Roofing SEO: The Definitive Guide [2024]

What is SEO for Roofers?

SEO (search engine optimization) for roofers is a strategy to ensure your website ranks high on SERPs for roofing keywords or search queries. 

Roofer SEO involves keyword research, building backlinks and citations in directories, content marketing, and implementing local SEO strategies.

Applying SEO strategies can help you rank high on search engines and attract visitors and new customers to your site, ultimately leading to more revenue and job bookings. 

Does SEO Work for Roofing Businesses?

The answer is yes. SEO can work well for a roofing business as many potential customers turn to search engines daily to find roofing companies.

Take a look at the monthly search volumes of some words that potential customers are using to search for roofing companies:

Over 5,000 people search for roofing services in a single month. For context, that’s equivalent to more than 167 people daily, including weekends.

Another reason SEO works is that 87 percent of customers use search engines to evaluate local businesses. Without roofing SEO, you’re essentially turning away potential customers.

Tracking your roofing SEO and marketing wins with ServiceTitan

ServiceTitan’s system helps you track the performance of every roofing marketing campaign, including roofing SEO. It shows the exact number of leads and ROI each marketing channel generates.

The home service marketing platform’s analytics show the performance of offline and digital marketing strategies, displaying the number of calls, booked jobs, sold jobs, and revenue each one has generated.

You can use the built-in filters to view campaign performance data for a specific day, month, year, or any other custom time frame.

The platform also ranks all campaigns based on revenue generated. Clicking the top-right button toggles between the top-performing and worst-performing marketing channels.

This data ensures you only spend on revenue-generating campaigns, significantly reducing your cost-per-lead.

What are The Benefits of SEO for a Roofing Business?

Overlooking SEO can cause you to lose prospects to competitors already optimizing their websites to rank on search engines.

Brandon Doyle, director of marketing for Blue Corona, a full-service digital marketing agency working with companies in the trades, stresses SEO's importance.

“To maximize your search engine marketing, you absolutely need to be found on the first page of Google results,” he says. 

“If you are not listed on the first page of Google results in any fashion, you are definitely missing qualified leads, sales, and job bookings. You're missing out on all of that to your competitors.”

Other benefits of roofing SEO include:

1. Can be cost-effective and yield a high ROI

Unlike other marketing strategies, SEO costs little but has a higher reach, ROI, and Return on Ad Spend (ROAS).

A 30-second ad on a national TV station costs $105,000 on average. That’s excluding production costs, which range between $1,000 and $50,000. 

In contrast, spending $15,000–$75,000 yearly—$41.10–$205.48 daily—on SEO buys you access to the almost 300 million people in the United States who use Google daily. 

Mind you, SEO unlocks a wider audience beyond Google's search engine. It also lets you rank on other search engines, such as Bing, which potential customers also use.

Pro tip: You can easily create and assign unique phone numbers to your marketing campaigns using ServiceTitan’s Marketing Pro. This way, you can attribute each customer call to the source campaign, making it easy to measure each marketing campaign’s ROI.

2. Builds digital assets

With traditional marketing channels, you keep paying to continue generating leads.

Conversely, search engine optimization can drive a consistent stream of traffic, and consequently, new potential customers, to your website for as long as it maintains its ranking on Google's search result pages. 

You only have to pay a one-time fee to optimize your website and a little more after that for occasional audits and updates.

3. Attracts quality leads

Applying SEO strategies ensures search engines display your website only to people searching roofing-services-related phrases such as “roofers near me.” 

Because such people are actively looking to resolve their roofing issues, they’re almost always going to convert.

SEO disadvantages

To set realistic goals and expectations, you must know the potential drawbacks of SEO:

• SEO takes time: SEO can take a while to yield results as SEO efforts compound over time. A recent Ahref survey of SEO professionals shows SEO can take 3-6 months to yield results.

• SEO requires significant resources: Due to the competitive nature of the roofing industry, you have to spend more on SEO to yield results. To rank well, you must also spend hours generating backlinks, researching keywords, comparing competitors’ sites, and creating quality content.

• Results are not always guaranteed: Almost every roofing company uses SEO. So, even with the right strategies, ranking above competitors isn’t a given. And even if you rank above them, you must keep investing to stay there.

How to Create a Roofing SEO Strategy

Here are some roofing SEO strategies that can increase your website’s odds of appearing before your prospects.

Let’s go deeper into each one.

Invest in local SEO

Local SEO is a strategy roofing companies use to remain visible and increase their rankings on local result pages for local-intent keywords such as “roofing companies Maryland.”

Data from various studies proves local SEO generates high-quality leads:

• 21 percent of customers find local businesses through Google.

• In 2022, 81 percent of customers read Google reviews when evaluating local businesses.

Accompanying these statistics is our propensity to use local service providers instead of those further away for two reasons:

• The closer they are, the shorter the response time.

• It’s easier to trust a local business with employees who live in our neighborhood.

Local result pages contain familiar organic blue links and a map pack.

A local map pack consists of three roofing companies that score high on Google’s local ranking factors alongside a map insert with pins identifying their physical locations.

Earning a place in the local map pack is the ultimate prize of local SEO, especially since it captures 44 percent of the local result page’s clicks. Plus, people are more likely to engage with it since the map pack occupies a large proportion of the display on mobile devices. 

To increase the odds of being featured in the map pack,  improve your general Google local search ranking. To do this, you must:

Create and optimize your Google Business Profile

Formerly called Google My Business, Google Business Profile (GBP) is a free listing platform that lets you control your appearance across Google’s products.

First, create your GBP. Then, optimize it by:

• Consistently updating your company details so they're accurate

• Uploading high-quality images and videos

• Including a local phone number

Get reviews to boost your profile’s visibility

The quantity and quality of online reviews your business receives play a pivotal role in determining your local search rankings on Google. A larger number of positive reviews generally translate to higher local visibility.

Reviews are also a key buying factor, as 76 percent of customers read them when browsing for local businesses.

These tips can help convince customers to leave you a review:

• Always request a review. Make it a consistent practice to solicit reviews from customers. Your technicians can request feedback immediately upon completing a job, or you can send review requests via email or add to invoices after service is rendered.

• Follow-up on review requests. When a customer leaves a good or bad review, respond to it shortly after. 

• Show customers how to leave a Google review. You can leave a postcard with Google review tutorials.

Above all else, strive to consistently deliver exceptional five-star customer service, as satisfied clients are far more likely to provide positive reviews when prompted.

To simplify review management, ServiceTitan's Reputation Management platform helps you send automated review requests to customers once the technician completes a job.

This can quickly fill up your Google Business Profile with reviews with minimal effort.

For example, in just one year of using the platform, Nova Basement Systems grew its Google reviews from 19 reviews and a 3.4-star rating to 122 reviews and a 4.7-star rating––not to mention new customers from the reviews.

That’s why Mike Flores, business owner and general manager at Nova, sees the platform as a worthy investment.

“Had I not had Marketing Pro to be able to have people tell us how great we are at communication, what's the likelihood we would have gotten multiple bids?” Flores said. 

“What's the likelihood that I get the sale? All of that came from the investment and from putting the time and energy into building that out so that when those requests go out to people, they respond to them. That's been huge for us.”

You can also manage reviews from different listings and social media handles through the Reputation Management platform's central dashboard.

It also simplifies revenue attribution, as the system matches each review to the originating job and technician. This provides real-time visibility into the performance of each roofer technician.

Build citations

Citations are online mentions of your roofing business on websites, directories, review sites, data aggregators, and social media platforms. They usually include your business name, address, and phone number (NAP).

Keeping your NAP consistent across all your citations helps Google display your business confidently, increasing your local ranking. Additionally, having a strong presence of positive reviews lends credibility and legitimacy to your company, instilling confidence in potential customers when booking your services.

These tips can help you build citations and maintain a consistent NAP:

• Identify and claim your local business listings

• Keep business details on your website and citations accurate

• Report duplicate or false listings

• Create listings in popular online directories

Manually identifying and claiming your listings in business directories can be difficult. Therefore, consider automating the process with tools like Semrush's Listing Management and Moz's Local Listing platforms. 

Optimize your website for local search

Google uses your website to gain information about your business and determine if you'll appear in local search results.

So, optimize your site for roofing keywords, use meta descriptions, and apply the basic SEO principles we’ll cover in this article. 

Your homepage should contain key business information, such as your service area, phone number, and physical location. Pair that with an About page with essential company information and an embedded Google map with a pin on your physical location.

Finally, have designated pages for each location you serve and your services. 

Each location-focused service page should target one specific keyword (more about this in the next section). This will help Google understand your website and the services you offer, ranking you highly for relevant search terms.

Do keyword research

Keyword research is finding words and phrases relevant to your business that people use to find you online.

Search engines rely on keywords to determine your relevance to a search query. So, using the right keywords throughout your roofing web design can boost your rankings.

Bear in mind these three things when doing keyword research:

1. Use roofing keywords

Such keywords usually contain the word “roofing.” An example is “roofing company Florida.”

Two main ways to find keywords include:

• Using Google Autocomplete and Related Searches

• Using a specialized SEO tool

Google autocomplete and related searches are quick ways to find roofing keywords. When you input a search term, Google automatically displays other related keywords.

You can also find more keywords when you scroll to the related searches section at the bottom of the results page.

However, consider using specialized SEO tools to see keyword-related metrics such as search volume, ranking difficulty, and search intent. You can also use such tools to analyze competitor websites and find keywords they rank for.

2. Match your page's content with the keyword’s search intent

Search intent is the main goal a user wants to achieve by searching a keyword.

The different types of search intent include:

• Informational: Searches made by users looking for more information about something. For example, “types of roofing.” 

• Navigational: The searcher is looking for a specific page. For example, “[insert your company name] website.” 

• Commercial: The searcher is either looking to hire a roofing company or is looking for more information to choose one. Examples include "best roofing service," "roofing service," and "roofing maintenance."

• Transactional: The searcher is ready to book a job. For example, "hire a roofing company."

Commercial and transactional keywords tend to overlap, indicating the searcher is ready to book a roofing appointment. They are money keywords.

Search engines only display websites that match a keyword’s search intent to ensure a positive user experience. Therefore, you must ensure that each page matches the search intent of the keyword you optimize it to rank for.

For example, a page optimized for “what is roofing” should define roofing and mention the different types of roofing. A page optimized for “roofing services" should contain a service description, your contact information, and prices.

Sometimes, you can identify a keyword’s search intent from the keyword itself. For example, someone searching “hire roofing company” is obviously looking to hire a roofing company.

But there are instances where the search intent is vague or fractured. 

In such a situation, SEO experts advise you to accommodate the different search intents in your content by creating content that addresses the needs of the other searchers.

According to Gene Caballero, co-founder at GreenPal, “This approach involves developing a range of material like in-depth blog posts, FAQs, how-to guides, and video content.”

Gene gives an example of how GreenPal used this approach to rank for a keyword with vague and fractured search intent.

“We observed queries ranging from service pricing to lawn maintenance advice. To address this, we focused on expanding our blog to cover a wide array of topics: lawn care tips, equipment reviews, and detailed explanations of our services,” he explains.

“This allowed us to capture and engage users with varying search intents, leading to a noticeable increase in our website traffic and user engagement.”

Watch this Ahref video tutorial for other strategies for dealing with vague or fractured search intent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGm17ERgqTw

3. Pay attention to keyword search volumes

One way to know if people are using a keyword to search for roofing companies is to check the monthly search volume (MSV)—the average number of times people searched a particular keyword in a month.

While keywords with a high search volume seem like ideal targets, these popular terms attract intense competition, making it challenging for businesses to rank well for these highly sought-after keywords.

With that in mind, you should pick keywords with the right balance of search volume and difficulty. This video explains how to do so.

Implement on-page SEO on your pages

On-page SEO is the process of optimizing web pages for internet users and search engines so they attract organic traffic and rank high on SERPs. It involves optimizing meta descriptions, defining content hierarchical relationships using headers, and cross-linking between related pages.

Some basic ways to apply on-page optimization include:

Write SEO-friendly titles (and meta descriptions)

Title tags are HTML (hypertext markup language) code snippets that indicate a page’s title. Meta-descriptions, which are also code snippets, describe what a page is about.

Both title tags and meta descriptions are displayed as clickable text on search engines and social media posts like this.

Because they summarize what a page’s about, searchers use title tags and meta descriptions to decide if a page is clickable or resolves the problem they’re searching for. Search engines also use them to understand the core theme of a page and how to rank it. 

John Mueller, senior search analyst at Google, says, “Titles are important. They are important for SEO. They are used as a ranking factor.”

Here are tips for writing SEO-friendly title tags and meta descriptions:

• Always ensure your title tag and meta description reflect the page's content. 

• Consider matching your title tag with your web page's main heading (H1).

• Keep them short—title tags and meta descriptions should be 51-60 and 50-160 characters long, respectively.

• Use unique title tags and meta descriptions for each page of your company’s website.

• Include your target keyword in title tags and meta description.

Check out Google's guidelines for optimizing title tags and meta descriptions.

Use headings and subheadings

Headers and subheadings make it easy for Google bots to understand your page's hierarchy. They also help internet users read your page efficiently.

Google also uses headings to determine if your content satisfies a keyword’s search intent, helping you rank higher.

The basic rule is to use H1s for the title. Use H2s for subtopics. And use H3s–H6s to explain your content further.

Also, as much as you can, include keyword variations in headers to help Google understand your content’s hierarchy and possibly rank you higher.

Use SEO-friendly URLs

Ensuring your URL is descriptive, including relevant keywords related to your page.

Doing all this makes your URL SEO-friendly by giving Google bots more context about your page and convincing users to click on it. This can boost your search ranking.

Adding random numbers, using complete sentences, and including publish dates are some things that can make your URL SEO-unfriendly, lowering your ranking.

Add internal links to other relevant pages

Internal links are hyperlinks that lead from one page to another on the same website.

They are an essential part of on-page SEO, as they help Google’s search bots discover pages on your website and understand the structure and relationship between different pages.

Internal links also make it easy for users to navigate through your site, increasing dwell time—the time people spend on your website. This tells Google that your website provides valuable and helpful information, helping you rank higher.

Common types of internal links include:

• Navigational links: These are found in the menu or sidebar and help visitors find what they’re looking for.

• Contextual links: Found within the page's main content, they guide visitors to other related content.

• Footer links: A navigational link located at the bottom of web pages. Examples include Contact Us, About Us, and FAQ.

Here are some internal linking best practices from Google:

• Every page should have a link from at least another page on your website so bots find, crawl, and index each page.

• Always use anchor text related to the page the link points to so users know what to expect after clicking the link.

Create an SEO content strategy

SEO content strategy involves creating quality content about topics (or keywords) your target audience is already searching for. This helps to generate traffic and, more importantly, new customers.

For example, potential customers are trying to decide between asphalt and metal roofing.

You can use SEO to create an article comparing metal and asphalt roofs. This way, the reader perceives your company as an authority, so your company becomes their first choice whenever they have a roofing challenge.

Here’s how to create an SEO content strategy:

Find the keywords

The first step to creating an SEO content strategy is keyword research—finding the questions prospects are already searching for. 

If you’re on a tight SEO budget, use Google’s autocomplete and related search fields, which record the questions and keywords customers use to search for your services.

Simply enter a seed phrase and wait for Google’s predictive algorithm to display suggestions. Then, scroll down each keyword’s results page to find the related searches section and copy the keywords. Repeat this process till you have 10-15 keywords.

You can also use SEO tools to discover each keyword’s search volume and competition and analyze competing websites.

Scan through Google’s SERPs

Go through each keyword’s first result page and note the structure of each search result. Take into consideration each result’s structure when writing yours.

For example, the SERP for “best roofing tools” contains tool lists and images.

So, any content optimized for this keyword has to be a list post packed with images to rank on the first page.

Pro tip: Always try to create content that’s better than the content that’s ranking. For example, use images if others didn’t use them, or include 20 tools if others listed only 10.

Examine your competitors’ SEO strategies

Instead of building your SEO content strategy from scratch or employing trial and error to see what works, consider improving on what’s already working for other companies.

Examining your competitor’s SEO strategies can help you capitalize on their weaknesses and focus on proven methods.

To analyze your competitors, subscribe to SEO tools like Semrush, Moz, or Ahrefs. Pay close attention to:

• Keywords you share with each competitor.

• Their organic traffic.

• Keywords your competitors rank for, but your website doesn't. You can use the respective tool’s keyword gap analysis feature.

• How your backlinks compare to theirs, and which websites link to them. When building backlinks, you can reach out to these websites.

Determine your goal and KPIs

Goals are what you wish to achieve, while KPIs measure your progress toward achieving those goals. Your KPIs depend on your SEO goals.

Let’s say your goal is to generate $5,000 in six months using SEO. Your KPIs could be organic traffic, click-through rate, etc.

Other KPIs you can track include:

• Impressions

• Rankings

• Average click-through rate

• Backlink profile

Perform content audits

A content audit involves reviewing your site’s existing content to find what’s not working and why and how to improve it.

To perform content audits, log into your Google Analytics account and click on Reports, Life Cycle, Engagement, and Landing Page sequentially.

Then, use the filter to sort the list using the number of sessions. Pick out pages with the lowest number of sessions and do any of the following:

• Set up a 301 redirect to similar content on your website

• Delete the content

• Improve and re-optimize the content

• Merge related content items into one

For example, you can delete content summarizing an event you held in 2010. However, you can update the article “Best Tools in 2022” to reflect the latest advancements.

If you decide to improve a piece of content, remember to add images, additional information, and mobile-friendly elements such as bullet points.

Build topic clusters

A topic cluster is a series of interlinked content items with a central theme. They help search engine bots understand your website’s hierarchy and recognize your authority on a specific topic.

To build a topic cluster, you must have:

• A pillar page on the main theme or topic

• Other pages covering supporting subtopics related to the main theme

• Links connecting all the pages

Check this Semrush guide to find out how to build topic clusters.

Implement technical SEO

Optimizing your website’s content is great. 

However, if you want to appear on search results, that’s not enough because Google still needs to find, crawl, and index each page on your website. Only then can you appear on search results. 

That’s the role of technical SEO.

Technical SEO refers to optimizing your website’s loading speed, code, and architecture so search engines can understand and rank it.

To get started with technical SEO, you must perform a technical audit using SEO tools such as Semrush, Sitebulb, Ahref, and Screaming Frog.

Some key technical SEO aspects to consider for your roofing website are:

• Robots.txt and sitemaps: A sitemap lists all pages on your website, while a robots.txt directs search bots to the pages to be crawled.

• Page speed: The faster your website loads, the higher your rankings. Google uses page speed as a ranking factor, and searchers will likely leave slow-loading websites.

• Mobile-friendliness: Most searches occur on mobile devices. So, it’s crucial to optimize your website for mobile. You can use Google’s mobile test tool to check if your website is mobile-friendly.

• HTTPS: This is a secure version of HTTP (the protocol that transfers data between your web server and the searcher’s browser). It encrypts data flowing between your web server and visitors, protecting their sensitive information such as credit card details and passwords.

Use link building to get backlinks

Link building is an off-page SEO technique that involves encouraging other websites to link to your website. 

Quality backlinks—links from authoritative websites—can help you rank higher, as Google sees them as a vote of confidence in your website’s quality, value, and authority.

Some link-building tactics include: 

• Find and claim unlinked mentions: Look for places where your company was mentioned without a link to your site and request a link. You can find unlinked mentions using SEO tools, Google search, and a reverse image search.

• Do local PR: Contact local publishers and content creators and suggest a beneficial relationship. You can also get them to cover your events or interview you for a local story.

• Organize special events and promotions: Sponsor a local team, donate to a local nonprofit, or host a workshop. Then, get a journalist to write a story about it and link it to your site.

Black-Hat SEO Practices Roofing Contractors Should Avoid

Black-hat SEO refers to search engine optimization tactics that violate Google’s terms of service.

While black-hat SEO practices may deliver quick results, they come at huge long-term costs: a sullied online reputation, low rankings, and even a permanent Google ban—the ultimate digital death sentence.

Here’s a list of some black-hat SEO tactics Google and Bing frown at:

• Avoid using keywords in your business name in Google Business Profile: Don’t spam your GBP with keywords unless it’s part of the business name. Otherwise, Google can suspend or ban your listing.

• Avoid buying backlinks: Google considers paid backlinks a link scheme that violates its terms of service. Hence, it discounts links or bans part or all of the offending website from search results.

• Avoid keyword stuffing: This refers to forcing keywords into content for the sake of ranking. It chases users away from your website and can attract a Google ban from SERPs.

Tools Roofing Businesses Can Use to Improve Their SEO

You can examine Google’s related searches, the people-also-ask sections, and the autocomplete feature to find keywords.

Here are some other free tools that can help you research keywords and their associated metrics faster:

• Google Search Console is a free Google SEO tool that helps roofing companies track their website’s performance in organic search. It also reveals the keywords people use to find the website and the potential issues a page might have.

• Google Analytics is a tool that reports on a roofing website’s traffic, bounce rate, and lead acquisition. This tool can track your campaign’s return on investment (ROI).

• Google Keyword Planner is a free Google Ads tool that helps you find and analyze roofing keywords. It can also provide roofing keyword ideas and search volumes.

How to pick the right SEO tools for your roofing business

Above, we covered different free tools. But you should consider investing in a paid SEO tool for more keyword metrics. Some examples include:

1. Local SEO tools: These tools can help you create, manage, and track your local SEO campaign. Some examples include Brightlocal, Whitespark, etc.

2. Paid Keyword Research tools: These tools generate many keywords and provide data on ranking potential, search intent, monthly search volume, etc. Examples include Semrush, Ahrefs, and Mangools.

3. Full-suite tools: Although expensive, these tools automate the entire SEO process. You should use them if you want to go deep into SEO. 

If you have a large marketing budget, you can use expensive full-suite SEO tools such as Semrush and Ahrefs. However, if you’re running on a tight budget, consider using budget-friendly full-suite SEO tools such as Mangools and SE Ranking.

Before you invest in any SEO tool, you must ask yourself these key questions:

• What do I need the tool for?

• How much am I willing to spend on an SEO tool? (The answer depends on your company size and budget.)

• What features do I need the most?

For example, local SEO is vital for local Roofing businesses. So, picking an SEO tool that manages citations and your GBP may be a good choice.

Now Over to You

Applying SEO principles can earn you the top spot on the SERPS. This can bring new customers, build brand authority and awareness, and increase online visibility at a comparatively low cost compared to other marketing channels.

However, avoid black-hat SEO tactics to protect your website from Google penalties.

ServiceTitan is a comprehensive cloud software that helps roofing companies automate and streamline their business processes. Over 100,000 contractors nationwide use this roofing software to create, manage, and track their marketing efforts.