Implementing search engine optimization is crucial for your business and marketing efforts. SEO helps those actively looking for building materials discover your brand on search engines.
These days, the vast majority of consumers are looking to search engines in the product research phase. Therefore, you must ensure your web pages rank well on search engine results pages for queries that prospects will be searching.
Keep reading to understand more about SEO for building materials companies and why SEO is important for marketing and sales success.
What is SEO?
The primary purpose of your building materials website is to attract traffic and ultimately convert that traffic into clients. Search engine optimization, or SEO, helps with this. SEO involves optimizing web pages to rank high on search engine results pages.
When your pages rank well, they become more visible to searchers, and your website should receive more traffic. Ideally want to be as high up on page one of SERP to make it more likely that your links will be clicked.
There are many factors that search engine algorithms pick up on when deciding where to rank your content and for which queries. These factors are discussed below and comprise technical, on-page, and off-page SEO.
Why is SEO Important for Building Materials Companies?
Your company may produce outstanding building material products, but if you aren’t visible to potential customers, you won’t get sales. This is where SEO comes in!
SEO increases your visibility on search engine results pages (SERP), allowing potential clients to find your website and begin the path to purchase, doing research and deciding if you’re the right supplier. The prospects gained from SEO efforts are valuable as they are warm leads that are actively looking for a product like yours to purchase.
SEO can target all of your audiences as well, from contractors and interior designers to homeowners, most residential and commercial audiences will use search engines for product research.
Your company may produce outstanding building material products, but if you aren’t visible to potential customers, you won’t get sales. This is where SEO comes in!
Some of the primary benefits of SEO for building materials companies include:
Visibility
As discussed, search engine marketing efforts make your brand more visible. When ranking well for queries relating to your building materials products, those in the market for them will discover your brand easily when using search engines as a purchase research tool.
Traffic
Being highly visible on SERP means that more people are likely to click on your web page links, increasing traffic to your website. This increased traffic will help improve your SEO and domain authority. Of course, the additional people visiting your website can then be converted into clients.
User Experience
Search engines reward websites with good UX. Many elements of SEO translate into a good user experience for those visiting your website.
For example, when improving your website for SEO, you’ll want to increase page speed, make it easy to navigate, and have lots of valuable and informative content on your website, as just a few examples. All of these things make your website highly user-friendly too.
Lead Gen
The primary benefit of implementing SEO for building materials companies is lead generation capabilities. All of the above benefits should ultimately result in more prospects discovering your website and more sales being generated.
To make the chance of a sale more likely, optimize your website to lead those that found you on search engines through the path to purchase. Some ways to do this include providing lots of information on your materials’ uses and benefits, making contact information easy to find, adding stand-out CTAs, and having an in-depth FAQs page.
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Implementing SEO for Your Building Materials Company
Technical SEO
Implementing technical SEO helps to make your web pages crawlable and indexable. Crawling is when search engine “spiders” collect information from your web page about its contents. Indexing is the process of using the crawled information to decide what queries your web page will be shown for and at what ranking.
If your web pages can’t be crawled or indexed (crawl errors), your web pages won’t show up on search engine results pages anywhere, let alone on page one.
Technical SEO is probably the most complicated of the three primary components. However, marketing agencies and web developers can help you with this. It’s also generally a one-time task; once your website is optimized, you don’t need to do too much maintenance of technical SEO elements.
On-Page SEO
When discussing SEO for building materials companies, on-page SEO is incredibly important. This part of search engine optimization needs to be worked on consistently; you must always be adding great content resources to your website and updating content on the website to keep it relevant and ranking well.
On-page SEO starts by conducting keyword research. Once you have some keywords to target, decide what type of web content you’ll create.
Some content formats to use include:
• Blogs or web articles
• Videos
• Podcasts
• Guides and how-tos
• Infographics
Once you’ve chosen your keywords and format type(s), you must follow the on-page techniques discussed below when creating your piece of content around your target keyword topic.
You’ll also want to use keywords and implement on-page SEO techniques throughout your product pages.
Keyword Research
Keyword research helps determine the exact topics to cover your content. Keyword research shows what users are searching for and if you have a chance to rank for these queries.
When doing keyword research, you want to look for keywords with a high search volume but low keyword difficulty. Keyword difficulty ranges from one (incredibly easy to rank for) to 100 (almost impossible to rank for unless you have a domain authority of 90 to 100.)
The keyword difficulty you can target effectively (have the chance to rank on page one of SERP) will depend on your website’s domain authority score. The higher the score, the higher difficulty keywords you can use.
The target keyword you choose (the one with the best search volume and difficulty score) will be used:
• Within your content (including in the first 100 words of copy.)
• In your meta description
• In your title tag
• In one or two image alt tags
You should also use keyword research to find:
• Header tags
• A URL
• Secondary keywords (those related to the target that you also use within the content.)
Do be careful to avoid overusing keywords, also known as keyword stuffing. Keywords within the body copy should be used approximately once every 200 to 300 words.
Content Creation
Once you begin creating your content, ensure the following get included:
Title Tags
Title tags tell users and search engines what the content on a web page is about. Your target keyword should be included in your title tag. Titles should be at most 60 characters and should be unique to each web page, i.e. no duplicates should be present on your domain.
URL
The URL you use for each web page is important! It should be short and descriptive and include a good keyword that has a high search volume and attainable keyword difficulty score. It should be a variation of the target keyword for the web page, not the same one.
Meta Descriptions
Meta descriptions are a quick description of the content with your target keyword included in the copy. They help explain to search engines what the content is about and what type of queries it’s targeting.
They also give a quick overview to search engine users of what the content is about (a meta description is the two to three lines of copy you see below a link on the likes of Google.) A click-worthy meta-description makes it more likely that users will click on your web link.
Meta descriptions should be approximately 160 characters. You should also include your target keyword in them, ideally near the beginning of the copy.
Heading Tags
Long-form copy should be split up with subheadings, also called heading tags. There are different heading tags, including H2 tags for main subheadings and H3 tags for headings under the H2. If needed, you can also add H4 and H5 headings.
Heading tags should, for the most part, include a new variation of your target keyword with good search volume and keyword difficulty. Whatever headings you use, ensure the body copy below them gives the information the heading says it will.
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Body Copy/ Main Content
The most important part of on-page SEO for building materials companies is the actual content you create! The content you produce should be relevant, of high quality, and authoritative.
Relevancy: how relevant is the content on your web page to the query or queries you want to rank for?
Authority: is your content trustworthy? Do you position your brand as a source of authority via your content? Google and other search engines want to serve their users the most valuable and trustworthy content first. Therefore, websites with this type of content are more likely to rank well.
Quality: web content also needs to be high-quality. As mentioned, content must be valuable and show expertise. How long people spend on your website can tell Google a lot about whether your content is high-quality and of value to people or not. Content must also be factually accurate and backed up with sources as needed.
The overall goal is to create high-quality content related to your building materials that informs and educates. You want to provide prospects with all the information they need to make an informed purchase decision.
Content can encompass more general content related to the building materials you produce, for example, explaining what to look for in a roof tile to ensure it’ll be durable and long-lasting. Other content should be product and brand specific, such as explaining the benefits of your building materials over competitors and outlining each product’s features, plus info like costs, how to order or where to buy, warranties, etc.
Keywords
You must have a good distribution of your target keyword throughout your content. Use the keyword within the first 100 words of copy and then approximately once every 300 words.
Secondary keywords should be integrated throughout also, and include your target in your meta description, title tag, and at least one image alt tag.
Image Alt Tags
These tags describe any images used on your web pages. They explain what’s in the image for visually impaired users. Image alt tags also explain to search engines what’s in the image, allowing them to understand your content more. Always organically include your target keyword in one or two alt tags.
Internal Linking
Internal links are links within your body copy that point to other web pages on your domain. These links should be relevant to the content on the web page they appear on.
These links provide additional information to readers, adding value. They also pass on page authority (like domain authority but for individual web pages as opposed to the whole domain.) Always try to include a few internal links within your content.
Ideally, you should create content in a hierarchy, with a pillar piece at the top and related content underneath that. Internal linking should reflect that hierarchy, always mentioning the pillar piece and other content above the content being created in the content hierarchy.
External Linking
External links point to web pages on other domains. Again, these links should add value to the reader and be relevant to the content. They should provide information that your website cannot (there isn’t an internal link that could be used.)
As with internal links, some authority will be passed on from the link, but less so than from the internal ones. Only use secure and reliable links from websites with a good domain authority score (ideally 50 or higher.)
Off-Page SEO
Off-page SEO for building materials companies comprises SEO efforts that take place off of your website. It includes promoting your website and its content on social media and gaining backlinks (authoritative links pointing to your domain.)
Backlink Acquisition
Backlinks are links that other domains place on their website pointing to your domain. When you gain a backlink, it sends signals to search engines that help to increase your domain authority. The higher the domain authority of the websites giving you backlinks, the better.
An easy way to get backlinks is to create valuable and informative content that others want to share on their website. However, there are some more hands-on backlink acquisition techniques that you can try.
For example, you can generate partnerships with other brands and publications that include them placing links to your website on their websites.
Social Media
Interestingly, links on your social media pages count as backlinks. Sharing your web content on social media increases your audience which can increase traffic to your website.
You may also get your content in front of someone on social media who decides to give you a backlink by linking to the shared web page on their website. Sharing capabilities within social media (for example, a follower sharing your post with their friend group) can increase reach even more. That increased reach again leads to a potential increase in traffic, shares, and backlinks.
Also, make sure you optimize the content on your website for social sharing by making use of share buttons on your web page.
Social media doesn’t only help your SEO efforts! Read our article to discover all the ways social media can improve your marketing.
Directories
Directories are an important part of SEO for building materials companies. These digital directories include websites like Yelp and Google My Business.
Using digital directories to promote your building materials business gives you credibility and puts you in front of a larger audience. These platforms also help with your local SEO efforts and make it easy for prospects to find your contact info.
Local SEO
If you operate in a certain geographic area or a few areas, implementing local SEO is important. Building materials manufacturers that supply across the country or further don’t have to focus greatly on local SEO. But if you target certain geographic markets, local SEO is indispensable.
Local SEO basically involves adding location tags and keywords to your content, allowing customers in the areas you serve to find you. For example, if you’re targeting the keyword “affordable roofing tiles” and want to reach people in the Dallas, Texas area, you’ll want to expand the keyword to “affordable roofing tiles in Dallas” or “affordable roofing tiles in Dallas, Texas” and the like.
You can also use Google My Business to ensure your company gets shown when clients are searching for the building materials you produce in the area you serve. Adding your business profile to Google gives you the chance to appear in the “SEO 3-pack.” This feature is a group of three relevant local listings that get shown at the top of SERP when users search for services in their area.
SEO for Building Materials Brands Mistakes to Avoid
Some common SEO mistakes to avoid include:
Keyword Stuffing: using keywords too frequently within content to a point where they aren’t incorporated naturally is a major mistake to avoid. Using a keyword about once every 200 to 300 words is appropriate.
Also, avoid unnatural-sounding keywords even if they have a good search volume and keyword difficulty score. For example, “wood flooring affordable” should be avoided whereas “affordable wood flooring” can be organically included in the copy. An unnatural-sounding keyword could work as a URL though if it’s closely related to your target and has a high search volume.
Including Too Many External Links: you want to include a few authoritative external links in your content, but don’t go overboard. Two or three external links per page are the maximum you want to use.
Not Fixing 404 Errors Quickly: 404 errors are broken links. They’re internal or external links placed on your website that no longer point to an active web page. These issues can occur if the web page the link points to was deleted, the URL was changed and a 301 redirect wasn’t added, or the link was otherwise corrupted.
SEM tools like SEMrush can notify you when broken links occur on your website so you can fix them. Setting up a 404 landing page is also a great idea so that user experience isn’t too negatively affected while you fix the issue.
Having Duplicate Content: this error can include content duplicated from your own website or duplicated from other domains. For example, when discussing SEO for building materials companies, duplicate content from another domain may be a product description used on your retail partner’s website.
Even if you wrote that product copy for them, don’t reuse it word for word on your website. Duplicate content is penalized by search engines, meaning it can make your rankings and domain authority drop.
Buying Backlinks: blackhat SEOs will suggest buying backlinks, many of which are spam or scam links. Never do this! Always use whitehat backlink acquisition techniques whereby websites with a good domain authority organically link to your website because the content is high quality, and they want to suggest your products to their website visitors as a way to add value to their content.
Paid Search Advertising
As mentioned, you shouldn’t ever pay for backlinks. However, you may want to consider paying for search advertising. Search ads are text-based web ads placed at the top of page one of SERP for the target query you bid on.
They basically guarantee that the link to your web page and its meta description will be seen at the top of SERP. Search ads are best used for the queries you want to target the most. Do note, that search ads don’t get as much click-through as organic links in the top positions. Testing some search ad campaigns will let you know if they’re worth it or not for your building materials brand.
In Conclusion
Having discussed how to implement SEO for building materials companies, you should now better understand search engine optimization. You should have insight into how it can be implemented and why it is important for your business and bottom line.
Whether you implement SEO yourself or outsource this element of your marketing, the results will include higher website traffic, increased brand awareness, more leads, and ultimately more sales and specifications.
Ready to dominate the online space in the building materials industry? Let us help you achieve SEO success and establish your brand as a leader. Take the first step and reach out to us today.
