13 Local SEO Tips for Painting Companies

Do you offer high-quality painting services?

Do you consider your painting company to be among the best in your area?

Great! Now, how do your customers find you? Sure, you can pay for online advertisements or send mailers to prospects, but if implemented incorrectly these mediums can dry up your marketing budget, FAST.

So where do you start? SEO, of course! I know I know, you’ve probably invested in Search Engine Optimization in the past and had mixed results. Nearly every client we engage has been through the same experience. Why? Because the rules of SEO change all the time.

Google updates its algorithm multiple times EVERY DAY. So the tactics that got your website ranking on Page #1 yesterday may not work today.

In this article we’re going to break down 13 Local Painter SEO tactics we use to get our clients on Page #1 of Google, every time. These techniques are timeless, with years of proven results to back them up.

Let’s get started with a simple question…

Simply, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a marketing practice designed to ensure search engines prioritize the position of your website in organic search results.

Pro Tip: A good SEO strategy will have foresight into what your target audience is searching for and will curate content around that.

In other words, search engines don’t care about your website, they care about the user doing the searching. If your website is a good fit for a particular search request, it will rank higher in the results.

Since Google owns over 90% of the search engine market, we have to play by their rules. How Google curates search results is completely dependent on its algorithm, which is a black box. But through testing and trial/error we have identified several tactics that consistently produce positive results.

With that said, it’s important to understand that your search engine optimization strategy should NOT try to game the system. While “blackhat” tactics might work for you today, they will eventually hit your site with an algorithm update. Rather, focus on providing value and quality content aimed at what your target audience is searching for.

Yes, SEO does require a website, so if your business currently does not have a website jump over to our list of free marketing tools for your painting business.

While SEO can generate leads for any business, Local SEO seeks to optimize your painting business for searches in your local service area.

The SEO techniques listed below will get you more website traffic (aka more leads) but you may not need to implement ALL of these techniques to see results. With that said, introducing as many as possible will give you the best advantage over your competition.

Let’s jump in!

We talk about this often, because it’s so important. Your Google Business Profile is one of the single most important ranking factors in Google Local Search and on Google Maps.

Since Google is most comfortable sharing information it trusts, it uses this business profile to legitimize companies and understand when they might be relevant to specific searches.

Fortunately, we have a detailed step-by-step guide to claim and optimize this profile for your painting business.

This may seem like an obvious tip, but maintaining consistent contact information on every online directory can be challenging.

We recommend using your Google Business Profile as the “single source of truth.” Whatever is listed here should be used everywhere else online.

For instance, if your address contains a suite number it could be listed as “Suite #2” or “Ste 2.”  The same goes for your business name, if it’s listed without “LLC” on your Google Business Profile it should be listed the same everywhere else. These small differences can have a BIG impact on improving organic rankings.

In the world of SEO we have a saying — “Content is King.” In short, the more targeted content you have on your website, the better it will rank.

So while it’s MUCH easier to create one page on your website for all of your painting services, creating individual pages for each service ranks better every time.

Pro Tip: Invest in SEO during the winter months when the “painting season” is slowest. By the time Spring/Summer comes around you’ll be sitting pretty on Page #1.

So how should you structure your website? Take a look at the sitemap image above.

We recommend starting with a location page and creating subpages for each service under that. Each service page should then have content geared towards the location you’re targeting. Additionally, each page should contain at least 750-1000 words of content.

Yes, that’s A LOT to take in but it’s absolutely critical for improving your search engine rankings organically.

Title tags and the headings throughout your website play an important role in SEO. For best results, we recommend including location-based terms (city/state) alongside your services on these tags.

Here are a few tips you can implement today:

One of the best ways to get more recognition online is to create content on your website that provides value. Instead of leading with sales content, consider adding blog posts with “how-to” articles.

Becoming a local source of authority not only builds customer trust, it can skyrocket your website to the top of search results.

For best results, ensure the content on these blog posts still targets your local audience. We have a few example topics below:

These days, more than 60% of local searches take place on mobile devices. More so, Google now prioritizes websites that are optimized for mobile devices! Yes, this is a big ranking factor.

Most website platforms are now responsive by default and offer mobile previews to improve the look and feel across multiple screen sizes.

Be sure to take advantage of these features, and prioritize the following:

Every time Google crawls your website it has one goal in mind: Determine the context of a page.

The more SEO “signals” you can provide Google with, the more likely it will rank your page for the correct terms.

In addition to writing targeted content, it’s important you leverage internal linking. In other words, create inline body links (not to be confused with header/footer menu links) throughout your content that links to other RELEVANT pages on your website.

For Example: Link to the exterior house painting page from your interior house painting page since they are both related to painting a house.

While social media does not directly contribute to your organic rankings, it does expand your digital reach. We recommend posting at least 3 times a week for best results.

On the other hand, creating monthly posts on your Google Business Profile does increase engagement, which Google will prioritize over other profiles that do not use this feature. Rather than approaching your Google Business Profile as just another resource to manage, consider it an extension of your social media marketing.

One of the best ways to generate more traffic on your website is by earning links from other local websites. Links that point to your website from another domain are called backlinks. While these links rarely generate traffic directly, Google uses backlinks as an important ranking factor.

Here are a few ways to generate more inbound links to your painting website:

The benefits of inbound links are undeniable and strengthen the case for being a business engaged in your local community. Strategic relationships with other companies can help make SEO work for you.

While earning backlinks naturally generally produces the best results, we also recommend getting your business listed on as many online directories as possible. While these links are typically lower in quality, they expand your digital footprint, taking up more space in the search results… and they’re FREE!

Try using a service like BrightLocal to list your business across the internet for a small fee. They will event maintain your listings should your business name, address, or phone number ever change.