As we’ve mentioned and explained on countless occasions in the past, your website is your online store. And if you want your store to grow, you need to make it appealing and easy to navigate through. That is why the overall functionality and value of your moving company website is so important. And that is what brings us here today. We are going to explore some fundamental website optimization tactics for movers to consider implementing. Do your customers a favor by offering them a more user-friendly and easy-to-navigate website. And by taking this step, help boost awareness for your moving company in the eyes of search engines.
8 essential website optimization tactics for movers in 2020
Throughout the past couple of decades, there have been countless speculations in regards to cracking Google’s algorithm. The result here was an endless list of ranking factors that might or might not give your business the online boost it needs. And the main issue here is that businesses are never quite sure which factors to focus their resources on. Focus too much of your resources on a couple of factors that aren’t suited for your industry and you’re looking at long-term recovery. On the other hand, spread your resources thin over dozens of factors and you risk a very dragged out online progress.
So, what is the best course of action one can take here? Do your research and focus on fundamental website optimization factors for moving companies. And to help you along the path, you have the support and insight of a company specialized in SEO for moving companies. So, let’s take a closer look at the most beneficial factors to invest in:
1. Tailor content to user intent
Up until recently, the rule stood that so long as you create quality content, optimize it, and earn backlinks for it, Google would rank it. However, as the infamous algorithm evolves, so do its expectations when it comes to ranking. With the introduction of machine learning and deep learning, content creating will need to evolve as well. It is now the job of moving companies not only to create optimized and natural content, but to also tailor it to search engines user intents.
In order to rank pages and articles, Google now needs to understand the context of the content we present it with. And this revolves back to doing extensive keyword research and going through the selection process with utmost care. After all, there are keywords that are simply beyond reach when it comes to ranking. And the next best thing will be to invest your efforts in contextual relevance to those general keywords.
- For example, it is impossible for a relatively young moving company to get anywhere near top positions for keywords such as ‘best movers’, ‘professional moving company’, ‘moving companies near me’, etc. But when you add location tags and variations to those keywords, you narrow them down through context, making it more possible to target and rank for.
2. Check your technical SEO factors
As complex and overwhelming as it sounds, technical SEO is no longer the rocket science it once used to be. With so many SEOs and online tools that one can use for analytics and reporting, handling such modifications can be much simpler. And as one of the vital website optimization tactics for movers, this is not a step that you should skip over. After all, people looking for moving services rely heavily on the user experience a website provides them with.
Modern consumers will judge the professionalism and potential of a business based on what they find on its official website. So, to tap into the technical aspects of SEO for your website, go through the following steps:
- Make sure that your website has responsive web design and SEO factors.
- Ensure that your website has a sitemap file and that Google Search Console recognizes it.
- Check for any robot.txt files and errors, and resolve them.
- Check for status code errors and correct them.
- Examine your site indexing in Google Search Console and resolve any issues you come across.
- Make sure that there are no duplicate meta descriptions and title tags.
- Update your underperforming web pages in terms of content.
- Check for broken links and fix them with redirections.
And if you have any difficulties in analyzing these potential issues or would like to get a more detailed insight, consider asking for a free marketing analysis for your moving company website.
3. Measure Core Web Vitals
This Google initiative is oriented toward quantifying user experience through fundamental metrics for a healthy website. And so, Google announced that starting from 2021, it will incorporate the “Page Experience Signal” into its core algorithm. The goal of this modification will be to improve user experience by pushing businesses to invest in the performance of their websites in terms of:
- Largest Contentful Paint: The time it takes for a page’s main content to load (ideally 2.5 seconds or faster)
- First Input Delay: The time it takes for a page to become interactive (ideally less than 100 ms)
- Cumulative Layout Shift: The amount of unexpected layout shift of visual page content (ideally less than 0.1)
Of course, there is also the matter of mobile-friendliness, safe-browsing, HTTPS-security, and intrusive interstitial guidelines. All in all, metrics that Google will consider fundamental when it comes to optimizing your moving company website for ranking high on SERPs.
4. Invest in mobile-first
With the evolution of consumerism and the focus shifting to mobile devices, the notion of responsive web design and SEO is a constant concern. And even more so since the mobile-first index that Google officially introduced back in March 2018. You need to provide consumers with the same user experience no matter the device they are using to visit your website. And so, making your website mobile-friendly should be among the core website optimization tactics for movers:
- Make your site compliant with desktops, mobile phones, or tablets.
- Scale your images to be responsive for mobile users.
- Use shorter meta titles and URLs for pages.
- Prevent pop-ups from casting shade on your content.
- Use visual long-form content to say more by writing less.
- Avoid cloaking.
5. Play the UX card
Having the ability to speak directly to the needs of your site visitors can help you generate a constant long-term flow of organic leads. Simply by taking the steps necessary to boost user experience on your moving company website, you will demonstrate to customers that you stand out from the competition. And by showing an interest in user experience, you show interest in the quality of your services, be it online or offline.
6. Work on developing your content marketing
Current studies show that 2020 will result in a grand total of 40 zettabytes (40 trillion gigabytes) of data. So, we could say that we are dealing with an incomprehensible amount of data. And it is one of the goals of every business to make its data stand out. However, breaking through such an amount of data requires careful planning and strategizing. That is where the importance of content marketing for moving companies comes into play. Start by taking the following steps:
- Create a blog section on your moving company website (if you don’t have one);
- Come up with a regular monthly plan of useful, educational, and optimized articles;
- Make sure that the articles have a clear internal linking structure;
- Use social media networks and email marketing campaigns to promote your blog posts;
- Cover trending topics and concerns to build up interest and gain more subscribers;
- Use infographics and videos to create compact presentations of important news;
- Make sure to update content with low traffic with fresh and useful tips.
7. Invest in the impact of schema
By adding schema markup to a web page, you can create an enhanced description and summary of your article that appears in search results (also known as a “rich snippet”). All major search engines today support the use of schema microdata. And the way it benefits websites is that it attracts more traffic to web pages by offering more context on the search results page.
The approach is simple enough to implement. If you’re using a WordPress website, it’s only a matter of installing a couple of plugins to make use of it. Of course, simply by installing schema does not mean that you will automatically get a rich snippet. Your article still needs to rank high on search results for it gain that additional exposure.
8. Work on quality link building
Links have always been a ranking factor in the world of SEO. Establishing a structured and balanced internal linking structure is a great starting point when working on your website. However, the true power of impactful website optimization tactics for movers lies in building links on other websites, leading to your own. The importance of backlink building for movers and any other business is a well-known tale and one that is sure to continue to be repetitive as time passes by.
However, the difference in its effectiveness comes with investing in quality over quantity. And this is something that moving companies can do simply by following these examples:
- Reaching out to niche-related websites to earn links.
- Guest blogging on other websites.
- Fixing broken links.
- Using link reclamation.
- Claiming unlinked mentions.
Start working on your website optimization tactics for movers today
With so many guidelines and professional advice online, it can be hard to choose the right approach when it comes to optimizing your website in the most effective way. The focus here should be to find a combination that works best for moving companies. And that is something that Movers Development can help you with. Give us a call today and discover the best strategy to get your website in optimal shape.
