So you want to learn how to do SEO for your roofing company?
No need for introductions.
Let’s jump right into it.
You can quickly skip to the section you’re interested in using the Table of Contents below:
How to do keyword research for roofing companies
When most folks do SEO for roofing companies, they often assume they should only focus on keywords related to their main services.
So they all gun for the same keyword, which is typically something like “roofing (town/city/region)”, e.g. roofing houston tx.
Now, there’s nothing wrong with targeting these types of keywords.
Yes, people searching for roofing companies in your local area will be Googling broader key phrases like that.
But customers who know exactly what they want will also be searching for more specific keywords.
Think about it this way:
Roofing companies tend to cover many services, from chimney and skylight repair to gutter installation.
You can actually break down your roofing services into more categories than you probably realise.
And guess what? – all those subcategories are potential keyword opportunities.
For every person searching roofing houston tx, there’s someone searching for gutter installation houston:
We’ll discuss these subcategory keywords later on in this guide, but first, let’s cover how you actually find target keywords your customers are searching.
This is how you do keyword research for roofing companies:
Method 1: Use Ahrefs Keyword Generator
If your budget is tight, you can still find keyword opportunities for free using Ahrefs Keyword Generator.
Start by making a list of all the jobs your roofing company does.
Pick out any from the list below:
- Roof installation
- Roof repair
- Roof replacement
- Commercial roofing
- Roof maintenance
- Gutter installation and repair
- Skylight installation and repair
- Roof inspections
- Emergency roofing services
- Ventilation solution
These different subcategories of your business all form new keyword opportunities.
Once you’ve rounded up a list of all the roofing services you provide, you’re ready for the next step:
Let’s use Ahrefs Keyword Generator to find out what people are really searching for.
Enter your keyword idea into the Ahrefs search bar.
Your keyword idea should follow this format: “service (town/city/region), e.g. commercial roofing houston.
Type your keyword in and hit the search button
And you get this:
Pick out relevant keywords with high search volume and low competition.
That’s one way to find keyword ideas free of charge. Let’s look at the second method.
Method 2: Competitor analysis
Find out what keywords your competitors are targeting.
This is easier to do when you’re using SEO software like Ahrefs or Semrush, but let’s go through the process of finding this info without software.
Start by finding the top three ranking pages for your main keywords.
Let’s say top three.
For example, if I Google roofing houston tx, these are the top results:
Cool.
Now that we know the top ranking pages for our main target keyword, we can use these websites to find more keyword opportunities.
For my keyword roofing houston tx the top ranking website is Braun’s Roofing.
We’ll start there.
Simply go to The Hoth’s Google Rank Checker tool and paste your competitor’s URL into the search bar to find out what they’re ranking for:
Hit the search button and you get this:
These are more keywords for us to consider.
Find the keywords all your top competitors are ranking for.
Let’s look at the next free method we can use to find keyword opportunities.
Method 3: Related searches
You can also use Google’s Related Searches feature to find more potential keyword opportunities.
This is one of the easiest keyword research tactics out there.
But a lot of people overlook it.
All you’ll need is Google.
Step one: type your keyword into Google’s search bar and hit the search button.
Step two: once you land on the search results page, scroll to the bottom of the page until you find the Related searches section.
These free methods will help you find great keywords opportunities without spending a penny.
But if you’re serious about adding SEO to your marketing strategy, it’s worth investing in good SEO software.
With a good SEO software plan, you get extra features and insights that make the process easier.
I suggest Mangools Keyword Finder — it suits both beginners and experienced SEOs.
You can give it a try here.
Drop your keyword into the search bar, hit the search button and dig into the keyword data:
If you decide to upgrade to one of Mangools’ plans, I’ll earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
Keyword Finder is a part of Mangools suite of SEO tools. Their plans also feature other tools, including:
- SERPChecker: A tool for analysing the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for specific keywords.
- SERPWatcher: Monitors your keyword positions in search engines over time.
- LinkMiner: A backlink analysis tool to explore and analyse backlinks.
- SiteProfiler: Provides in-depth website analysis, including SEO metrics, backlinks, and more.
The basic plan starts at $26.91.
You can find the rest of Mangool’s pricing plans here.
If you do choose to upgrade, thank you :).
Now that we’ve identified the right keywords, we can move on to the next step.
Select 5 – 10 keywords from your research, focusing on the ones with the lowest competition and strongest buying intent.
I created an Excel spreadsheet template to make the process a little easier.
You can grab it here:
Local SEO for roofing companies: how to write content
Let’s set up your website in a smart way.
Make separate pages for each service you offer, and make sure they focus on your main location.
If you’re based in Houston, Texas, your URL structures could look like this:
- /services/roof-installation-houston-tx/
- /services/gutter-installation-houston-tx/
- /services/commercial-roofing-houston-tx/
On each page, try to have 800 – 1500 words of helpful information.
Talk about the service in detail, show pictures of your past work, share what customers have said, and put a section at the bottom with answers to common questions.
Include the main keyword throughout the content in different ways.
Here are some quick tips for writing content for your roofing company:
Adding keywords into metadata and page content
Heading tags
Heading tags are a way to organise and structure the different sections of your content.
There are several heading tags, ranging from <h1> to <h6>, with <h1> being the most important:
Heading tags are a way to organise and structure the different sections of your content.
Search engines like Google use heading tags to understand the structure of your content.
Including relevant keywords in your heading tags can help search engines better understand what your page.
ALT text
ALT text, or alternative text, is a brief description you can provide for an image on a webpage.
This description is used to convey the image content for people who may not be able to see it – people using screen readers or in situations where the image doesn’t load.
Meta description
A meta description is a brief summary or snippet of text that describes the content of a webpage.
It’s a meta tag in the HTML code of a page and is often used by search engines to provide a preview of what the page is about in search results.
Like so:
Two rules to remember for your meta description:
- Add a call to action
- Include your target keyword
2. Avoid keyword stuffing
Keyword optimisation is like adding the keywords to your content to make Google realise, “Hey, this is what people are looking for!”
This will be a massive part of writing content for your roofing website.
Think of it as a helpful nudge to search engines, telling them your content matches what users want.
However, there’s a trick to it.
You need to find the right balance, the sweet spot.
Don’t stuff your content with them.
In SEO, we call this keyword stuffing. If you do it, your writing becomes awkward and robotic and it starts to read like this:
We provide roofing repair services in houston, from gutter installation to chimney repairs.
Get in touch for our roofing repair services in houston.
Our dedicated team is here to deliver top-notch roofing repairs perfect for the unique demands of Houston residents. Count on us for roofing repair services in houston.
Take a shot every time you see roofing repair services in houston.
3. Don't reuse target keywords
Avoid using the same keyword on multiple pages.
This will cause what we call keyword cannibalisation, which can negatively impact your ranking.
Once you assign a target keyword for a specific page don’t target that same keyword for another page.
That’s a recipe for disaster.
Building backlinks for your roofing website
Directories
We can’t talk about building backlinks for local company websites without mentioning directories.
Before Google Ads and SEO campaigns, printed ads were in fashion.
Some of you may be too young to remember the days of Yellow Pages printed phone books.
They were these huge, clunky books with telephone numbers for different businesses.
Most people left printed phone books behind in the 90s, but their online counterparts are still alive and well.
You can use online directories to build backlinks for your local website by linking to your website from your business profile.
On top of giving you a free backlink, directories are also a low-barrier way of getting local exposure for your company.
To put it into context, some directories like Yelp score up to 70 million users per month.
Of course, you’ll mostly be interested in the users in your local town/city/region, but that level of exposure opens up the door for your roofing company.
And the better your business profile, the higher you can rank on these directories.
Now, before listing your business in a directory, look at these two main factors:
- The directory’s domain authority
- The directory’s relevance to your business
Finding out a directory’s domain authority is pretty straightforward. Just type the URL into Ahrefs:
Generally, the higher the domain rating/authority score, the more valuable a backlink from the website is.
But, of course, there are other factors to consider when assessing the value of a backlink. For example, factors like relevancy.
You ideally want to list your website in an industry-specific directory that focuses on roofing contractors/services.
Niche directories will definitely serve your website, but there are still merits to using general directories.
Let’s take a closer look at both options:
General directories
Trustpilot is a good option. Some other good options are:
- Yellowpages
- Yahoo Maps
- Bing Maps
- Better Business Bureau
- Yelp
Niche directories
These are some reasons why niche directories do work better for local businesses:
- Focus: Industry-specific directories concentrate on a particular niche or sector, so the content is a lot more focused.
- Exclusivity: These directories often have a higher barrier of entry. So the requirements to be included are stricter. That exclusivity improves the relevance and quality of the directory’s content.
- SEO impact: Links from industry-specific directories tend to have a more targeted and powerful impact on SEO.
Search engines are more likely to consider these links more authoritative and relevant, as they are associated with a specific industry.
So they can help bump up your roofing website’s ranking in search results.
Thank you for reading!
Catch up with the latest in my SEO For series, where I cover how to do SEO for more industries, including:
