SEO Mistakes That Will Hurt a Small Home Service Business

An effective local SEO strategy makes the site more visible to the target audience and increases the organic web page traffic. 

SEO is a popular and widely-used digital marketing strategy that both small and big businesses use to make their website rank higher on search engine result pages. An effective local SEO strategy makes the site more visible to the target audience and increases the organic web page traffic. 

SEO is a valuable and powerful tool, especially for small home service businesses, like plumbers, electricians, lawn care services, remodelers, HVAC contractors, and roofers, looking to get an edge and create a long-term impact in the highly competitive local market. However, while SEO offers various benefits, using bad practices to get quick results can turn into a costly mistake.

Importance of adopting fair SEO practices, black hat versus white hat

Search engines like Google, Bing, or Yahoo lay a lot of stress on quality. They have specific guidelines that an SEO strategy should follow, and they even change their algorithms frequently to maintain the importance and credibility of organic searches. White hat SEO or ethical SEO works within the rules and approved methods to position the website higher on SERPs. It is beneficial for long-term business success and provides a good user experience. Unique, easy-to-read content, relevant keywords, quality backlinks, and offering an excellent user experience are all parts of white hat SEO.

However, several marketing agencies or business owners cheat the system and undermine the search engine algorithm. They deploy bad tactics or unethical practices, commonly known as black hat SEO, to quickly achieve higher rankings. While this method may allow a small home service business to reap short-term benefits, there are a lot of risks involved in this process in the long term. Using black hat SEO techniques will eventually lead to penalties, downgraded rankings, lost credibility, and even a permanent ban in certain circumstances.

Experts advise against adopting unethical SEO practices to get good results and gain user trust.

Some common SEO mistakes that can affect the growth of a home service business

If you own a small home service business, avoid making the following black hat SEO blunders to get the most out of your SEO strategy and take your business on the growth path.

Failing to publish high-quality content

The content on a website should match the SEO goals and be meaningful and informative for the users. Search engines prefer relevant, fresh, unique, comprehensive, keyword-rich, and valuable content for a website to rank higher on SERPs. Adding low-quality or re-written content to the site to publish poorly written guest posts is most likely to hurt the website rankings. Such content is not engaging to read and will get poor quality backlinks. While creating high-quality and unique content is time-consuming, it is the best and a reliable way to get a credible ranking.

Keyword stuffing

Another common mistake several home service businesses make is excessive use of high-traffic keywords on a particular page or throughout the website. Such content feels awkward to read, and the keywords seem forced. Besides the rankings, keyword stuffing also hurts credibility and user experience. Use keywords sparingly and let them naturally fit the content. Long-tail keywords are more valuable in driving traffic and getting a good ranking.

Cloaking

Cloaking is a deceptive SEO technique in which the content presented to the user differs from the information offered to the search engine crawlers for the same web page. The website servers are specifically programmed to do so. Cloaking aims at improving the ranking for certain keywords. It may include showing some keywords only when the search engine spiders crawl a page and not while the user is accessing it or showing images and flash files to a user on a certain page and HTML text to the crawlers. Cloaking violates the search engine guidelines and can result in severe penalties, including getting blacklisted or banned.

Publishing duplicate or auto-generated content

Not everyone has the patience or is willing to take the trouble to create fresh and engaging content regularly. A common mistake website owners make is to publish identical content on multiple pages or copy the content from another site. For example, while creating content for several location pages of the same website, avoid using the same content by only changing the city name. Business owners should focus on creating content targeting users and not search engines. 

Low-quality backlinks

Quality backlinks are essential from an SEO perspective. However, earning them the right way is crucial. Backlinks from a link exchange program, blog comment spam, spammy directories or bookmarking sites, forum spam, automated link building, and purchasing backlinks will do more harm and good. Always target to get backlinks from high-authority and credible websites. Generate backlinks from social media pages, directories, influencer marketing, guest posting, or positive customer feedback on review sites. 

Using negative SEO

Negative SEO is an unethical technique that home services businesses should avoid at all costs. The primary purpose of negative SEO is to sabotage a competitor’s website or tarnish its image to reduce its rankings. Never use tactics like leaving negative reviews, forum or blog commenting spam, or pointing various low-quality backlinks to the competitor’s website to get them penalized is unethical. While search engines like Google can identify and ignore such links, using such practices are never reliable or useful and can hurt your website. 

Misleading Redirects

Although redirecting is a strategy commonly used while updating an old page with a new URL, moving the website to a new domain name, or merging two or more websites, some people misuse them to fool search engines. Never make the mistake of redirecting users from an original indexed page to an altogether different page. False redirects to deceive the search engines can lead to a penalty. 

Avoid these common mistakes from hurting your SEO efforts

Follow the rules and guidelines and satisfy complex search engine algorithms to get higher rankings and good traffic. Black hat SEO tactics are risky. A solid and fair SEO strategy is a must for home service businesses that want to build and establish their online presence to grow their sales.

If understanding all the fundamental aspects of SEO and designing and implementing an SEO strategy seems daunting and time-consuming, it is best to hire an expert home services marketing agency. An experienced local marketing and SEO agency will follow ethical practices and avoid the common mistakes mentioned above. Professionals use fair and sustainable means to boost website rankings and increase visibility to get more leads and boost sales.

Green Thumb Local creates powerful online advertising and brand management for your local business. If you want a fully customized web presence without the hassle, call 480-360-0101 today!