The NEW 2023 SEO Formula for Moving Companies

Here’s the deal, if you’re a moving and packing company present on the search engines, you’re missing significant sales opportunities.

It’s just a fact.

Investing in SEO (search engine optimization) is essential for any business that wants to attract customers online-it puts your website at the top of results pages when potential clients Google services related to yours!

To help reach the top, we have deconstructed our updated SEO Formula for 2023, specifically designed to meet the needs of moving companies. We cover everything from keyword research to content optimization and include various tips and tricks to help you top the rankings!

Does SEO Still Matter?

Yes, SEO still matters! In fact, it is more important than ever for moving companies to invest in SEO to ensure their website is visible to their target market.

SEO is the process of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs). The higher a website ranks, the more likely it is to be clicked on by users, resulting in increased traffic and potentially more conversions.

While search engines have evolved over the years and their algorithms have become more sophisticated, the basic principles of SEO remain the same: creating high-quality content, optimizing website structure and technical elements, building backlinks, and ensuring mobile-friendliness and page speed.

Furthermore, with the rise of voice search and the increasing use of artificial intelligence, SEO has become even more important. Voice search queries tend to be longer and more conversational, so optimizing for long-tail keywords and natural language is crucial. AI-powered search engines also prioritize high-quality content and user experience, making SEO an essential component of digital marketing strategy.

Taking The Holistic Approach To SEO

To nail your marketing, you must combine all digital efforts like Google Local Ads, Paid Ads, Google Maps, Organic Search, and Video and adjust your approach like levers as you learn and your analytics data dictates.

For SEO, the biggest goal is to get on the first page. The primary goal is to get you in the top five of search results, which is challenging. Below are the fourteen key elements of any SEO-optimized website.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

As always, when it comes to any marketing or SEO efforts, including creating an SEO roadmap,  setting your target audience is crucial. Knowing this helps you ensure that your ideal customers are compelled to look up the keywords you are building your SEO around.

Understanding your target audience and tailoring keywords toward them is vital for a successful SEO strategy. While keywords are an excellent place to start, you must choose ones that align with what your potential customers want and need and represent your company’s unique value proposition.

2. Keyword Research

Once you’ve brainstormed the terms your audience may use to find moving companies, you must narrow down your most relevant keywords. Since we’ve already clarified how vital SEO for moving companies is for setting your target audience, we’ll assume that you will approach researching keywords with a target audience already in mind. The first way to do keyword research is by looking up currently popular topics related to what you’d like to cover.

This way, you can understand what people want to read. The second way is to use analysis tools to check out your competitors’ keywords they use to achieve a good Google ranking. The final way to approach keyword building is to anticipate the wants and needs of your audience and come up with some yourself.

The last method has the best potential payoff but carries the most risk. Unearth the best keywords for your project with tools such as WebCEO and SEMRush. Don’t be fooled by those that generate high traffic; they could mean a considerable investment in time and money to reach the top spot on SERPs. Dig deeper into longer tail searches instead – these have fewer competition levels but can still offer rewards! Check out these helpful articles.

https://moz.com/beginners-guide-to-seo/keyword-research

https://backlinko.com/hub/seo/choosing-keywords

3. Budgeting For SEO

Every aspect of your moving business needs a carefully set budget, including how much you are willing to spend on SEO. SEO has one advantage: it is, by comparison, relatively cheap. The only significant investments required by SEO are purchasing content or hiring an SEO agency to fix up some of your site’s more technical SEO aspects.

So, while the available budget is essential, you can still do much more with a smaller budget than you would in nearly any other part of running a moving company.

4. Set Your Content Strategy

Once you’ve laid down all the groundwork, it is time to move on to your SEO content strategy. You can either publish more ‘traditional’ written guides, make videos or even stream on one of the more popular platforms about the moving process. Whatever the case, you will likely want to focus on ‘how-to moving guides’ rather than anything else.

Quality content can be the key to unlocking lasting relationships with customers. Think like a problem solver: identify their issues and provide helpful information to encourage them to return for more – earning their trust in your expertise over time.  I know it’s scary to feel like you are ‘giving away the farm.’

But I can assure you that that is not the case, especially with commercial and residential moving. Take it from someone like myself who needs help figuring out where to start when it comes time for a big move! Any information and guidance I can glean from a company’s blog give me more confidence that they are the right person to call.

If your article is about choosing suitable materials for packing or an ultimate checklist for moving, that’s valuable information you can share. It becomes an SEO tool and an onboarding device to educate new customers.

5. Technical SEO Considerations

Technical SEO needs to be in top shape to ensure your website is crawled and indexed by search engines. Don’t let a lack of technical experience stop you from optimizing your website for search engines. Start by building out a sitemap and registering it with Google, then ensure all internal links are working correctly to ensure visitors stay engaged on the page – this is an essential factor in how SERP bots rank content!

To send your SEO through the roof, optimize any images used throughout site pages, too; include captions and add ALT text so algorithms correctly identify them.

6. On-Page SEO

On-Page SEO is a way to make sure your content stands out on SERPs. Through strategic keyword incorporation and intriguing titles, you can capture the attention of potential visitors! Your title should be at most 60 characters so it doesn’t get cut off – if this happens, readers may become confused or disinterested in your post.

Remember to include meta tags that accurately describe your material; they act as helpful snippets for those who don’t have time to read through all the details! Utilizing meta tags and relevant keywords helps crawlers identify your business. This ensures that search bots understand the content on the page, making it easier to direct people looking for a product or service like yours!

7. Don’t Forget Local Search

Did you know that when it comes to mobile searches, almost one-third of them are location-based? If you’re searching for something nearby like “restaurants,” Google has your back – they prioritize local options. Set up a free Google My Business profile to ensure you climb the rankings with Local SEO success.

Not only will filling in all relevant information help potential customers find what they need quickly, but it also alerts you as the business owner of customer feedback.

8. Encourage Reviews

Ensure your business stands out and grows its visibility with online customer reviews. Automate a system for collecting and sharing feedback across social media platforms and Google My Business – this will be key in boosting search engine rankings! Elevate your online presence and give customers an easy way to find what others have experienced with your business.

Harness the power of reviews by funneling them into social media channels & Google My Business – allowing consumers quick insight into what it’s like working with you!

9. Embrace Social Media

To reach your goals and maximize success, leverage the power of social media to promote your website. Quality content goes a long way in engaging current customers while also helping them capture new ones through meaningful dialogues! Make sure to spread the word across all of your social media platforms.

Whether it’s Facebook, Instagram, or something else – harnessing all channels will give you greater visibility and allow consumers with different habits access to your content! Keep your customers in the loop on updates; taking advantage of where they hang out and promoting content multiple times is critical.

10. Tracking Your SEO Traffic with Analytics

How can you guarantee that the increases correspond to your SEO strategy? This is why defining the metrics is vital. For example, you can somewhat reliably gauge organic website traffic by checking the number of site visitors that did not visit using links derived from ads or your social media pages. You can find this data in Google Analytics as ‘organic search’ and then use Google Search Console for more detailed information on what words your site sees impressions and which keywords they clicked on. Those are two very different pieces of information that impact your traffic goals.

Showing up on the first page, but you are not getting clicks indicates either your meta title and description are not enticing enough to warrant a click or the phrase itself does not reflect your audience’s needs.

In addition, you can ascertain if particular pages have drawn more visitors than others and then analyze SEO strategies used in building them to determine the most promising ones. Ensuring that the changes your SEO strategy brings to metrics are genuine can be tricky – thankfully, defining those exact metrics is the first step to confirming it.

In addition, website marketing analysis can help categorize precisely how much of an effect active and passive SEO have on website visits – you’ll be able to pinpoint whether focusing on blogs, for example, has worked. Armed with this data, you’ll be one step closer to bringing tangible results for your SEO strategy.

How Do You Get in That Top Five in SERPs?

Google is constantly updating its algorithm, so this answer is continually changing. But Google is primarily concerned with the following:

1. Helpful, Interesting Content
2. Search Intent Will Remain King
3. Mobile First Website
4. User Experience
5. Page Speed
6. On-Page Optimization
7. Topical Internal Links
8. External Links
9. Meta Titles and Descriptions
10. Structured Data
11. Optimized Media
12. Syndication & Promotion

1. Helpful, Interesting Content

Content should fulfill Google’s Expertise, Experience, Authority, and Trust (EEAT) principle. EEAT is a set of guidelines that Google uses to evaluate the quality of web pages and websites.

Experience

This is the latest addition to the EEAT methodology that Google added in late 2022.

Does content also demonstrate that it was produced with some degree of experience, such as with the actual use of a product, having actually visited a place, or communicating what a person experienced? 

• The content creator must have the necessary knowledge or skill for the topic.
• Experience is valuable for all types of content – social media, blog posts, and forum discussions. They are often high-quality when they involve people sharing their knowledge and experience.
• First-hand experience can improve a social media post or build on the analysis of a web page to give it more gravitas.
• Engaging media: Incorporate relevant and high-quality images, videos, or infographics to break up text and create a more engaging user experience.
• Clear calls-to-action (CTAs): Use clear and compelling CTAs to guide users toward desired actions, such as signing up for a newsletter, purchasing a product, or contacting you for more information.
• Readability: Use easily readable fonts, proper formatting, and clear headings to make your content accessible and engaging for users.
• Accessibility: Make sure your website is accessible to users with disabilities by following ADA and WCAG guidelines, ensuring that all users can engage with your content.
• Visual appeal: Create a visually appealing and professional website design that reflects your brand identity and enhances the user experience.
• Multimedia content: Utilize various formats, such as videos, podcasts, or infographics, to present the company’s expertise more engagingly and dynamically.

Expertise

• You must show first-hand life experience
• The content creator must have adequate experience; e.g., someone with expertise on the subject should write an article about moving.

• In-depth content: Produce well-researched, comprehensive, and valuable content that showcases the company’s expertise in its field and addresses user needs.
• Author credentials: Highlight the qualifications, experience, and achievements of the content creators within the company to demonstrate their subject matter expertise.
• Practical solutions: Provide actionable advice, tips, and solutions to real-world problems, demonstrating the company’s understanding of user challenges and needs.
• Any backlinks from other websites must be high quality and relevant to the topic and page.
• Industry trends: Stay current with industry trends and developments and regularly publish content that reflects this knowledge and expertise.
• Educational resources: Create and share educational resources, such as how-to guides, tutorials, or whitepapers, demonstrating the company’s deep understanding of its industry.

Authority

Establishing credibility takes a long time, but quality links can help you build it more quickly.

• Are you a go-to source for the topic? Authority comes down to how much credibility you have.
• Author credentials: Highlight the credentials, experience, and achievements of your content creators to demonstrate their authority in the subject matter.
• External recognition: Showcase awards, industry memberships, certifications, or other forms of external recognition that validate your authority.
• Domain age and history: Maintain a consistent online presence, as older domains with a positive history generally have more authority.
• Thought leadership: Publish insightful articles, whitepapers, or eBooks that demonstrate your authority and expertise in your industry.
• Guest blogging: Contribute guest posts to authoritative websites in your niche, positioning yourself as an industry expert.
• Press coverage: Obtain press coverage or media mentions from reputable sources to boost your authority.
• Case studies: Present detailed case studies demonstrating your expertise and success in solving real-world problems.
• Webinars and podcasts: Host or participate in webinars, podcasts, or other digital events to share your knowledge and engage with your audience.
• Industry events: Attend or speak at industry conferences, workshops, or other events to demonstrate your commitment to staying current in your field.
• Expert interviews: Conduct interviews with recognized experts in your industry and share their insights on your website.

Trust.

Here is a list of important elements to consider when optimizing your website for Trust:

• Secure website (HTTPS): Ensure your website uses HTTPS protocol for secure communication and data transfer.
• Privacy policy: Clearly display your website’s privacy policy and data handling practices.
• Contact information: Provide accurate and easy-to-find contact information, including an email address, phone number, and physical address if applicable.
• Transparent authorship: Clearly state author names and credentials for content, demonstrating expertise and credibility.
• Trust badges: Display industry-related trust badges, such as certifications, memberships, or awards.
• Testimonials and reviews: Showcase genuine testimonials and reviews from customers or clients.
• Social proof: Share social media profiles or mention reputable industry influencers who endorse your brand.

2. Search Intent

3. Mobile-First Website

Google primarily uses the mobile version of a site’s content for indexing and ranking, called mobile-first indexing. To ensure that your users have the best experience, there are several mobile sites and mobile-first indexing best practices to follow.

This includes creating a mobile-friendly site using responsive design, dynamic serving, or separate URLs, making sure that Google can access and render your content, having the same content on desktop and mobile, checking structured data and metadata, avoiding harmful ads, and optimizing visual content such as images and videos. Following these best practices will help ensure that your website is optimized for mobile-first indexing and provides a positive user experience for your visitors.

4. User Experience Matters

Providing a good user experience will get even more critical. To do so, your website should:

• Providing a good UX encourages users to spend more time browsing your website, browsing different pages, and engaging with your content. This positive user engagement sends positive signals to search engines, suggesting that your website is valuable and relevant.
• Loading quickly and not jumping around as it loads..
• Have a low bounce rate, which is the percentage of users who leave your website after visiting just one page. Lower bounce rates indicate that users find your content helpful and engaging, which search engines consider when ranking websites.
• Be free of intrusive pop-ups and elements that take away from the experience of the website or cause delay and frustration.
• Be mobile-friendly with a responsive design and seamless UX on mobile devices. You want to make sure it not only look good but performs well by checking its navigation, anything that might be clickable, or maybe images that are now misplaced.
• Easy to navigate with clear links and buttons. Clear and intuitive navigation helps users find the information they are looking for quickly and easily.

5. Site Speed Matters

Google uses the Core Web Vitals assessment to measure and evaluate the user experience on a web page. It is a concrete measurable set of metrics that directly impact user experience on a website.

This assessment includes three metrics that are used to determine whether a page passes or fails:

• Largest Contentful Paint. LCP measures the time it takes for the most significant content on the page to load
• First Input Delay. FID measures the time it takes for the page to respond to a user’s first interaction, such as a click
• Cumulative Layout Shift. CLS measures the visual stability of a page by tracking how much the page layout shifts as it loads.

Customers expect speed and a satisfying user experience when they arrive on your website. So, you want to ensure visitors stay put rather than bounce off immediately due to slow page loads or irrelevant content. In that case, optimize your website for performance and speed.

These metrics are essential because they directly impact the user experience on a web page. Pages that pass the Core Web Vitals assessment are more likely to provide a positive user experience, leading to increased engagement, lower bounce rates, and ultimately better search rankings.

6. On-Page Optimization is Vital

On-page SEO is a crucial part of any successful digital marketing strategy. It involves optimizing your website’s content to stand out on search engine results pages (SERPs). One of the main goals of on-page SEO is to strategically incorporate relevant keywords into your content in a natural way that adds value for the reader. This helps search engine crawlers understand what your content is about and who it is relevant to, making it easier for them to match it with relevant search queries.

In addition to keyword optimization, it is vital to craft intriguing titles and meta tags that accurately describe your content in a way that entices potential visitors to click through to your site. Meta tags summarize your content, providing a brief overview of what readers can expect on the page. By utilizing on-page SEO best practices, you can ensure that your content is easily discoverable by search engines and stands out from the competition on SERPs, ultimately driving more traffic to your website and increasing conversions.

• Your website should have links to each product, service, and central city you service.
• Optimize Titles, H1, URLs, and Images
• Post unique content for each page.

7. Building Topical Internal Links

Internal links play an important role in Google Search success because they help search engines understand the structure and hierarchy of your website and the relationships between different pages and content on your site. When search engine crawlers visit your site, they follow the internal links to discover new pages and content. This helps them build a site map and determine your content’s relevance and usefulness for different search queries.

Internal linking can also improve the user experience on your site by guiding visitors to other relevant pages and content they may be interested in. This can help keep visitors on your site longer, reduce bounce rates, and increase engagement.

Overall, internal links are important to Google Search success because they help search engines understand your site, distribute link equity, and improve the visitor experience. By incorporating internal links into your content strategy, you can help ensure your site is well-organized and optimized for search engine success.

8. Quality External Links

External links, or backlinks, are essential to SEO because they signal to search engines that other websites consider your content relevant, valuable, and authoritative. When a website links to your site, it’s like a vote of confidence, indicating that the linked content is high-quality and worth referencing. The quality and quantity of external links to your site can significantly impact your search engine rankings.

Search engines use backlinks as one of many factors to determine the relevance and authority of a website. Websites with many high-quality backlinks are seen as more authoritative and are typically ranked higher in search results. However, it’s important to note that not all backlinks are created equal.

The quality and relevance of the linking site, the context of the link, and the anchor text used in the link can all influence the impact of the backlink on your SEO. Spammy or low-quality backlinks can harm your SEO efforts and may result in penalties from search engines.

5. Earn Backlinks

If you want your website to gain more visibility, earn backlinks! By posting blogs on popular websites with high-ranking and significant traffic, you can draw visitors directly to your page. Doing this not only boosts search engine ranking but also increases the flow of web traffic – both highly beneficial for a successful online presence!

Creating informative and exciting content is a surefire way to drive traffic back to your website. Try experimenting with different types of content; ensure you’re providing something unique and valuable! For quick and engaging articles that readers won’t be able to resist, consider listicles – short lists with essential information that make for easy scanning.

Good links have these values:

• Have Authority
• Are Relevant
• Are used in anchor text and placed within the copy
• When adding links, make sure “follow” is chosen
• Destination – where is the link sending visitors?

More on how to earn backlinks:

• https://ahrefs.com/blog/how-to-get-backlinks/
• https://backlinko.com/high-quality-backlinks
• https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/backlink-strategies

Earning high-quality backlinks can improve your search engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site.

9. Structured Data

10. Effective SEO Needs to Include Video

Effective SEO incorporates video. Investing in videos is a wonderful way to capture the attention of internet users. From creating your own content or using animation, it’s worth taking time and effort to craft video-based assets that can help strengthen your brand presence! You don’t have to hire a big-time media company to make your videos, although it helps with the first one.

Having a professional videographer showcase your team at work, processes, and workplace with a well-lit, high-end video is important. But you can certainly post videos from your cell phone

with Q & A sessions, stories about your people and company culture, and what makes you different.

11. You need a real, physical office to show on Google

Maximize your visibility in the Google universe with a properly configured Google Business Profile (GBP) account. By confirming ownership and entering relevant details, such as business hours, address, phone number, and payment forms accepted by your company, you can ensure that potential customers have all the necessary information about your products and services. Display promotional offers through Google Posts; this tailored content will help bring attention directly to your GBP listing and website for maximum impact! Get started:

• Claim and optimize your maps.
• Add to YEXT or a similar citation manager.
• Add to major data aggregators.
• Implement a system for driving online reviews
• Add new citations on an ongoing basis.

12. Syndication & Promotion

As part of a holistic approach to SEO, sharing your content across the internet is the final piece to the puzzle. After you’ve spent time preparing, creating, optimizing, and building your content, this is where you need to start sharing it and building content around it. So you can take one blog post and create multiple pieces of content surrounding it.

The goal is to increase visibility. Some ideas to help you syndicate:

1. Share your blog post and optimized web content on your primary social media. You don’t share it once but multiple times over the next few months.
2. Create FAQs and share these individually on your GBP pages, Reddit, Facebook, Quora, etc. Ask questions and answer them.
3. Create a press release around the content and share that on PR platforms.
4. Post on your Google Business Profile as an Update
5. Share your content on blogger platforms like Medium.

Remember, while syndicating your content can help you reach a wider audience and improve your SEO, it’s essential to create high-quality, valuable content that resonates with your target audience.

Partner with Moving Marketing Results

The 2023 SEO moving company formula is a great way to make your business appear front and center with search engine success. It will increase visibility, drive targeted traffic and result in improved growth. Following this actionable formula can immensely impact your website’s presence without costing too much or consuming too much of your valuable time.

If you’re ready to take your moving company website to the next level, let us help! We specialize in crafting custom SEO strategies that get real results. Download our Online Marketing Checklist and book your strategy call today to discuss how we can help you win with SEO!

The 2023 Local SEO Formula

Let’s unpack how to get ranked for your most profitable moving and packing keywords? Hint: You need to think beyond just “movers” or “packers.”

In this webinar, learn the latest strategies, optimize Google My Business, leverage reviews, and create engaging content. Don’t miss this opportunity to learn from industry experts and skyrocket your company’s visibility.