How Your Keyword List Is either Filling Up your Schedule, or Wasting Time
Most electricians who do SEO begin the same way – they go after “electrician [city name],” pray, and hope. Sometimes it works a little. Usually it’s not fast enough and they stop too soon. It’s not that the SEO isn’t working. The problem is that a single keyword isn’t a strategy. A list of keywords is a strategy, and creating the right list is where seo for electricians comes in to play when you want to be one of the businesses that can generate a lead every day versus one that thinks, “Why did I spend money on a website?”
A good list of keywords is a net, not a line. A single keyword is a single line. A well-organised list that addresses different services, different intents and different locations is a net – it catches tons of traffic across multiple variations of searches that are occurring every day in your city.
No More Guessing, Listen to the Searches
You can’t build a house until you know how your customers search. Not how you think they search. And there’s almost always a disconnect here and that’s where your SEO budget will start to drain away.
Householders don’t search “electrical services residential“. They search “flickering lights in house,” “how much to install downlights,” or “power point not working”. Business owners search “new shop fitout commercial electrician,” “cost of three-phase power supply upgrade” or “emergency office electrician”. These are the search phrases that generate calls. These are the words you need to include in your list. The easiest way to do that is by looking at Google’s autocomplete, “People Also Ask” on the search page, and free keyword tools that will tell you how many times a phrase is searched for each month. This will take an afternoon or two before you start writing. It’s the kind of work that will turn a list of keywords into a list of leads, or plain old confusion.
The Four Buckets Every Electrician’s Keyword List Needs
Let’s break your keyword list into four buckets, each with a different aim in bringing leads in at various points of the sales cycle. Service keywords are your staple keywords: these are the basic terms people are searching for when they’re ready to hire: “electrician near me,” “switchboard upgrade [suburb],” “emergency electrician [city].” These keywords appear on your service pages and homepage. They’re highly competitive, valuable, and they take time to build authority for, which is why you need more than these.
Location keywords are what you use to amplify your service keywords across your service region. If you service many suburbs, you’ll need multiple versions of your service pages for each suburb. “Electrician in [suburb A]” and “electrician in [suburb B]” are different keywords that attract different local traffic. Don’t create thin location pages with the same content – each page needs to be substantial enough to appear to be a resource for that suburb, rather than a cut-and-paste version for each suburb.
Problem keywords are the middle of the funnel gold that electricians are leaving on the table. These are problem searches from people who have a problem but aren’t ready to pick up the phone. “Why is my safety switch tripping,” “is old wiring a fire hazard,” “do I need a permit for outdoor lighting” – the searches are made by people seeking information. If you have a blog post or FAQ page that answers these questions, you’re getting in front of a potential customer before they’ve even decided to call someone. When they’ve read your info and decided they need a pro, they’re likely to choose you.
Cost keywords are in a different category because they’re high-intent. If you’re searching “how much will a switchboard upgrade cost” you’re definitely planning one. They’re planning, not researching. Webpages with good cost estimates – and information about what drives cost – rank well and convert well because they provide what people are looking for.
Long-Tail Keywords Give You the Quick Winnings
If you’ve ever thought that SEO is a marathon, then long-tail keywords are your way to building momentum early. Long-tail keywords are longer and more specific than short keywords – “price for installing ceiling fan with wiring” versus “ceiling fan install“. The longer phrase is searched less frequently, but it’s also much less competitive, and the searcher is more likely to be ready to buy.
It’s often quicker and more lucrative to rank for a bunch of long-tail keywords, rather than a single, shorter, competitive one. Every long-tail page you develop is another avenue to your site, another opportunity to get in front of a customer with a particular need. After a year of content creation, all those entry points add up to a lot of traffic. It may not be as exciting as showing up first for “electrician Sydney,” but it’s important leads while you work on the big ones.
Periodically Review and Refresh Your Keyword List
Keyword lists are not set and forget. Search behaviour shifts. New services become popular. New competitors emerge and compete for your keywords. Seasons create a shift in search terms that are more popular. When you go through your list of keywords every six months, see which pages are doing well and which are stagnating, and where you have opportunities to improve or add new pages, your SEO won’t get stuck.
A page that’s ranking on page two for a good keyword is often just one content update away from page one. A page that has fallen down the rankings may simply need new content, more internal links or a more comprehensive approach to the subject. A keyword strategy is not a plan; it’s an ongoing, growing, living process.
The electricians getting a regular stream of leads from search aren’t doing anything special. They’ve developed a keyword strategy list that includes their services, the places they work, the questions their customers ask and their customers’ financial concerns, and they’ve written content around each element of that list, gradually, over time. That’s the whole strategy. It may not be as exciting as a silver bullet, but it’s a silver bullet.
