Local SEO for Pest Control
It is all about being found online when your customers are looking for you. We know how to set you up for local market domination.
Pest control SEO designed for one purpose: to get you to rank at the top of Google and convert leads into paying customers!
How to Rank and Index With SEO
SEO has long been one of the great mysteries of online marketing. You’ve probably seen those emails promising that your site will appear on the first page of Google. The catch? They rarely specify which page or for which search term. Will your site actually rank on the first page for the key local search, like “pest control company near me” in your service area?
The reality is, if you’re not already ranking, working with a random SEO “guru” who promises “first page for cheap” is unlikely to deliver results. SEO is both a science and a strategy—it evolves as quickly as Google’s algorithms. The challenge for most pest control business owners is simply understanding the process and cutting through the mystery that surrounds local SEO.
Ever wonder why the SEO “expert” can’t clearly explain how they’ll get your site to Page 1 for every search your potential customers might make? The truth is, no one can guarantee that.
What they can do is implement the fundamentals of an effective SEO strategy—consistent, proven actions that help your pest control company get properly indexed on Google and rank for the top keywords and local search terms your customers are actually using.
Search terms like:
- Pest control company near me
- Exterminator near me
- Best pest control in the area
- Ant control in my town
- Spider problem in my town
- Cockroach control my town
- Bed bug exterminators in my town
You know the results you want—now it’s time to explore how proven SEO strategies can help your pest control company rank at the top of Google for the most valuable local keywords and search phrases.
But what exactly is SEO? While it stands for search engine optimization, its true purpose goes beyond the acronym. SEO is the ongoing process of optimizing your website so Google understands your content and ranks your pages favorably when potential customers search for the services you offer. With the right plan, you can achieve consistent, long-term visibility in your local market.
What is SEO?
Defined by MOZ, here is a technical definition:
“SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is a set of practices designed to improve the appearance and positioning of web pages in organic search results. Because organic search is the most prominent way for people to discover and access online content, a good SEO strategy is essential for improving the quality and quantity of traffic to your website.”
That explains what SEO is, but it doesn’t tell you how to actually do it. Let me break down the Rhino process and how we’ve applied it successfully for pest control companies across different markets in the U.S.
Several years ago, Google introduced a concept called Google Authorship. Back then, Google rewarded you for the amount of content you created around a particular subject. Once you built enough authority on a single topic, Google granted you “authorship status,” which essentially recognized you as a subject matter expert in their eyes.
The exact formula Google used to determine authorship wasn’t public—and, just like today, no one outside of Google knows the full details of how their ranking algorithm works. What we do know is that credibility, authority, and consistency of content have always been important factors in earning visibility.
If you don’t remember Google Authorship—or need a visual refresher—here’s an example:
Now, I can’t guarantee the exact mechanics behind how it worked, but during the days of Google Authorship, we noticed a pattern: after publishing around 25 articles or pieces of content on a specific topic, the author’s photo would start appearing in search results, and those articles would often rank higher.
So, what does that have to do with SEO today?
Everything.
Google is essentially a massive computer algorithm designed to gather, process, and evaluate data. It crawls information from URLs, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and countless other technical codes. From there, it determines whether your content is relevant and authoritative enough to show up on a search engine results page (SERP) when someone types in a query.
In simple terms: Google has to decide if you’re trustworthy and knowledgeable on a given topic—whether that topic is home services, pest control, or yes, even cockroaches.
To give you an example of how powerful SEO can be when executed correctly, try Googling the phrase: “Do spiders crawl on me at night?” You’ll find content from one of our pest control clients ranking right at the top—along with several of our other clients. And for a local pest control company, owning search results around spiders is a huge win.
Most website developers have no real clue how to put all of this together to enable your website and its content to match up as a subject matter expert and show up at the top of Page 1 for the most relevant search queries.
Unless, you have a sufficient volume of content based on a particular topic cluster that tells Google, this is the best option for the local search, let’s put them first!
How can a Pest Control Company be the best at SEO in their market area?
Let’s break this down into the steps we use to provide GREAT pest control SEO that works, and that we explain to our clients what the heck we are doing.
It all starts with the construction of your website and who you may have hired to build it. The website MUST have the following minimum requirements in your local market:
- A URL or Slug that matches the keyword and content for the page
- A Page Title that also matches the keyword and content for the page
- A Meta Description that isolates the keyword, topic and content for this page
- Well defined ALT TAGS for all images on the page
- H1 TAG based upon primary keyword or phrase
- H2 TAG based upon secondary keyword or phrase
- Professionally written content. The content should be at least 1000 words with the correct keyword density and stay within the topic cluster.
- Every page MUST work PERFECTLY on a smartphone mobile device
In pest control SEO, your content, its volume, and its quality is what will make the single biggest difference in your SERP (search engine results page) ranking. If you have sufficient topic-based content, you WILL rank for it. It just takes some time for Google to reward you for it. The important thing here is to stay topic based. One of the problems that can arise with pest control is the desire to rank for everything right now. For example; ants, bed bugs, cockroaches, spiders, silverfish, scorpions, termites, etc. An old saying is “if you try to advertise everything to everyone, you advertise nothing to no one.” With your content and topic clusters, stay laser focused. Start with ants for example. Build your professionally optimized page that is specific to ants, even down to the type of ant. Make sure that each ant page you build is for a single area. Now create companion ant related blog articles that will all link back to the original ant website page.
Consider using downloadable information exchange to build authority. Using our ant page example, include a video showing ant colonies and how you treat for them. Maybe you should create an ant guide for your local area that local prospective customers can download. In Google’s eyes, if we can convince her that you are the ant expert in your area, you will be the company that shows up for ant control related search in your area.
Create your plan of attack. Start with a single page for a single service in a single area. Optimize and create content. Make sure you have sufficient content and links to show up in Google search. You will know when it shows up, because you can find it yourself on a friend’s computer. Think of it like this to start. For example, I will only use ants, but this would go for every area, service and target pest you provide in your market. Setup your website pages like this:
- Town 1
– Ant Control</span
- Town 2
– Ant Control</span
- Town 3
– Ant Control</span
Now setup some blogs that will be companion content and will link to the appropriate pages. This may seem like a time consuming and laborious process. That’s because it is. This is the sweat equity portion of your SEO investment.
As we move forward, the point here is not to confuse you, but rather to shed some light on a topic (pest control SEO), where too many owners and managers are taken advantage of. What we have described will work for you. It just takes a concrete plan and a schedule of execution. It is highly advisable that you get a marketing partner who knows how to implement a content driven plan, and more importantly, has a resume of working with local pest control companies.
The Ultimate Guide to Pest Control SEO
Ready to tackle this yourself? Get your free guide on pest control SEO today to learn everything you need to know to create and implement an effective SEO strategy.
