SEO FOR PRESSURE WASHING BUSINESSES
Are you tired of getting burned by marketing agencies that make guarantees and promises of first page rankings, yet months later your pressure washing business is still invisible on Google and you felt like you wasted hundreds and even thousands of dollars with nothing to show for?
At Pressure Washing Marketing Pros, we understand and value your hard-earned money which is why we made it our job to specifically cater to pressure washing businesses because we have specific processes tailored for your industry that will systemically bring traffic to your website.
A Personalized SEO Strategy For Your Pressure Washing Business
We will go over our process and how to:
- Generate more website traffic than ever before
- Get top ranking on organic search results
- Get your pressure washing business in the local 3-pack
If you want your pressure washing business to thrive long-term you need to find a way to systemically get leads at a positive ROI. What better way to do so than search engine optimization (SEO) where users will find your pressure washing business organically without you spending a dime to acquire them? With 93% of online experiences starting with search engines, it’s imperative that your pressure washing business is visible and prominent on search engines like Google. In this video, we go over our exact strategy and why your pressure washing business should be investing into SEO.
What is Pressure Washing SEO?
For pressure washing businesses, SEO is the process of optimizing your website to organically increase the quality and quantity of your website’s traffic through non-paid search engine results pages. This means that your pressure washing business shows up prominently for local search terms regarding your services such as “power washing (your city)” or “pressure washing (your city)” and other variations of these keywords you want to target which we will discuss later on.
Why SEO Can Help Your Pressure Washing Business
Many pressure washing business owners think that SEO will not benefit their business when that could be further from the truth. Below we go over some reasons why SEO can help your pressure washing business:
92% of searchers will pick businesses on the first page of local search results. That means if your pressure washing business is not on the first page of Google for your relevant search terms, you are essentially invisible online.
14.6%, is the close rate SEO leads have on average compared to 1.7% close rate that direct mail and print advertising have. That means SEO leads are much warmer and were seeking out your service instead of being blasted and interrupted by direct mail, cold-calling, door knocking, hangers, and signs.
51% of all website traffic comes from organic search while 10% comes from paid search, 5% from social media, and 34% from all other sources. That means that users still prioritize organic results which is why SEO should be your main strategy and you shouldn’t just rely on paid traffic and social media for your pressure washing business.
88% of searches for local businesses on a mobile device either call or visit the business within 24 hours. This means that when customers in your local area find your pressure washing business on search engines, they are inclined to call you, within a short time frame.
28% of local searches become purchases. That means when potential customers find your pressure washing business through local relevant search terms, they are more inclined to purchase your services nearly a third of the time.
Sources:
How Long Will It Take to Get Results?
There are several factors that determine how long it will take to get results with SEO and as you can expect, results do not happen overnight. We have ranked many of our clients on the first page within the first month that they started working with us, but this not typical and not something you should expect.
The longer an SEO campaign the better results you will yield from it. Sometimes pressure washing business owners get impatient and don’t allow an SEO campaign to reach its full potential. Remember, SEO is an investment and usually will take 3-6 months before you see a tangible ROI.
This is why at Pressure Washing Marketing Pros, we have an omnipresent view about marketing and utilize methods such as Google PPC that will score you instant and easy leads, while we wait for your SEO campaign to pick up traction.
Generally, you should expect to see results within the first three months of an SEO campaign. Within the first three months the search engines are learning and trying to comprehend the new changes on your website to include new links that have been built and content that has been added.
Between months 3-6 you should see significant movements in your rankings and the traffic you are getting to your website, as search engines now have a better grasp of your website and the changes that are being implemented.
From month 6 and beyond your rankings and traffic will flat line as this normal because you will reach a point where you have maximized the amount of traffic you can bring to your website based off of your relevant keywords. This does not mean you stop an SEO campaign; you now have other problems to worry about such as monitoring your competitors and expanding upon your current SEO strategy.
Important factors that greatly impact how long it takes to get results with SEO:
The size of your market. Larger cities such as Houston or Tampa are going to be more competitive which means it will take longer to garner results.
Your competition. If your competitors in your local area have a sound SEO strategy, it will take longer to see results as they are optimizing their website for SEO as well.
Previous SEO work done to the site. Sometimes pressure washing websites can incur manual actions, penalties, or are affected by an algorithm update because of previous SEO work done to it. This could prolong the results you see with SEO as these things will need to be addressed before going forward with the campaign.
Your current website. If the performance of your website is substandard and it was designed poorly, you may need a new re-design as it is hard to build good results on a bad foundation. This is like putting synthetic oil in a damaged engine of a car, the performance will still be lackluster no matter what you put into it,
What Kind of ROI Should I Expect From SEO?
Long-term SEO results can yield incredible results for pressure washing businesses. Even though pressure washing can be seasonal in many areas, the hundreds of dollars that you are investing into SEO can easily be recouped and generate a 2X ROI when pressure washing is in season because the leads you are gaining are completely free.
SEO can even help in the slow months such as the winter, because being visible on Google and ranking high gives you a systematic way of acquiring new clients without any effort or cost of acquisition on your part. Businesses who do not have a systematic way of generating new business for free with methods such as SEO will struggle during these periods.
When your SEO campaign reaches its full potential, you should expect to get 10-20x more leads and jobs per month compared to what you were doing before implementing SEO into your marketing strategy.
We typically like to see a return on investment within the first 3-6 months of an SEO campaign for our clients. The sooner the better, that means after those months it’s all money back into your pockets!
How to Quantify and Measure the Success of Your Pressure Washing SEO Campaign
You want to know what is working and what is not working in your SEO campaign which is why it imperative to always measure your success.
We measure the success of an SEO campaign with several KPIs to include:
- Organic Search Rankings – How have your rankings changed for your targeted keywords?
- Map Rankings – Where are you being shown in the local map pack for your targeted keywords?
- New Leads and Call Tracking – How many phone calls and form submissions are you getting from your website month to month throughout your SEO campaign?
- User Behavior – Are users staying on your website longer clicking on multiple links or are they simply leaving as soon as they get to your webpage?
These KPIs allows us to make adjustments in your SEO campaign so that we stay on course and on the right track. If you are not measuring the results of your current SEO campaign, then you are essentially taking a shot in the dark and won’t know what is working and what isn’t working therefore you will not see the consistent results you desire.
Breaking Down the Search Engine Results
Before we go further on how to utilize SEO to effectively market your pressure washing business, you want to understand the different type of results on the search engine results page.
Below is a breakdown of a typical search engine result page for pressure washing businesses:
Paid Listings/Google Ads – Paid Listings and Google Ads show above organic results and can have up to four ads show above any other results on the page. To get placement here is to simply sign up for Google Ads and pay Google to display your ads for the location and keywords that you have selected. Generally, this is called PPC (pay-per-click) and you pay for every time someone clicks on your ad.
Google Map Listing – Getting ranked in the Google Map listings is easily one of the biggest lead generators for pressure washing businesses as it is the easiest on the eyes and shows prominently on search engine results pages. In fact, most users ignore the paid ads and click on these listings 70%-80% of the time! You cannot pay your way into these map listings unless you are utilizing Google Ad extensions. To get your business shown in the Map pack you have to optimize your presence online which we will get into later on.
Organic Search Listings – These listings show below the Google Ads and Map Listings and while they are very important, over time they are being pushed further down for local search terms not making them as important as they were in the past. In fact, the first Google organic search result gets 33% of the traffic share. So that means if a search term such as “Pressure Washing Atlanta” gets 300 searches a month, that first organic search listing is going to get approximately 100 visitors to their website. That means its more than just ranking on the first page, you need to be in the top 5 positions at the very least! This where you will see the most impact of your SEO efforts as you cannot pay for placements in the organic search listings.
Our Five Step Process to SEO Success for Pressure Washing Businesses
At Pressure Washing Marketing Pros, we have a defined process that we follow in every SEO campaign so that we are maximizing the SEO results for our clients. It is important to have a process in place so that you don’t drop the ball when starting a new SEO campaign as there are going to be a lot of moving pieces. We will be going over our 5-step process for SEO success for pressure washing businesses.
Step 1: Website Optimization
The foundation of all SEO results is going to be determined by the performance of your website. If your website is not properly optimized and littered with technical errors no matter how great the SEO campaign you implement on your website, the results are either going to be harder to come by, or they will be harder to maintain. It’s like trying to put a new roof on a house that is falling apart, it simply makes no sense.
At Pressure Washing Marketing Pros, we see too many pressure washing businesses that come to us with a website that has very poor performance and expect to get great SEO results to come out of it, when they either need to do a re-design or fix the technical errors on their website.
We will go over the 3 main technical issues that we see with pressure washing websites, why they matter, and how to fix them.
Mobile-Friendliness
With 61% of mobile searchers more likely to contact a local business if their website is mobile-friendly, which is why it is important that your pressure washing website is user-friendly and responsive as this could be killing your conversions and rankings. The mobile friendliness of a website is a major ranking factor for Google.
Back in 2018, Google rolled out mobile first indexing which means that they are going to show the mobile version of your website first to user instead of the version that is optimized for desktop. That means if your website is not mobile friendly, there is a chance your website is obscure on search engines like Google. As we know, most searches for pressure washing services are done on a mobile device which means when your first building out your pressure washing website, make sure your web designer is making it mobile friendly along the way.
Here are some things that you can do to make your website mobile friendly:
- Make your website responsive
- Don’t use flash (c’mon it’s not 2003 anymore)
- Use larger font sizes
- Make your button sizes large enough to work on mobile
You should continuously check if your website is mobile friendly and to do so, you can use the Google Mobile Friendly test.
Secure Website
Do you have the following error message on your website when you or other users visit your website in Google Chrome?
That means your website is not providing a secure connection and this means that if anybody were to enter their information on your website, then it is vulnerable to be stolen by attackers. So that means if a potential customer were to enter their information in the contact form of your website, that information is not safe.
On top of that, this is a major ranking factor as well to Google and could be tremendously hurting your rankings on search engines.
To make your website secure you need to install SSL certificates onto your site which is provided for free on most hosting solutions such as Bluehost or WPengine.
Website Speed
The speed of your pressure washing website plays a pivotal role in not only your rankings but your conversions as well. Google announced back in 2018 that page speed will become a ranking factor on mobile search so that means if your website is loading slow you will have a hard time ranking well.
In fact, 74% of users will leave a website if it takes 5 seconds or more to load and that could be the difference between them calling your business or your competitor. Most pressure washing websites that we come in contact with take longer than 5 seconds to load as you want your website to load in about 3 seconds or under on average.
Here are some things you can do increase the speed of your website:
- Compress and optimize your images
- Upgrade your hosting provider
- Use a CDN
- Reduce the number of plug-ins you use on your site (WordPress Only)
If you fix these technical errors before implementing and starting your SEO campaign, you will have a much easier time getting the results and rankings that you desire!
Step 2: Keyword Research
One of the most important steps for the success of your SEO campaign is going to be clearly defining what your goals are so that you can target the correct keywords that align with your business and its goals.
Too many times we have seen pressure washing businesses miss out on valuable opportunities because they didn’t know what keywords to target for their business.
Are you a pressure washing company that wants more roof cleaning and paver sealing leads? Are you trying to get more commercial jobs? Are you trying to service more areas or only one?
The reason why defining the keywords you are targeting for your pressure washing business is so important is it allows you to implement the proper SEO strategy that directly reflects your goals and is the blueprint that will be the driving factor for the decisions that you make in an SEO campaign.
Generally, there are two types of keywords that pressure washing business owners should target which are: general pressure washing keywords and specific service keywords.
General Pressure Washing Keywords
Some examples of general pressure washing keywords are:
“power washing (your city)”
“pressure washing (your city)”
“(your city) power washing”
“(your city) pressure washing”
“power washing companies in (your city)”
“pressure washing companies in (your city)”
“power washing services in (your city)”
Specific Service Keywords
Some examples of specific service keywords are:
“Roofing Cleaning (your city)”
“Gutter Cleaning (your city)”
“Window Cleaning (your city)”
“Paver Sealing (your city)”
“Driveway Cleaning (your city)”
You generally want to target a combination of both general pressure washing keywords and specific service keywords.
General pressure washing keywords like “Pressure Washing Atlanta” tend to have the highest search volume and drive the most traffic to your website while specific service keywords such as “Roof Cleaning Tampa” and “Window Cleaning Seattle” can drive the same amount of traffic if you’re in areas that need those particular services year round. For example, in Oregon, you will see high search volume for roof and gutter cleaning keywords because that service is needed more abundantly than a place like Raleigh North Carolina.
Mapping out your keywords and doing the proper research allows you to define opportunities, target the traffic your pressure washing business wants, and gives you a blueprint for your SEO campaign. Do you drive your car without knowing the destination you are going to? The answer is probably no, so why would you start an SEO campaign without knowing what keywords you are trying to target?
Step 3: On-Page SEO
After fixing the technical issues on your website and determining the keywords you want to target, you want to optimize the individual pages on your website which is called “On-Page SEO”. This assists search engines such as Google to understand the contents of your webpages better and plays a pivotal factor in ranking well on organic search listings and especially in the Google Map Pack which we will get into in the next step.
Many pressure washing business owners do not individually optimize their webpages, so they miss out on the opportunity to rank more prominently on search engines.
That is why we will go over the four main things every pressure washing business should optimize when it comes to the On-Page SEO of their website.
Title Tag and Meta Description
The title tag and meta-description of a webpage is the most important factor of a webpage. As you can see below, it’s what users see before they click on your results and also tell Google what a webpage is about.
As a pressure washing business, you want to put the keyword you are targeting for a particular page in the title tag. For example, if you are a pressure washing company in Dallas you want to have some form or variation of the keyword “Pressure Washing Dallas” in your title tag.
Many pressure washing businesses miss the mark when it comes to this and don’t put their keywords in their title tag.
On the other hand, meta-descriptions are not a direct ranking factor for Google but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t ignore it. The reason being, is that they play an important factor when it comes to conversions. If you don’t complete the meta-description Google will do it for you. Don’t be that pressure washing business, give yourself an opportunity to entice users to click on your page.
Here is an example of a great meta-description:
“Looking for power washing services in Raleigh NC? First Class Clean is the highest rated power washing company in Raleigh with over 170+ reviews. Get a free estimate now!”
If that doesn’t entice users, I don’t know what will!
Heading Tags
Utilizing heading tags allows your content to flow and make it easier for users to read and search engines to understand. Heading tags break up the content of your webpage so that you can define which sections are important how they are interconnected. There are 5 heading tags which range from h1-h5 and most of the time you should only be utilizing h1-h3 as a pressure washing business.
Every single page that you have on your pressure washing website should have an H1 tag explaining what that webpage is about. From then on it should have H2 and H3 tags.
Ensure that you are putting the main keyword for that page in your h1 tag, as the h1 tag is the most important heading tag. Your heading tag and title tag should almost mirror each other.
From there you should have h2 and h3 tags that relate to that main keyword. Just make sure that you are not stuffing your pages and heading tags with your main keyword as that is called keyword stuffing and can harm your rankings
URL Structure
Ensure that you are putting your keywords that you are targeting into the URL of a webpage, especially for the service pages of your website.
For example, if you do roof cleaning in Tampa, the URL of your service page should be as follows:
“website.com/roof-cleaning-tampa”
Obviously, you would not be doing this with your homepage, but you want to ensure that you have a clean and easy to read URL structure for your webpages with your targeted keywords.
The two main reasons why URL structures are important are:
- It improves user experience
- Improves search engines ability to read your pages
ALT Text
As a pressure washing business you are going to have a lot of before and after pictures and video demonstrations on your website. ALT text helps search engines and users interpret those images and videos. For example, if a page isn’t fully loaded but a user scrolls over an image, the ALT text will tell that user what that image is. Another bonus is that your image could be relevantly shown in local searches for images if you add ALT text with your keywords. But remember not to overdo it. Don’t just put your main keyword in the ALT text of all your images or your risking a penalty.
Following these four main things for your On-Page SEO will have you well on your way to better rankings!
Step 4: Local Optimization
As we discussed earlier, one of the most profitable ways for your business to show up organically is by ranking in the local 3-pack on Google.
With 97% of users searching online for local businesses, users are going to find your pressure washing business through local terms such as “Pressure Washing (Your City)”. This is when you want your business to be shown in that Google Map pack.
Now we know that pressure washers are a service area business meaning that you go to the customer to provide your service instead of them coming to you like a restaurant which means you have to rely on them calling you instead of them simply visiting you. That is why it is imperative that you optimize your presence locally so that you show up for relevant location targeted keywords like “pressure washing (your city)”.
As a pressure washing business you should be doing these three things to optimize your presence locally so that you can rank in the Google Map Pack.
Get Your Pressure Washing Business Added to Local and Niche Specific Directories
Getting your business listed in local and niche specific directories lays the groundwork for your local optimization. You should be listing your business on every directory and listing as possible because it allows you to make your business name, phone number, and address relevant throughout the internet. What this does is send trust signals to Google that you are a credible and real business in your local area as your business information is scattered across the internet. Also, getting listed in niche specific directories such as UAMCC builds up your relevancy and authority on search engines as well.
Examples of some listings and directories that your Pressure Washing Business should be added on are:
- Yahoo
- Bing
- FourSquare
- UAMCC
- PWNA
- Yellowpages
- Yelp
- Angie’s List
- HomeAdvisor
NAP Consistency
When you add your business to multiple directories and listings you want to ensure that you are inputting the same information and that it is consistent. That means you are putting the EXACT business name, phone number, and address on every single directory and listing.
Not doing so will have damaging consequences to your local rankings especially in the Map Pack because you will confuse Google and make your business appear less credible. Google only wants to provide the best and most relevant information to users which is why you want to ensure that you are routinely updating your directories and listings if you change phone numbers or addresses.
You can use tools like Yext’s business scan to see how consistent your information is across the web.
Complete GMB Profile
One thing that pressure washing business owners overlook is to complete their GMB profile. Having a complete and fully optimized GMB profile will make it easier to rank in the Google Map Pack.
That means doing the following:
- Completing your business categories – Every pressure washing business should have the category “Pressure Washing Service”. If you provide other services such as window cleaning and gutter cleaning, ensure that you are adding those to your categories.
- Add as Many Photos as Possible – Ensure that you are uploading your before and after and team photos to your GMB profile. This helps your GMB listing seem more credible and authentic to users.
- Hours, Phone Number, Website, and Description – You want to make sure that you are completing this information as this is directly shown to users when they are looking your pressure washing business up. Not completing all of this information makes your business look less credible.
- Utilize Google Posts – Many pressure washing companies are not utilizing Google Posts and by consistently posting you are giving your business a leg up on competitors. Also, these posts have CTAs and allow users to visit your website and even lets you post offers or discounts you may have going on.
By following these guidelines, you are giving yourself an opportunity to not only rank well in the Google Map Pack, but to increase your authority around the web which is what we are getting into next.
Step 5: Off-Page SEO
After improving your website, individual pages, and optimizing for local you want to build the authority of your website and convey to Google that you are the “go-to” for services, questions, and answers on everything pressure washing in your local area. If Google sees you as the authority, it makes it easier to rank on search engines for your desired keywords and more! As matter of fact, Off-Page SEO is probably the biggest ranking factor on Google especially for local businesses.
That is why we will go over two ways to increase the authority of your pressure washing website.
Backlinks
Every pressure washing business owner who has invested their money into SEO has probably heard about backlinks. They are still one of the most important factors when it comes to ranking your pressure washing website.
A backlink is when another website refers or links out to your website:
The reason why backlinks are so important is because another website is giving you their vote of confidence, which essentially signals to search engines that if other websites are linking to your website, then the content of that webpage or website must be authoritative therefore worth moving up in search engine results.
As a pressure washing company, it can be difficult to get backlinks for your website as you don’t want just any backlink either. You want the backlinks that go to your website to be authoritative and relevant or it won’t have any effect on your rankings.
For example, as a pressure washing business you don’t want to have backlinks from a pet blog pointing to your website as this will lower your relevancy and authority.
Instead, you would want a backlink from a home improvement blog as pressure washing is in the industry of improving homes.
Links and link building strategies that work well for pressure washing businesses are:
Local & Association Links
Social, Directory, & Citation Links
Competitive Link Acquisition
Content Outreach Link Building
The second way is you can create informative content on your website and outreach to businesses that are relevant in your niche and have them link to that informative content on your website.
Social
Another way to build the authority of your website is to be active on social media. Even though it is not a direct ranking factor, part of building your authority as a pressure washing business is to expand your brand and get in the minds of as many people as possible.
Social media plays a big role in how you can in-directly build the authority of your website and attract links. For example, if you decide to post great content such as a video with your website URL with you demonstrating the process of soft washing a home on Facebook, another user can share that post on their Facebook page which is called a social signal. Social signals are when your website is mentioned multiple times over social media. While Google says it is not direct ranking factor now, it could be in the future. Also, that video could have had users visit your profile where they may have found some content they would like to link to. This opportunity would not have presented itself if not for social media!
By implementing a link building process and social media strategy in your SEO efforts, you are making your website more authoritative which makes it easier to rank for your targeted keywords.
Why Not Just Call the Pressure Washing SEO Experts?
At Pressure Washing Marketing Pros we have the systems and processes down to systematically bring you more traffic to your website. Why not leave SEO to the pros? We leave pressure washing to you guys! Focus on what you do best, while we implement an SEO process that is tried and true that will bring you more traffic to your website which means more customers for you!
Wouldn’t you want to work with an agency that is dedicated to ONLY servicing pressure washing businesses and knows your industry?
Contact us today to get a free SEO audit and strategy session (valued at $500) so that you can have access to the blueprint that can make you the #1 pressure washing business in your local area!
