Content Marketing for Electricians

Electricians are key contacts in any homeowner’s or landlord’s cell phone. While many homeowners are willing to try some home repairs themselves, most won’t touch electricity. The risks are just too great.

This is likely why the job outlook for electricians is so strong. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the United States will need to employ 6% more electricians by 2030 to keep up with demand. And while that’s great that your skill is so desperately needed, that also means you have more competition.

That’s when electricians need to understand digital content marketing. You don’t necessarily need to do all of the content creation yourself (we are digital content specialists who can handle that for you) but you do need to understand why expanding your online presence, and making sure you surface at or near the top of Google search engine page results (SERP) is so important.

So in this post, we’re going to explain why content marketing for electricians is so important. 

 

Why Digital Content Has Become Just As Important As Word of Mouth Recommendations

What’s the first thing people do when they have an electricity emergency? Panic. Once that subsides, they turn to Google to look for nearby electricians with good reviews and ask family and friends for recommendations.

It’s hard to say which of the two people do first, but they definitely do both of them. That’s why you want to make sure you have top notch digital content marketing. If you do, your name will surface at the top of SERP when people search for something like “electrician near me” or “good electrician.” 

• The type of content that appears on SERP may vary between:
• Paid ads under the “sponsored tab”
• Your website in the free, organic area of SERP
• Google map results of your name, website and number
• Google reviews from former clients
• Reviews clients have posted on Yelp, Nextdoor, and other review sites
• Your social media
• You may be thinking, “Come on. I don’t have time to do all that stuff. I’m an electrician.”

We’d say the same thing if our situations were reversed and our electrical system needed an upgrade. We’ll call you. We wouldn’t DIY. At SEO Design Chicago, we have over 10 years of experience doing all things related to digital content. Here are some of the key areas of content marketing we can handle for you.

 

SEO 

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a series of steps one makes to get a website to rank for free at the top of SERP.  It takes about 3-6 months to see results in where your website ranks in search engine results pages (SERP) when you revamp existing content or develop new content (and a new website design) with search engine optimization (SEO) in mind. So if you need SEO marketing, it’s best to start now so your site ranks high in SERP by mid summer. 

Weather forecasters are predicting heat waves across the United States this summer, and especially in Chicago. 

You want to make sure your website appears on page one. You can appear on page one by paying for “sponsored” ads (A pay-per-click method of advertising that we’ve helped dozens of companies master).

 Next, you may see results for local providers related to the goods or services you searched for. These results usually appear under a label called “Businesses.” Next, you’ll often find featured snippets, i.e. a list of questions called something like “People Also Ask.” 

After all of that, you see websites that fall into the category of “organic”  content. These are sites that Google places – for free – in a highly visible part of SERP because Google’s algorithm detects that the webpage is part of a website that has quality content, relevant information, and is produced by a company with expertise, experience, authority and trustworthiness (you can remember this with Google’s snappy acronym “EEAT.” 

Websites also appear in this place if the webpage is structured with SEO in mind. SEO includes the following components:

• Pages loaded with the right keywords, i.e. the phrases people type into Google’s search bar
• Webpages that load fast and are mobile-friendly
• Websites that contain no broken links, and have a lot of links connecting one page on your website to another
• Links from other websites to yours, and vice versa
• An XML map that’s been submitted to Google

You also want to learn: 

• How to read analytics reports, that show how often and where your site appears in SERP, along with other information like where your customers live, what times of day they visit, and what makes them leave your site  
• How to move forward with new content marketing strategies based on that data

You can take an online course in content marketing, read books about the topic, or watch YouTube videos. We even offer training to you or your employees. But what is your time worth? What’s the monetary cost of each hour of your time? Every hour you spend learning about how and why electricians need content marketing is an hour that you take away from other things you need to do to run your business. SEO Design Chicago will likely be a better use of your time and money. 

 

Our Content Marketing Process

If you want to try content marketing on your own, at least let us help you by giving you a glimpse into how we approach creating a strategy for our clients. Here’s our checklist:

1. First, we do a SEO analysis of your current website, if you have one. This will tell you where you’re ranking in Google and Bing and for what specific keywords. We pay particular attention if you are ranking for phrases like “electrician near me” and “affordable electrician.” Because people want local, which they assume (rightly) means you’ll be there faster. We offer a free SEO audit as part of our initial consultation with you. If you want to do an SEO analysis on your own, you can. Just search for “free SEO audit.” However, some of these sites will give you an audit for free, but you’ll need to provide a credit card first. After a certain number of days, you’ll be charged a monthly fee. Also, there’s no point in doing an SEO audit on your own website if you don’t know how to interpret the results. So call us.  
2. If you do understand the report, and see that you’re ranking high for certain keywords (the phrases or words people enter into a search bar), that’s awesome. You should create more content like that page. That’s what content marketing is – adding more content to your website so you rank high in SERP.  You don’t want to create an exact carbon copy of that page – Google actually dings sites a few points if they feel they’re doing the same old thing page after page. But you want to creatively figure out ways to add new pages to your site that include those keywords. Sometimes, it means you can start a blog and write posts that include those keywords. That’s what we do and how you ended up on this page – our blog. You can also create new pages, like a Frequently Asked Questions page and include a lot of questions and answers with those keywords. Content marketing is when SEO marketing experts like us come in handy. If you’re not ranking at all in Google, or ranking on page 100, we know how to fix those pages. We also know how to create more content like the pages that are doing well in Google and Bing results, without doing the same thing twice. We always aim for 1500-word pages that have hyperlinks, headers, and the right keywords.  
3. While you’re doing all this, think about your target audience, including their income levels, fears about electricity (like setting the house on fire), concerns about quality (no one wants to pay a lot for bad work) and cost. Life is expensive right now. So people will put off something like an electrical panel upgrade. They’ll delay things like yearly maintenance. They may be reaching out to you after something has happened – like a flood or electrical fire. Make sure your site has a lot of information about how delaying electrical repairs is more expensive in the long run. Include testimonials from previous satisfied clients.    
4. Think broadly about your business goals. For example, more sales is the obvious major goal, but you won’t reach that goal unless you reach other smaller milestones, like increased web traffic, an increase in phone call inquiries, an uptick in social media followers, and more.  
5. Another part of content marketing is making sure your site is smartphone-friendly and contains quality links to pages on your own site, and other websites. These things are the other metrics that matter to Google when its algorithm decides where to place any particular page in search results. If you can’t deal with web design, don’t. We couldn’t upgrade our electricity panel if we tried. We’d hire you. Sometimes, you just need to call in specialists.  
6. Finally, content marketing also includes monitoring those review sites like Yelp, Angie’s List, Nextdoor, and Google. We can teach you what qualifies as “inappropriate reviews” and explain how to get them removed. You can always reward happy customers who leave reviews on these sites with future discounts. 

It’s all marketing. It’s all content. And it’s all stuff electricians need to be aware of – but don’t necessarily need to do themselves. Reach out to us for a free consultation. If you meet us in person (you don’t need to though), we’ll have you look at our electricity.