SEO for Roofing Companies: Complete Strategic Plan
Hey there! Do you run a roofing company, listen up. I know you’re busy actually fixing roofs, meeting with clients, and running the operations of your business. But you can’t ignore SEO for roofing companies if you want to get more customers and grow your roofing empire. I get it. SEO sounds technical and boring. Most roofers just want to swing hammers, install shingles, and make houses weatherproof. You didn’t start your biz to fiddle with websites and write blog posts. But I promise you that SEO works and it’s worth investing in. If done right, you’ll get way more leads and calls from potential customers needing your services.
That’s what this guide is all about. I’m going to explain exactly what you need to do step-by-step to rank at the top of Google and other search engines. I’ll make it simple and avoid too much technical jargon. My goal is to help you bring in more roofing customers with SEO for roofing companies.
So brew some coffee and let’s get to it!
Optimize Your Website
The foundation of good SEO is having a properly optimized website. If your site’s not set up for search engines, nothing else in this guide will matter all that much.
Luckily, website optimization doesn’t have to be complicated. Here are the key things every roofing site needs:
★ Mobile Responsiveness: Google favors mobile-friendly sites these days. Over half of searches happen on phones or tablets. So your website needs to adapt to smaller screens with responsive design. You don’t want tiny text and wonky navigation that frustrates site visitors. Hire a good web developer if your site’s not optimized for mobile.
★ Fast Load Speeds: Slow-loading websites drive visitors away in seconds. Bad site speed also hurts your search rankings. Use caching plugins, image compression, minimal page bloat, and optimized web hosts to make your site lightning fast. Visitors will stick around and explore more pages.
★ Secure HTTPS: Switch your site over to HTTPS encryption for better security and search performance. It helps establish trust with visitors who want their data protected. Plus Google gives ranking bumps to HTTPS sites. Let’s Encrypt can help you migrate over for free.
★ Clear Navigation: Roofers need crystal clear site navigation menus that guide visitors to important pages quickly. Things like “Our Services,” “Service Area,” “Contact Us,” etc. Keep site architecture simple — 3 levels deep at most. Search bots also use site navigation to discover and index key pages, equating to better rankings.
★ Compelling Content: Every roofing website needs optimized pages that rank for customer searches. Things like “commercial roofing,” “roof replacement cost,” and “roofer near me” type searches. I’ll cover keyword research shortly, but you need pages targeting these popular customer queries with strongly branded marketing messages. Each page should convince site visitors why your roofing company is the right choice for them and motivate contacting your business. Compelling and persuasive content along with accurate business info builds site visitor trust while aligning with search intent.
★ Optimized Technical Site Elements: This includes things like your page titles, meta descriptions, alt image text, internal site links, schema markup, and overall on-page SEO for each page. These elements help search engines understand your pages better and rank them higher in results. An experienced SEO professional can audit your website and optimize all these sometimes forgotten elements for search and conversions.
That covers the basics of a strong SEO website foundation geared for more roofing leads! You’ll attract more organic search visitors — who convert into paying customers at a higher rate — by having a site that’s mobile responsive, fast loading, secure, easy to navigate, full of great content, and technically optimized.
Let your webmaster know that SEO and customer experience should be top priorities for your roofing website, not just looking pretty. A site that ranks highly and converts search traffic is how competitive businesses dominate the first page of Google.
Now let’s talk keyword research!
Research High-Value Keywords
The roofing industry is full of lucrative keyword opportunities. From shingle types to roof repair services to job cost estimates — customers search for all kinds of roofing information online.
Your goal is to identify and target the most relevant and high-value keywords that prospective customers are searching for in your service area. These keywords will be slightly different depending on if you offer residential or commercial roofing services.
Start by gathering a big list of roofing keyword ideas from these categories:
✔ Roofing Services: New roof installation, roof replacement, roof repairs, roof inspections, roof maintenance, roof coating, roof cleaning.
✔ Roofing Types and Materials: Asphalt shingles, metal roofing, flat roofing, tile roofing, slate roofing, TPO roofing, EPDM rubber roofing.
✔ Customer Concerns and Considerations: Roofing contractors near me, roofing costs, roofing prices, affordable roofers, best roofer in “city”, roofing estimates, roofing insurance claims, roof storm damage, how long do roofs last.
✔ Commercial Roofing: Commercial roof maintenance, commercial roof replacement, restaurant roofing, apartment roofing contractors, hotel roof repairs.
✔ And any other related searches your potential customers may use!
You’ll come up with a big master list from those prompts. Then narrow it down to the most relevant for your specific business using keyword research tools.
Here are the top 3 tools I recommend for gathering keyword data:
1️⃣ Google Keyword Planner – Shows monthly search volumes and recommended long-tail variations of root keywords. This helps you expand your list while focusing on more targeted keywords.
2️⃣ SEMRush – Tracks search volume trends over time, helping you identify growing/declining searches. Shows keyword difficulty scores so you know what’s realistically possible to rank for. Provides click-through rates data so you can calculate potential traffic value per keyword.
3️⃣ Google Suggest/Autocomplete – What actual searchers are typing into Google is gold. Look at suggested search queries that pop up for your target keywords. This reveals the searcher’s intent and language behind roofing searches. Unique long tail variations you may have never thought of can be discovered this way.
Here’s an example:
Root keyword: Roofer near me. Suggestions: Roofers open now near me, roof leak repair near me, reputable roofer near me, roofing companies close to my location.
See how Google Autocomplete reveals ultra specific search queries you can create pages around? This level of relevancy and alignment with search intent can rocket you up rankings.
Now take your big master list of roofing keywords and plug them into these tools one-by-one. Look at search volume, value, trends, and difficulty scores for each. Also mine the keyword suggestion tools for more topics.
Eventually you’ll have a refined list of customer search keywords with metrics that tell you:
1️⃣ Which get high search volumes you can tap into
2️⃣ Which seem easier to potentially rank for
3️⃣ Which align best with your specific roofing services.
This helps you create a priority list of keywords to actively target in your SEO campaigns. These become your SEO “money keywords” that will drive qualified traffic to your site when you rank for them.
For most local roofing companies, you’ll probably see “roofer near me” and localized city requests as the highest value targets. But explore your options!
Create Targeted Landing Pages Problem
Someone searches “Cleveland skylight installations” trying to find a roofer for that specific job in Cleveland. They find your site but there’s no page explaining your skylight replacement services targeting Cleveland-area property owners. So the visitor leaves without contacting you because they didn’t find what they wanted.
Solution: Create targeted landing pages around your SEO money keywords! Have a page for Cleveland skylight installations that directly speaks to that customer segment with persuasive marketing copy and conversion elements driving calls/form fills.
I recommend building individual landing pages or small content clusters around all your priority keywords from step #2. These become the destinations you want to rank for each target query.
Make sure they align with searcher intent by providing extremely relevant info. Convince site visitors why your roofing services can solve their specific need.
Elements to include on pages targeting buyer keywords:
📌 Local city references
📌 Specific roofing category being searched around
📌 Detailed but easy to skim content sections clearly answering potential questions
📌 Calls-to-action to contact company for job quote requests
📌 Visual examples of your past work (photos, videos, project examples/case studies)
📌 Client reviews and testimonials
📌 Optimized technical SEO elements
📌 FAQs around that service category – with persuasive answers positioning you as the ideal roofer to hire
Also create keyword-optimized blog content that supports your main landing pages. These extended articles and roofing guides go beyond what’s possible on primary pages. Backlink them to related service pages to enhance relevance.
Example Cluster:
🔥 Main Target Page = “Cleveland Skylight Replacements & Installations”
- Paired with supportive articles – “A Homeowner’s Guide to Cleveland Skylight Products and Projects.”
- Both optimized for that search query, location, and roofing topic
Remember – you’re creating pages designed specifically for searcher intents and topics. Almost like a customized digital sales pitch for every identified customer segment you want to rank for. The goal is convincing site visitors your company can handle their specific roofing need extremely well.
This strategy requires some work building individual landing pages out. But doing SEO properly forces you to think like your potential customers and directly speak their language. The payoff is owning the first page for those money keyword searches in your region.
For national roofing brands competing online, you’ll need to scale up location references on pages targeting service radius keywords around major metro areas. But the concept remains the same – geo-targeted landing pages built for searcher intent.
Now you’ve set the table with a converted website and tailored landing pages. Next let’s get visitors to those pages from search engines…
Earn Backlinks From Local Sites
The roof over people’s heads is a very emotional decision tied to huge financial spend. Most homeowners will carefully research options before committing to a roofer. That research starts on Google as they hunt for the best person to install or repair their roof.
Earning backlinks to your website builds up trust and authority signals in Google’s eyes (and your potential customer’s eyes). So you want lots of credible sites linking back to your amazing, helpful roofing content on your site.
Here are 5 categories of easy link earning wins for roofing sites:
🏡 Local Home Improvement Sites
Look for regional outlets focused on home remodeling, renovation, repair, maintenance, and all that jazz. These sites cater to the exact customer avatar that needs roofing services at some point. Getting on their blog rolls via roundups, contributor posts, best-of guides, etc. aligns perfectly with roofing searcher intent.
Potential targets = Cleveland Home Pros, Columbus Remodeling News, Cincy Renovation Magazine
🏪 Local Business Directories
Registering complete and accurate NAP citations on directories helps local SEO while getting another link. Optimizing Google My Business listings is most important. But don’t ignore other quality directories like YellowPages, Mapquest, Manta, Hotfrog, etc. Manual submissions here build a link graph signaling you’re an established regional company.
📰 Local News Sites & Community Papers
Getting mentioned or interviewed for quotes by local reporters looking for expert sources on roofing topics helps establish your authority viability. Promote big charity projects, new tech innovations, weather disaster responses, or cool company milestones as story ideas. Links from regional news sites look quality from a trust and relevance standpoint.
🏫 Schools/Arenas/Churches
Lots of educational campuses, sports complexes, places of worship, and similar institutions prominently list sponsoring partners or suppliers on websites as a shoutout. It shows you support local organizations while gaining a quality backlink. Get more actively involved with groups needing roof repairs through equipment donations, volunteer days, fundraising sponsorships, etc. Educational links also fit with informative guest posts on school district blogs around facility upgrades.
🏠 HOAs & Residential Communities
Homeowner associations want the best for their residents. So they’re cautious and do research before approving contractors to work on properties. Getting featured as a trusted roofer for an HOA builds credibility for that audience. Some offer free resident referral programs or discounts for approved vendors featured on websites or newsletters.
This just scratches the surface of potential link opportunities that also give real business benefits beyond SEO. Be creative exploring options in your local area!
Build a branded media presence on social channels highlighting company community involvement and cool roof projects. Then promote that branded content to groups as “good stories to share.” Make it super easy for potential backlink partners.
Automation tools can help speed up personalized local link outreach at scale once you identify targets. But focus on quality over quantity for real impact. Even just a few authoritative endorsements from recognized local entities act as social proof for searchers.
Cultivate Customer Reviews
Positive customer reviews and testimonials help convert visitors that find you in search engines. Display them proudly!
But reviews also serve as trust signals Google factors into local search rankings. More abundant and recent reviews accumulate into an overall improved rating. High rating scores draw more attention from searchers.
So actively cultivate customer feedback by:
➕ Asking new buyers to leave an honest Google review after their roof is installed. Many just forget otherwise since roofing purchases aren’t everyday transactions.
➕ Incentivizing referrals, surveys, reviews, or testimonials with a discount on future cleaning/maintenance services. Even a $20 gift card motivates customers.
➕ Following up a year later to ask longtime customers for an updated review on how their roof has held up over seasons. This shows you stand behind quality workmanship for the long run.
➕ For commercial roofing clients, request a testimonial quote you can use on marketing materials and your website. It goes deeper than just a rating score or brief anonymous review.
Getting activity across Google, Facebook, Yelp, and other third-party review platforms helps build up credibility through customer voices. Just remember to stay compliant on promotional guidelines requiring disclosure on incentivized feedback.
It may feel awkward directly asking customers for reviews at first. But it makes a huge impact! With so much on the line for the roof over people’s heads, social proof and word-of-mouth carries more weight compared to most industries.
Connect Your Website To Google Tools
Register your website and company info within Google’s business/webmaster administration tools:
📌 Google My Business
📌 Google Search Console
📌 Google Analytics
📌 Google Tag Manager
📌 Google Merchant Center *retail e-commerce focus
This allows Google to better crawl, index, parse, track, showcase, and rank your roofing website content. You also unlock key data like search queries, top pages, traffic sources, site speed diagnostics, popular landing pages, and conversions.
Additionally, Google My Business puts your business prominently in the local 3-pack map for related searches like “roofer near me” or “Cleveland roof replacement.” People can even find your hours, location info, photos, and reviews without needing to click-through to your site.
Connecting your website and organization to these free Google tools improves how search engines interact with your content. The insights then help you make smarter SEO and marketing decisions. Don’t leave that advantage on the table as a local roofing business!
Create Visual Roofing Content
“A picture is worth 1000 words” takes on amplified meaning for visually-driven services like roof replacements. Someone searching for the durability of metal roofs wants to see how sleek standing seam looks on actual houses vs ugly shingles.
Work eye-catching photos, videos, 360 imagery, 3D renderings, and other engaging visual formats into your roofing content strategy. These vividly showcase beautiful roofs while building trust and interest. Some ideas:
📷 Photo Galleries – Before/after project results, roof replacement process, finished roof styles, crew team shots
🎥 YouTube Videos – Behind the scenes footage, testimonial interviews, timelapses of new installs, drone flyovers of picturesque roofs you service
🖼 Branded Graphics – Infographics on roof types or lifespans, maps of service regions, badges/certifications over the years, illustrated guides on roof elements
Visual media helps you stand out from overly text-heavy competitor sites that feel boring. Pictures speak directly to the emotions and aspirations of homeowners excited about improving their castles.
“WOW!” reactions translate into more calls and site form fills by people anxious to learn about pricing. Make content visually irresistible even for searchers not actively in-market.
Promote Content The Right Way
Creating awesome roofing content is just the first step. Next you need to amplify it in front of the right eyeballs.
Optimized and persuasive content only works if it reaches high buyer intent searchers. Ranking organically for SEO keywords discussed earlier is the ultimate goal — pulling 24/7 passive traffic from queries.
But also actively promote newly published content using other channels:
💌 Email Newsletters: Alerting your subscriber list generates instant website traffic and backlinks as current customers reshare posts they like. Especially helpful for recent buyers in sharing cool process photos/videos of their new roof installation.
💬 Social Media Posts: Share content overview snippets natively on brand profiles rather than just linking out. Video clips perform incredibly well on Facebook/Instagram/TikTok given their appetite for visual media. Photos of beautiful roofs in local neighborhoods also earn high engagement.
⚡ Paid Ads: You can amplify any high-performing content by sponsoring social posts and investing in pay-per-click search ads. This spots your content in front of more targeted searchers right after publishing when its most timely. Bid on relevant keywords and geography targets.
Claim & Optimize Free Business Listings
As a local roofing company, you want to be found in as many relevant business directories and citation sources as possible.
The more your accurate business Name, Address, and Phone Number (NAP) appears online tied to your website, the better your local SEO becomes.
Google and other search engines consider how many quality listings match your website details as a trust signal when determining local rankings. It helps confirm you’re an established regional company.
Start by fully optimizing and verifying these core listings as a roofing business:
📍 Google My Business
📍 Apple Maps
📍 Bing Places
📍 Yelp
📍 Yellow Pages
📍 Facebook Business Page
Then expand into hundreds of other niche citation sources like:
🏠 HomeAdvisor
🏠 Angie’s List
🏭 BuildZoom
🏭 Contractors.com
📰 Manta
📰 Hotfrog
The goal is claiming and verifying as many accurate listings as possible. This builds direct discovery channels for local searchers while improving SEO trust signals.
Tip: Use a citation management platform like Moz Local, Yext, or BrightLocal to quickly push updated business data across hundreds of listing networks while monitoring for inconsistencies.
Track Rankings & SEO Metrics
How will you know if all this SEO stuff is actually working to drive more roofing customers from organic search traffic?
Analytics and reporting!
Here are the key metrics and data points to track on an ongoing basis:
🔎 Keyword Rank Tracking – Monitor where you rank in Google results for target SEO phrases using tools like SEMRush, Ahrefs, or Moz. Improving positions over time means your efforts are working! Just remember that rankings fluctuate constantly.
📈 Organic Traffic & Leads – Google Analytics shows the volume of website visitors from organic searches. Is it going up over time? Even more telling is tracking phone/form lead conversions generated specifically from organic. This reveals the business ROI from SEO.
📊 Click-Through-Rates – What % of searchers actually click your listings to visit the website for a given keyword? Declining CTRs may indicate content quality issues even if rankings improve. Optimization helps revive interest levels from searchers.
🌐 Backlinks – Track incoming links pointing your roofing domain using Ahrefs, SEMRush or Moz. More (quality) links indicate growing online authority and trust signals that aid rankings.
📋 Ranking Factor Analysis – SEMRush Site Audit tool lets you analyze website elements and SEO factors correlating with higher ranked pages. These data-driven insights guide optimization efforts for better conversions.
Consistently analyzing numbers helps steer SEO campaigns back on track if things veer off course. Over time you’ll spot positive trends as organic becomes a primary customer acquisition channel.
Outsource SEO Help If Needed
Phew! That was quite an overview implementing a complete SEO plan for roofing leads.
Now here’s the reality – SEO is extremely challenging to do in-house for busy contractors focused on actual roof projects each day.
The construction world moves at a different pace compared to digital marketing. Customer demand keeps roofersReactive instead of proactively optimizing websites and creating content.
Most roofing company owners simply lack extra hours in the week for link prospecting, writing new articles, fiddling with HTML code, analyzing reports, etc. It’s just not where their core expertise lies.
That’s why it makes sense to get help from an experienced SEO agency or consultant so you can focus on your roofing craft full-time.
Some ways a true SEO expert can accelerate results:
🔍 In-Depth Competitor Research: They uncover what rankings and web strategies rival roofers are using so you can improve upon it.
🕵️♀️ Local Market Intelligence: An outside specialist spots unique link earning and content opportunities specifically for your region and customer base. Things you may overlook internally.
🚀 Results-Focused Campaign Execution: They handle all technical optimizations, content production, link building, reporting, and result tracking activities – saving you tons of time!
Of course, DIYing on a budget is still possible for basic SEO tasks if paying a large monthly fee isn’t workable yet. But careful thought must go into realistic in-house bandwidth.
Just know that advanced and on-going SEO (like outlined in this guide) may be worth outsourcing to true experts with the resources and manpower for maximum rankings and conversion results over time.
Alright, let’s wrap things up with a few FAQs for common SEO questions!
Frequently Asked SEO Questions
What are the first steps to improve my roofing website’s SEO?
Start with the low-hanging fruit like site speed optimizations, fixing technical errors, adding salient keywords naturally into page copy, proper link architecture between pages, and creating Google Search Console + Analytics accounts. Getting these basic foundations right sets the table for ranking growth.
How long does SEO take to drive new roofing customers?
Don’t expect overnight success or first page rankings immediately if starting from scratch. SEO is an ongoing process measured in months and years, not days and weeks. But you should see incremental progress within 3-6 months as long as you execute the tactics from a sound strategy consistently. ROI timeframes correlate with competitiveness of keywords targeted and your budget.
We’re just a local roofer getting leads. Is all this national SEO stuff necessary?
Absolutely! Even for roofers only wanting local jobs, you still need to think about SEO holistically. National search intent informs what Google shows locally. Plus many broader topics still drive buyers even if they only want you to service their specific city. Local SEO and national SEO strategies need integrated together for roofers wanting to maximize search conversions.
What SEO metrics actually impact conversions and calls?
While keyword rankings get all the hype, click-through-rates and organic session duration per visitor on-site matter more. Because you can rank #1 but get minimal clicks or lose visitors in seconds without engaging relevant content. So beyond rankings, hone in on site metrics showing content quality through visitor behavior. This reveals true searcher satisfaction guiding optimization decisions for better SEO ROIs.
How much should a small local roofer budget for SEO?
It varies dramatically based on location competitiveness, services complexity, insider expertise, and outsourcing vs in-house considerations. But most roofers can make gradual SEO progress with a modest $500-$1000 monthly budget. That covers things like content creation, local citations management, tools/software, minimal PPC ads, and then optimizing/analyzing the results from there. Those dollar figures can scale up over time (along with revenues) once positive ROI is measured.
Wrapping Up
And there you have it! A complete strategic blueprint breaking down all facets of SEO success for roofing contractors pushing for first page search domination.
As you saw, optimizing for higher rankings and conversions requires an integrated, multi-disciplinary approach across website design, content creation, link building, social media, local metadata, analytics tracking, and omnichannel digital marketing.
But now you’ve got clarity on what actually moves the needle most for roofing SEO results based on the unique needs of local home improvement searchers.
No more guessing and blindly following generic “best practices.” Use this plan as your SEO for roofing companies roadmap customized to roofing contractor priorities if customer acquisition is a current goal.
Embracing white label local SEO is the ultimate game-changer in business, as it empowers companies to achieve sustainable organic growth by consistently delivering value to searchers through optimized online experiences that seamlessly align with their evolving buyer journeys—an ongoing endeavor crucial for success in the dynamic landscape shaped by Google’s ever-evolving algorithms.
But I hope this guide serves you well in navigating search engines to win more roofing customers in need of your amazing services and craftsmanship! Let me know if any other SEO questions pop up along the way.
