The Click: It’s Only Half the Click
Page one is the end. It isn’t. It’s the pistol for a new race. Someone who lands on your website from a search result has shown a small amount of trust – they clicked your link instead of all the others, which means that your title and description was good enough for them to want to find out more. In the next 15 seconds, that faith will be rewarded with a booked job or lost as a bounce, seo for electricians who focus on rankings, but don’t care what the landing page does about those rankings, is neglecting the really important part of the job. Rankings without conversion are like passing out dinner invitations.
The difference between a ranking page and a converting page is huge. A page can be a good ranking page (by meeting the Google criteria of relevance, authority and technical optimisation) but a bad converting page (because it doesn’t meet the needs of the particular human who has arrived with a particular problem). The flipside is that a page that’s all about psychology but lacks the SEO to get eyeballs isn’t going to convert either. The ideal is a landing page that does both. It attracts the audience via search engine optimization and then converts the audience via clarity, trust and ease of use. It’s not hard to achieve both goals on a single page, but it does require having two audiences in mind – the search engine, and the scared homeowner.
Answer the Search Intent Completely
All search terms have an intent. A searcher entering “emergency electrician [city]” is not in the same state of mind as a searcher looking for “how much does EV charger installation cost.” The former is looking for help and needs a phone number. The latter is shopping around, not quite ready to commit. If your landing page doesn’t accommodate both of them, you have a problem. The emergency search requires a phone number above the fold, an indication of availability, and very little reading to get to the call option. The price-research search needs pricing information, an explanation of the variables, and a more gentle call to action, such as a free estimate.
This is all well and good, but most electrician landing pages fall in between – too direct for cost searches, not informative enough for research searches. They talk about the service in general terms, mention the city once or twice, include a “contact us” button and they’re done. This doesn’t work for anyone. The trick is to be clear about the primary intent of each page and then tailor all of its elements to that intent. One page, one target audience, one purpose.
Audience intent also determines content length. Disaster service pages should be short and quick-loading with key info (phone, region, availability) prominently displayed. Services that provide information about pricing, procedure or comparison can be longer because the user has shown an interest in reading more. Relating page length to purpose is common sense etiquette, and pages that don’t do so lose conversions no matter how high they rank.
Trust Signals Are the Foundational Blocks of a Page
You don’t call an electrician you don’t trust. The first question a landing page needs to answer is: “why should I trust this electrician with my house and my electricity?” It’s a good question. If it’s answered well, that page converts. A page that fails to answer it is based on hope, which is a bad thing in terms of conversion. Trust signals can take various forms and a good landing page uses several rather than any single element.
Your license number should be on the page and not in the page footer or on an about page. Showing your license number means you’re a legitimate business and they can check you out. It’s not much, but it sends out a big signal to homeowners, particularly those who’ve had trouble with unlicensed contractors in the past. Insurance details are important for commercial customers especially – a property manager contracting an electrician to work in a rental property will want to know you’re insured before they’ll contract you. Make this information prominent.
Up-front reviews and testimonials (not just links to Google and Yelp reviews) lower the risk of unfamiliarity. The potential customer reads the reviews and uses that as a proxy for their own experience. Concise reviews are more effective than general statements. “Repaired outdoor wiring before family homecoming, same day, no mess” is more compelling than “Great service!” by referencing a potential use case for the customer. Images of work done, particularly before and after shots, can be visual reviews that speak for themselves.
Experience, geographic coverage and time-of-day guarantees build on the trust. An electrical contractor who is “serving [city] and surrounding areas since 2009” and has “typically respond within two hours for urgent calls” has provided the homeowner with three signs of trust even before they’ve finished reading the service description. Layer these trust signals in a deliberate way and place the big ones in the spots where users are looking.
Location Specificity Seals the Conversion
A generic landing page (that could be any electrician, anywhere) converts at a lower rate than one that explicitly states that you’re an electrician serving the visitor’s local area. Location specificity is not only about local search engine optimisation but also the comfort and security that comes from knowing your location is explicitly stated. “Serving homeowners in [neighborhood], [suburb], and [city] since 2011” has a big effect, although it’s subtle: it reassures the visitor that you’re local, you know the area, you’re not an out-of-town electrician who will charge for travel time, or schedule your job for the end of the week.
Mention locals-specific context where relevant. The older housing stock found in some areas has particular electrical issues to watch out for – old wiring, outdated panels, fuse boxes – that would be familiar to a local electrician. To mention these things on a location-specific service page is both to convey local knowledge and expertise in a single stroke. It also makes the page stand out from generic competitors whose location pages merely substitute the suburb name into a template that isn’t of any value whatsoever. One that speaks to local context wins the call that one that doesn’t partly convince.
