Windshield dings and cracks happen on the road, so chances are when vehicle owners need the services of an auto glass company, they are on the road. More than likely, they’re using a mobile device or a work computer to research auto glass companies in their area.
If you do a search for windshield repair in your area, you’ll see several businesses ranking at the top of the search engine results page.
Why is that? Because these companies are using local SEO marketing techniques.
Being at the top of a local search ranking gets them noticed by customers in immediate need of their services and, more than likely, results in increased sales.
How can your auto glass business get to the top of local search engine results and stay there? This Ultimate Guide to Local SEO for Auto Glass Companies will show you how.
What Exactly Is Local SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. SEO is all about using various online marketing tactics to get search engines, like Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc., to not only notice your website, but to rank it high in its search results.
Local SEO is focused on a certain area, whether it’s a region, state, city or town, or neighborhood. This type of targeted online marketing allows your company to promote its windshield repair and replacement services at the exact time someone is searching for auto glass businesses in your local area.
As such, local SEO is a proven method for growing your business.
Did You Know: Search engine statistics show that millions of people every day use local search to find a local business in their area.
How to Use This Local SEO Guide
This guide will help you get started with local SEO so your business lands on the first page of local search results for auto glass companies in your area.
The guide is divided into six key areas:
- Website Optimization;
- Social Media;
- Business Reviews;
- Business Directories;
- Local Citations;
- PPC Campaigns.
Each of these areas provides marketing strategies that are key to boosting your local SEO.
Optimizing Your Auto Glass Company Website
Your website doesn’t have to be flashy with all the bells and whistles, but it does need to look professional and credible to gain the trust of your visitors.
An auto glass company website should contain localized content that:
- Explains the services you provide and how you provide them;
- Gives the credentials of the team that performs the windshield or window repair or replacement;
- Prominently displays your company’s phone number;
- Lists your location(s) or the local areas your business serves;
- Includes functionality that allows visitors to schedule an appointment or receive a quote.
- Provides information about your company and why a visitor should choose your auto glass repair and replace business over a competitor’s;
- Displays customer testimonials or reviews;
- Uses localized keywords that include your city and state.
- Prominently displays a call to action that uses actionable language. Examples of solid calls to action are: Call now to get your vehicle’s glass repaired or replaced or Click to get a quote.
Once your website is designed, it’s time to apply local SEO tactics to ensure your site gets preferential treatment over your competition during local searches. Some of these key techniques include:
HTML Title Tag
This is the headline that visitors click as they browse the results pages of their search. The content of the HTML title tag may be short and concise, but this tag is huge when it comes to your web pages being found and ranked by search engines.
The HTML title tag is used by web browsers, social bookmarking sites, and search engines to analyze the topic of each page on a website. More importantly, potential customers searching for an auto glass company in their local area read the HTML title tags in the search results to determine whether the information they are seeking will be found by clicking on a particular website.
An HTML title tag should be applied to all pages of your website.
Rich Snippets and Alt Tags
If you have images on your website, they should also contain tags with descriptions that are specific to your business and location. Both alt tags and rich snippets can optimize your images to your specific business so search engines can better rank your web pages.
Navigation Menu Optimization
This involves indexing your navigation menu items so your auto glass business website can gain a local SEO advantage over your competitors’ websites.
To optimize your navigation menu, link each main topic page and any of its subpages into a directory within your navigation menu and name the directory using a specific keyword phrase that describes the topic. For instance, you would have a separate directory for windshield repair and another for windshield replacement, with all the applicable web pages included in each one.
By doing so, search engines can better determine the topic and value of your site, which results in a higher page ranking.
Mobile Optimization
Your website needs to be mobile responsive so it appears and functions on any type of mobile device and all types of screen sizes.
NAP
The name, address and phone number (NAP) on your website must match that in online business directories, particularly Google Places.
Utilize Schema
Schema is a means of adding identifiers to your content that tells search engines where to find key items for ranking search results so they can classify it accordingly. Important schema for local SEO are your business name, address, phone, location, business description, and how many reviews your business has received.
Google offers a Structured Data Testing Tool that can be used to evaluate your web pages for schema.
Google Map
Embed a Google Map on your Contact page to boost your local SEO and to help locals easily find your business.
There are helpful tools that provide website analytics so you can determine whether your site is performing as it should to capture local traffic. Look into Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools.
Social Media for Auto Glass Companies
Social media has become a major generator of traffic for local businesses. Social media is like free advertising – it attracts buzz about your business, enables you to hold timely and relevant promotions, and allows customers who use your services to quickly and easily refer you to others.
At the very least, your company should have a Facebook Business page, a Twitter profile, a Google+ page, and a Foursquare for Business listing, and be active in your postings to these social media sites.
Other social networks to consider are YouTube (post videos showing how you repair and replace car and truck windows and windshields) and Pinterest (post before and after images) where you can attract followers based on the location of your business.
Getting Business Reviews
Customer reviews are great for business, but they’re also good for boosting local SEO. You can make it easy for customers to review your auto glass company by adding reviewing badges to your website that link to the major review sites or by sending customers an e-mail with the applicable links.
While you hope all customer reviews will be positive, in the event your business receives a negative review, be sure to respond to it in a positive way, indicating how your company addressed the situation to the customer’s satisfaction.
Get Listed in Auto Glass Business Directories
Your business profile should be listed in business directories and search engine business listings pertinent to the auto repair or auto glass industry. It’s another local SEO measure that makes it easier for search engines to find your business.
As an auto glass company, you should claim or list your business profile in these top business directories:
Local Citations for Your Auto Glass Business
A local citation is a mention of your business information, such as its name, address, phone number and website address, on other web pages considered quality sources of information. Citations play a major role in improving your local search engine ranking because they validate that your business is legit and doing business in a particular community.
Local auto glass businesses with a high number of citations typically rank higher in local search engine results pages than businesses with fewer citations.
Both structured and unstructured citations are valuable. Structured citations are business listing directories, while unstructured citations are blogs, newspaper and other media sites, auto glass trade industry sites, and other websites.
Run a PPC Campaign
In conjunction with local SEO efforts, you can run one or more targeted pay per click (PPC) campaigns to attract local customers faster. PPC ads are those listings that appear at the top of the search engine results page.
Where your PPC ad appears is based on the keywords you are targeting. Typically, visitors who click on a PPC ad are more likely to do business with you than those coming from an unpaid search result.
And there you have it. The essential local SEO techniques that auto glass companies can use to attract new customers to their business. With more and more people using local searches to find area businesses, local search marketing provides a highly targeted means to capture local customers when they are seeking your windshield and windows repair or replace services.