Is your roofing website optimized for the wrong things?

The focus of most roofing contractor websites are on the solutions they provide – re-roofing, new construction and repairs, as well as the various types of systems and brands they install. Many of these websites are optimized well for search engines, but is that really what homeowners, building owners, and property & facilities managers are looking for when they search on Google?

Think about how you search for answers to various questions online. Likely you search using words that describe the problem - not the answer. After all, if you knew the answer you wouldn’t have to search for it.

We go through five stages to solve a problem:

• Stage 1: I don’t know there’s a problem.
• Stage 2: I know there is a problem, but I don’t know what the solution is.
• Stage 3: I know there is a problem, and I know what the solution is.
• Stage 4: I know there is a problem, and I’m ready to implement the solution.
• Stage 5: I have solved the problem.

If you optimize your roofing company's marketing for Stage 1, you are trying to create awareness of a problem in which you have a solution for. The problem is that there is no pain to address – you have to create it out of fear or speculation (Do you have a roof leak? Was your roof affected by the latest hail storm? Is it time for a new roof? etc.).

Optimizing your roofing company's marketing for Stage 2 is the sweet spot: your potential customer has a problem and no decided solution.

When you optimize roofing company's marketing for Stage 3, you are competing on all the factors that diminish your profits or make you lose jobs to your competitors. The customer is actively collecting bids and you now have to beat the price, value, and conveniences they have already been promised.

To market your roofing company based on Stages 4 and 5 is to fight the customer. You are fighting a decision that has already been made, and you now have to convince them that their decision was the wrong one. It can be done, but ultimately you have to create dissatisfaction with their original decision. The only time you will win bids this way is when the competition completely screws up or is trying to rip off the customer.

Your challenge is to identify what customers issues are when they are in Stage 2 and re-optimize your marketing around the questions they type into search engines when looking for the answer. This includes rewriting your website and blog content to focus around the problems people would be searching for, rather than the solutions you offer. The results should be immediate and significant.

Look carefully at your marketing (both online and offline). Are you focusing on the solutions, or are you focusing on the customer’s problems? If you would like assistance with this, please email RoofPal@gmail.com.

SEO Periodic Table - How to get your roofing website to the top of Google search

I found this great infographic on what is actually important for search engine optimization (SEO) and how important each factor is, and wanted to share it with my friends in the roofing industry (contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, and distributors).

What is most important to getting your roofing website or blog to the top of Google search? Here is a list (in no particular order):

Content quality. All pages of your website need to be well written, and there must be a substantial amount of high quality original information.

Content research. You should do fairly extensive research on which keywords are the most used to search for the content you are sharing.

HTML titles. Make sure your HTML title tags contain keywords that are relevant to the content on the page.

Architecture crawl. Make sure search engines can easily "crawl", or scan for current information, all the pages on your website or blog.

Link quality. Make sure the links on your website or blog go to trusted, high-quality websites.

Link text. Don't use link to another page on your website or blog using the words "click here" (or something similar), highlight a good keyword or phrase that makes sense for the destination page and make that word or phrase become the linked text.

Trust/authority. Your website or blog will become a trusted authority as a result of lots of inbound links, many shares on social media, and other similar factors.

Physical proximity. The closer geographically you are to someone, the better.


Additionally, here are the second-tier items that will help get your roofing website or blog to the top of Google search:

Words and phrases. On each page, make sure you are using the words and phrases that you want it to be found for when someone does a Google search.

Engaging content. Use your website or blog's analytics to see not only how many page visits you get, but how long people spend looking at the page. Are they opening it and then clicking back or closing the window quickly after, or are they reading the whole page?

Fresh content. Are you producing new content and is it relevent to the "hot" search topics of your industry?

HTML description. Make sure your meta description tags accurately describe what the page is about.

Social reputation. Are people who are respected on social media sharing links to your website or blog?

History. The more someone visits your website or blog, and especially if they have "Liked" something on Facebook or shared on social media in any way, the higher other pages on your website or blog will begin to show up for them on search.


Last but not least, here are some additional items to consider that do have some impact on how your roofing website or blog will be found on Google search:

HTML headers. Make sure headlines and sub-headers use proper header tags with relevant keywords.

Page speed. The faster your page loads, the better.

URL format. The shorter a URL is, the better. Also, make sure the URL contains meaningful keywords to the topics of the webpage or blog post.

Number of links. The more external links that point to your website or blog, the better.

Social shares. The more people who share links to your webpage or blog post on social media, the better.

History. The longer your website or blog has existed, the better.

Social connections. The more those you are connected to on social media Like, comment on, re-Tweet, etc. posts containing links to your website or blog, the better.


Please also note the pink and orange sections at the bottom of the chart that discuss violations and blocking. These are some things you definitely do not want to be doing, as it will decrease your positioning in Google search.

If you have any questions about this blog post, please email me at Chris@RoofPal.com.

5 Tips for Better SEO Results

You want to be found online by homeowners and/or building owners and property/facility managers they search on Google, Yahoo! and Bing, so here are five easy tips that will help you, the roofing contractor, get found more often in search engines:

Well-Written Title Tags
Your target keyword(s) should be displayed in the page title as close to the beginning of the page title as possible. When your website shows up, Google bolds the SEO keyword(s) in the title tag used by the user in the search to make it easier for their eyes to see relevant listings.

If your title tag is not well-written for search engines, your content may not rank well enough to be found.

Relevant and Well-Written Description Tags
When a user reads the listings on a search result page, their eye is skimming the title, and secondarily reading the description. If your description is weak in comparison to your competitors’ descriptions on the same search results page, you can miss out on click-through's.

For the best SEO results, your page's Meta titles and Meta descriptions must be written in a way that engages the visitor and so that it is keyword-relevant in order to be found by users and to convert click-throughs from the search results page.

Relevant Content
Google’s recent Panda updates are proof that content is still the most important thing to get strong SEO results. Don't short-change this - you need enough content to earn authority with Google, Yahoo! and Bing. SEO results are driven by quality content written to meet the needs of your audience, and lots and lots of it.

Engaging Calls-to-Action
If your SEO objective is to produce sales-ready leads, then getting qualified visitors to your website is only half of the equation. It serves no purpose to strive for SEO results that drive traffic to your website if you can’t convert a good percentage of visitors into real sales-ready leads. Experiment with calls-to-action to find the right one(s) for your company.

Social Search Drives SEO Results
Even though it is late 2011, many roofing contractors still ignore social media for a variety of reasons (lack of understanding, lack of time, don't believe it matters, etc.). Both Google and Bing use as ranking signals regarding how much of your website’s content is shared across social media (and by whom). Google is using its +1 sharing button and Bing is using Facebook Likes as ranking signals. Google is also beginning to track the extent of content sharing on Google+ (their new social network).

You will improve SEO results when you make it easy for your website content to be shared through social media, contributing to social search success. Your employees should share your content and encourage customers to share it as well. Blog content is another great formats for social sharing.

If you have any questions about this blog post, or would like assistance with roofing website optimization for search and sharing, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Does Bad Spelling and Grammar Affect Your Google PageRank?

If your roofing website (or individual web pages) currently have a low PageRank with Google, it may be possible that this could (in part) be a result of poor spelling and grammar.

Matt Cutts, who works for Google's Search Quality group (specializing in search engine optimization issues) recently made the correlation between low PageRank and poor spelling in a Google Webmaster Help video.

In responding to a question about whether spelling and grammar matter when Google evaluates site quality, Cutts said “We noticed a while ago that, if you look at the PageRank of a page — how reputable we think a particular page or site is — the ability to spell correlates relatively well with that. So, the reputable sites tend to spell better and the sites that are lower PageRank, or very low PageRank, tend not to spell as well.”

Cutts says that spelling and grammar aren’t currently used as a “direct signal” for search ranking, but that “I think it would be fair” to use them in that way.

Google has been very clear that overall site quality and usability is part of what Panda is looking at. The question “Does this article have spelling, stylistic, or factual errors?” is even one of 23 questions that webmasters should ask themselves in relation to the Panda changes. Similar questions include “How much quality control is done on content?” and “Was the article edited well, or does it appear sloppy or hastily produced?”

Mr. Cutts also mentions in the video that Google has studied ways to determine the reading level of content on the web, and that this type of analysis “would be pretty interesting to explore as a potential quality signal.” Interestingly, Google added a reading level filter to its advanced search results.

The bottom line is that there is no proof that poor spelling or grammar directly affects your PageRank, but it is definitely something to ensure is not an issue just in case.

If you have any questions about this blog post, or would like an independent roofing website evaluation performed, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.

Where to spend your time on SEO

Roofing contractors should know that it is important to keep up with how search engines like Google, Yahoo! and Bing are changing and adjusting their algorithms (almost daily in some cases) in order to provide the best search engine optimization (SEO) and social media results.

In 2011 there is a clear pattern of social media influencing search results. If you had to pick just two areas to focus on for the rest of the year, here is what RoofPal.com would recommend: content and social media sharing.

Content is the cornerstone for improved keyword rankings and building inbound links over time. A lot of properly optimized content written on various strategic keyword themes drives more visits and improves search results in the long run. Blogging is a great way to frequently add content to your website. If you’re not already blogging for improved SEO results, what are you waiting for? It’s time for you to start blogging and writing content now! If you aren't sure how or just don't have the time, RoofPal.com can assist you with this.

Something important to keep in mind is that search results vary according to the personalization of the person doing the search. This personalization brings us more relevant, useful search results and makes relevant, SEO-friendly content more important than ever. This means no more top rankings or number one rankings for certain keywords, as SEO results vary from user to user. Writing optimized content regularly in addition to tracking your traffic and ROI is what’s important, not necessarily tracking individual keyword rankings.

The bottom line is that the more SEO-friendly and industry-relevant content you write, the more chances your target audience is going to find you.

Once you start blogging frequently, the next step is to share it via your social media profiles like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and others. This is no small task - just like writing content takes time and effort, social media sharing takes effort as well. But the time and effort and repetition day-in and day-out reaps tremendous benefits in the long run. Social media sharing provides SEO benefits in addition to improved lead generation results over time.

To expand your reach and improve SEO even further, it is important that you, your employees, and even friends and family if possible share your blog posts. The more people sharing your content in social media, the better. Good content spreads like a wildfire. Also, make it easy for your visitors to share your content. Be sure social media buttons are on all your web pages so that your visitors can socialize and engage with you and share your content.

Search engines are starting to heavily incorporate social media into search results. Social media should work together with SEO, so start integrating social media sharing into your content strategy for improved SEO results.

If you have any questions on this topic, please email Chris@RoofPal.com.