execute a strategy alone. Typically, you have a team of experts within each field of SEO working together on a project, which is why we recommend partnering with our SEO team at DNHQ to focus your energy on developing your business while we focus on increasing your online visibility.
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