Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for House Painting Companies in 2023: Help Your Brand Stand Out In The Search Results (SERPs) Part 1

Does your painting business’ website show up where you want it in the Google search results for ALL potential clients?

If not, this article is for you.

We will review what SEO is, why it’s important and the steps that you can take to improve your ranking.

Unveiling the Significance of SEO: Boosting Your Painting Business Through Effective Strategies

The success of your business largely depends on how well you rank online. To achieve this goal, it’s essential to prioritize the right SEO techniques that will boost your marketing efforts and drive growth. With these strategies in place, there’s no limit to what you can accomplish!

Google processes over 5 billion searches everyday!  One out of five queries originate from mobile devices. In fact, more than half of mobile queries are “near me” searches.  For the desktop inquiries, which make up the other 80% of searches, roughly twenty percent have local intent. 

This trend highlights the importance for businesses to optimize their online presence and ensure they appear prominently when potential customers search nearby.

Its evident that local search behavior has immense potential for generating new house painting leads! By crafting a targeted campaign focused on consumers in specific areas and implementing effective marketing techniques you can enhance your visibility online. This will ultimately lead to increased chances of attracting fresh customers who may not have known about you otherwise.

Strategy 1 – Business Listings: Enhancing and Tracking Key Elements

By optimizing your Google Business Profile Listing correctly, you could potentially reach the top of organic SERPs within the local results section for your niche. 

However, don’t limit yourself to just focusing on your Google Business Profile alone when it comes to improving your local SEO campaign. Optimizing your business listings on social media sites, Yelp and other major listings is crucial for attracting customers.  

To achieve this, you will need to claim, optimize, verify, manage and sync all relevant information about your company across these platforms.  

(Need help with this? Our services will ensure that potential clients find accurate details about what you offer when they search online. Don’t miss out – let us handle the heavy lifting so you can focus on running a successful painting company! Email si@iftsdesign.com to find out more)

So, what do you need to sync across all of your listings?

Business NAP (Name / Address / Phone Number)

Make sure that your company’s name, address and phone number is written exactly the same across all listings and your website.

As an example, if your address is “123 North Smith Street,” don’t have your website say “123 N. Smith Street” and the Google Business Profile say “123 North Smith St.” Choose one version of the name/address/phone number and stick to it.

Your Painting Business’ Website

Having a link to your official website is crucial.  This gives Google and other search engines a link to follow, which gives them relevant information about your company.  It also allows customers looking at your citation to go directly to your site.

Business Hours / Description / Categories

All your listings should have the same hours, description and industry categories. If they don’t, the search engines will be confused about which is the correct and most relevant data about you. This could result in a lower result for your website in the results.

Images / Videos Of Your Painting Jobs and Team

Including high-quality images and videos can set your citation apart from others in your industry. It will maximize your visibility and sometimes, will make your citation larger than others, which catches the eye of the person browsing.

Online Reviews

While you can’t optimize your reviews, technically speaking, it is still essential to keep a close eye on them. Regularly checking up on new listings for fresh feedback is important. So is flagging any spam or inappropriate comments.

Bad review? No problem! Responding professionally when dealing with dissatisfied customers who may have had negative experiences shows that you care about the client experience and gives you a chance to fix the issue. 

This approach helps ensure that everyone has an opportunity to share their thoughts while also maintaining the integrity of online review platforms overall. By staying vigilant about these matters, painting businesses like yours are better equipped than ever before to address concerns head-on and ultimately improve customer satisfaction levels over time!

Strategy 2 – Local SEO: Attract More Clients Near You

Want to improve your local presence online? Start with your website!

Using multiple SEO strategies to optimize your website is crucial to getting more local house painting clients.

Here’s a great way to start this process:

Website URLs, Page Titles, and Meta Descriptions

When Google and other search engines crawl your site, it’s important to have these elements filled in and optimized. 

[Side Note – If your website is created in WordPress, you can use the Yoast plugin to take care of all of these]

The website URL is the website address of the page www.yoursite.com/page-name. You’ll want to be sure that the page-name element contains keywords and your local town name.

The page title is the name of the webpage that appears in the tab on your browser.  A good format for naming your webpages is “Keyword 1 – Keyword 2 | Company Name.”

The meta description is the short paragraph that appears below the website name in the search engine results.  Google does not look at this when determining page rank, but your client is going to read it. Put the most relevant information in there for them.

Contact Information and Business Hours

Just like with the citations, you want to be sure that your website clearly lists the hours and how to contact you. Make sure that this information is consistent with the citations as well.

Landing Pages

Want to attract clients from multiple areas?

Have a landing page that is optimized for each location.  However, one important thing to note – these pages cannot have the exact same text on each page. Be sure to customize it to that town or be penalized by Google.

Blog

Having a blog is a great way to improve your SEO!  

You can showcase your latest projects, highlight an employee, inform your clients and prospects about a frequently asked question, or talk about events that are happening in your town. Each one of these allows that specific blog entry to be optimized to a set of keywords that are relevant to your local area.  More about this in the next post…

To Be Continued…

Ready to get started? Implement the two SEO tactics above.  

In our next post, Strategy 4, Strategy 5 and Strategy 6 Will Be Revealed.

Get the Top 3 Social Media Post Templates for Painting Companies to Grow Your Following and Get New Clients

Engage with prospects and save time with your FREE Canva template kit. This kit features the top 3 social media posts for painting companies and directions on how to brand them for your own business in 5 minutes or less.

Enter your email below and get the templates sent directly to your inbox along with an instructional video on how to make personalized edits.

A Comprehensive Guide to Migrating Your Google Analytics Property by July 1, 2023

Did you know that Google Analytics is switching over to all GA-4 properties on July 1, 2023?

This means that if you do not have a GA-4 property set up by that date, you could possibly miss out on important data.  Google will auto-create one for you, but it might not migrate over all the settings that you want.

In today’s digital landscape, data-driven decision making is beyond crucial for the success of any business. Google Analytics has been a go-to measurement platform for understanding user behavior on websites, ads and more. 

In this blog post, we will explore the migration process, its significance, and the steps you need to take to ensure a seamless transition for your business.

Understanding Google Analytics and Properties

Google Analytics is a powerful tool that enables you to gain insights into user activity on your company’s website. Every Google Analytics account can have one or more properties. A property represents your website, and within each property, you can organize data and set up reports. In the past, there were two types of properties: the old version and the new version (GA4).

The Importance of Google Analytics Migration

Starting July 1, 2023, Google will stop processing information sent to the old type of property. This means that to continue measuring user activity on your website, it is very important to migrate to the new version of Google Analytics (GA4). 

Although GA360 customers have an extra year to migrate, it is highly recommended to initiate the migration process as soon as possible to retain historical data.

Automatic vs. Manual Migration

If you don’t migrate your property manually, Google will automatically create a new GA4 property for you and migrate as many settings and configurations as they possibly can. 

However, it’s important to note that not everything can be automatically migrated, resulting in a better experience if you take charge of the migration process yourself. 

By migrating manually, you ensure that you have all of the data and settings that you want in your new property before the cutoff date in July.

The Migration Process

Step 1: Identify your Universal Analytics (UA) Property

Log into your Google Analytics account.  Look for any property whose identifier begins with “UA.” This is an indicator that the property is a Universal Analytics property and will need to be converted to GA4 ASAP.

Step 2: Open the GA4 Setup Assistant[h4]

Depending on whether you see the migration banner at the top of your account, click on “Manage GA4 migration” or navigate to the Admin section and select “GA4 Setup Assistant.”

Step 3: Choose Migration Options

In the GA4 Setup Assistant, you’ll be presented with options based on your existing GA4 property association. If you already have a GA4 property associated with your Universal Analytics property, select it. 

Alternatively, create a new GA4 property by clicking “Get started.” Confirm your selection.

Step 4: Install the Google Tag

The Google tag is a snippet of code that measures user activity and sends it to Google Analytics for processing. If you already have an existing tag, select the option to use it. Otherwise, you’ll need to install the new tag on your website. Consult your developer or utilize a content management system (CMS) plugin to accomplish this step.

Step 5: Completion and Verification

Once you’ve installed the tag, you’ll be brought back to the assistant. Clicking the button will take you to your brand new GA4 property. Both your Universal Analytics and GA4 properties will be open in separate tabs. The Setup Assistant acts as a checklist for migrating each item. Go through the list, marking items as complete and inching closer to a fully migrated property.

Now That You’re Done With The Migration…

Migrating your Google Analytics property from the old version to GA4 is essential for maintaining accurate website analytics and leveraging the power of data-driven decision making. By following the outlined steps, you can ensure a smooth transition and retain crucial historical data.

A Few More Tips For Google Analytics

Tip 1 – Make sure that you connect Google Analytics to Google Ads.  Also, make sure that you connect Google Ads to Google Analytics.  The connection goes 2 ways.

This way, you have access to conversion data and audiences from both platforms.

Tip 2 – The Google Analytics Setup Assistant shows you all of the steps that you need to have a useful profile

The setup assistant will walk you through all of the settings that you need to change in order to collect the best data in GA.

Tip 3 – Set up your audiences so you can retarget them.

Show your ads to people that have been on your website again and again by creating a retargeting campaign.  The best way to do this is by creating an audience that has been on your website, but has not performed a conversion action.

Need help with the migration or anything in Google Analytics?

Contact IFTS today at 412-715-6266 or send an email to si@iftsdesign.com 

The Importance of Positive AND Negative Reviews for Your House Painting Company

Are you scared of bad reviews, so you never ask clients for them?

In today’s digital world, online reviews have a big impact on businesses, especially service-based ones. As a house painting company owner, it’s important to have both positive and negative reviews in your profiles. 

In this blog post, we will talk about why it’s essential to get a mix of reviews and how responding to all of them matters. Understanding the importance of reviews and knowing how to respond properly can help your company gain credibility, earn customer trust, and be more successful at converting leads.

The Power of Online Reviews

Online reviews are really influential. People read them to decide if they want to hire you. Positive reviews are like endorsements that show your company is good. They make customers trust you and bring in new business. According to a Podium survey 93% of those interviewed said online reviews do make a difference when it comes to their purchasing habits.

Negative reviews can actually be helpful because they show where your company needs to improve. Fixing these issues can make customers happier and improve your services. Negative reviews also show that you care about honest feedback and want to make things better.

Why Balance Matters

Having a balance between positive and negative reviews is important for your house painting company. If you only have positive reviews, people might think they’re fake. Having a mix of reviews makes your company look real and trustworthy. It shows that you care about your customers’ opinions and always try to do better. 

Negative reviews give you a chance to learn and grow. When you handle them well, you can turn unhappy customers into happy ones. Responding to negative reviews shows potential customers that you’re attentive and committed to solving problems. This sets you apart from other companies and builds trust.  

Look at your competitors’ reviews – how many of them respond to the negative ones?

Responding to All Reviews

It’s important to respond to every review, good or bad. This shows that you care about what customers think and that you value their feedback. When you respond to positive reviews, say thank you and show that you appreciate their kind words. Personalized responses help build a connection and make customers feel important.  Be sure to use the person’s name and if possible, mention the type of work that you did for them.

When you get a negative review, it’s important to respond quickly and with understanding. Start by saying you’re sorry for the bad experience and that you want to make it right. Try to find out what went wrong and offer a solution. Responding to negative reviews shows that you care about your customers’ satisfaction and want to fix any issues. It also shows potential customers that you take feedback seriously and are dedicated to providing good service.

Go Get Those Reviews!

In today’s digital world, online reviews have a big impact on businesses, including house painting companies. It’s important to have a mix of positive and negative reviews to show authenticity and gain trust. 

Responding to all reviews, whether good or bad, is important for managing your company’s reputation. By understanding the power of reviews and how to respond, you can build credibility, attract new customers, and create long-term loyalty for your house painting business.

Be sure to also read this article on how to encourage more positive reviews from your customers!

Want Some Help?

IFTS has multiple affordable solutions to help you get more online reviews by putting the process on autopilot! 

Contact si@iftsdesign.com for more details.

Get the Top 3 Social Media Post Templates for Painting Companies to Grow Your Following and Get New Clients

Engage with prospects and save time with your FREE Canva template kit. This kit features the top 3 social media posts for painting companies and directions on how to brand them for your own business in 5 minutes or less.

Enter your email below and get the templates sent directly to your inbox along with an instructional video on how to make personalized edits.