When a potential customer is looking for a home inspector they are most likely leaving the heavy lifting to Google. If you’re not in the top 5 results on the search page, the chances of your website being visited are extremely low.

The average CTR or click through rate (when someone actually clicks a link) for the first result on a Google search result page in 2014 was 31.24%, the second result instantly dropped down to 14.04%, with third, forth and fifth coming in at 9.85%, 6.67%, and 5.5% respectively.

For a business that relies heavily on search, those numbers are very important. Jumping up even one spot on the search results can nearly double the amount of visitors your site receives.

It doesn’t take a genius to see the benefits of ranking higher on google search results for an inspection business.

Whether you’re brand new to search engine optimization (SEO) or experienced with the basics, these 11 easy tips will help you optimize your home inspection website and improve your search rankings.

1. Consistent NAP Information

NAP stands for Name, Address and Phone Number. This is the information that search engines use most often to identify your business, and it’s especially important when you’re trying to rank in results in a specific geographic area.

As long as this information is consistent, search engines can tie your website with reviews on sites like Yelp and your Facebook, Twitter and other social media profiles. The first step to making sure everything looks the same is to check the pages on your site.

For organic search results this is extremely important. It’s safe to assume that most of the people who are searching, just search “Home Inspector Miami” or something similar.

You want to make sure that if they’re looking for a home inspector in your city, that you pop up. Having consistent and correct NAP information can make you rank higher, and rank correctly.

Your business name, address and phone number should be presented identically everywhere it appears, including spelling and use of abbreviations. You should also check review sites and ask them to update the information they have on file if it looks different.

2. Site Map

A site map is exactly what it sounds like: a list of pages on your website. Many webmasters use them when they’re designing a user-friendly site. When uploaded to your site, web crawlers also use this information to help categorize and rank your content.

In addition to listing all of your site’s pages, you can use your sitemap to provide search engines with information about how often you update pages. It’s an especially useful tool for newer sites that don’t have many external links yet and sites that are large or complex.

With a site map, the key is to make it feel necessary and not forced. Everything on your website should run smooth, and should have a purpose. Overcrowding your website with everything you can think of can make it feel very clunky, and overall unappealing.

3. Title Tags

Title tags are the text that appears in search engine results and in browser tabs. If your pages get shared on social media sites like Facebook, this is also the text that will accompany the links.

They’re often what web searchers use to decide whether a page will have the information they want, which means that you should spend some time thinking about them.

Title tags should be descriptive, focusing on the page’s content and how it’s relevant to visitors. A perfect title tag says everything you need it to in under 70 characters.

When working with title tags your most important keywords should come first, and the less important words should come later. Every page on your website will have a title tag, and every title tag should be different,

When writing title tags you want to refrain from using words like, and, but, if, the, etc. Title tags should also never include punctuation, instead use “pipes”. This is a pipe | pipes are used to separate keywords, without being forced to use punctuation.

Google offers an excellent primer on page titles.

Here are some great examples of title tags

• Home Inspector | Miami Florida | Certified Inspection | (Company name)
• Home Inspection | Miami | Dade | Sarasota | Home Inspector | Florida
• Home Inspector | About | Miami | (company name)
• Home Inspector | Contact | Miami | Florida | Home Inspection

4. Descriptive URLs

While many users won’t notice the exact URL you use for pages on your website other than the home page, they’re still important. These are yet another tool that search engines use to categorize and rank your content. Your URLs have to be unique, but they should also be clean and descriptive.

In most cases, you can use the page title or a variant.

Descriptive urls are really easy to create, and can really improve your website. Compare the two examples

1. Homeinspector.com/page/387266/set83620
2. Homeinspector.com/service-area-miami

Even from just a presentation stand point the second one looks far better. Going a step further, it is far easier for google to rank the second option, it includes 3 great keywords, versus a random mix of numbers and letters.

By simply having the url describe how what the specific page is about, you can greatly increase both the overall professional look of your website, while also giving google something else to help your overall rank.

5. Content

Search results reward sites that are useful to visitors. This means that sites that offer niche information or unique tools tend to rank higher than similar sites that don’t, and it’s why you see so many businesses using blogs and other content tools.

In addition to providing value to your visitors, such as information on common home inspection pitfalls, producing content means that your site is likely to be updated more regularly.

Content also helps establish your company and your website as an authority in your industry, and it can earn valuable inbound links.

Starting and maintaining a blog can potentially increase the amount of people on your website, as well as show the value of your inspections. If you have informative articles that show your knowledge

6. Images and Videos

Blog posts aren’t the only type of content you can create to attract visitors and increase your rankings. In fact, studies have shown that people are more likely to retain information that they’ve encountered in a visual format.

Infographics have become a popular tool for sharing complex information, and videos are the media type that’s most likely to go viral. If you can incorporate some of these elements into your site, you’ll probably see an improvement in your search engine rankings.

Some ideas or infographics could be the process you go through during your home inspection, or steps for solving simple problems in your home (such as a leaky faucet, or a squeaky door) anything that can add value to your website.

Video ideas are also an extremely good idea, and with a smartphone it is now easier than ever for anyone to make video content.

Short videos showing some of the things you look for in an inspection, or tips for new home owners can all be very valuable, and may keep visitors on your site longer.

If you’re not graphically gifted, or able to edit your own videos there are many services on fiverr.com starting at $5 that can help you do almost anything you need to do.

7. Regular Updates

If you host a blog or post interesting content that you find around the web, regular updates are easy to maintain. These changes show search engines that you’re still in business and that your site is being actively maintained.

With an active blog that also means more descriptive titles, more title tags for more pages, increasing everything we’ve already talked about.

However if you’re not keeping a blog there is still plenty of ways to update your website. If the amount of areas you service changes, make sure to change that on your website.

If you have new customer testimonials, you can add that. If you’re running a special such as a winter sale you can add that to your website.

Anything that will regularly update your website is great, both for google ranking, but also just for return visitors, it says you’re active, which is always a good thing.

8. Image Tags

The presence of images and videos on your site will make it more useful to visitors, but search engine crawlers have trouble categorizing this type of content.

You can derive even more value from these elements by using HTML tags to describe them or by including text on the page that summarizes the details.

Tags are invisible to site visitors, but search engines will see them. Text surrounding images and videos is a great place to use service or geographic keywords.

If you have a picture of you performing a home inspection, you can tag that photo with things such as “Miami Home Inspection”. The coding for this would look something like this

<img src=”MyInspection.JPG” alt=”Miami Home Inspection” height=”42″ width=”42″>

9. Social Media

Interacting with your customers is a huge plus when it comes to search engine rankings, and one of the best ways to do that is by making sure your profiles are linked from every page of your site.

This gives you an extra way to get customers and potential customers engaged in the inspection process.

Many website creation platforms provide tools that make it easy to link to your profiles, and you can also find valuable resources on the sites you’re trying to link to. For example, Twitter has an easy-to-use button generator that provides the code you need.

It is also smart to make sure that everything on your social media accounts match your website, company name, address, phone number and most importantly the website url.

Twitter and facebook both give you a section for your site. Give someone who is looking for info on you, the easiest path to find it.

10. Testimonials or Case Studies

Feedback is an important part of any business, especially positive feedback that comes from customers. You can publish this on a dedicated page on your site, or list specific comments on service pages.

When someone is going about finding a home inspector, they want someone who is going to do that job right. A home is a major purchase, and a potential home owner wants to make sure they get the right one.

Seeing several customers say that they were happy with your services is very relieving, as well as legitimizes you business to both customers and search engines.

Updating testimonials regularly is something that was already mentioned, but it is a wise idea to update your website regularly, and if a potential customer visits your site multiple times over the span of a couple of months and sees different testimonials, that can also be seen as both being successful and active.

11. Keywords

Many people think of keywords as the be-all, end-all to SEO, but they’re only part of the picture. Search engines favor pages that provide useful content and read naturally to real visitors. Using keywords is important, and you should choose them carefully.

However, you should avoid stuffing your content with your targeted keywords and phrases. Instead, use them sparingly where they’ll have the most impact, such as in page titles and headers or around key pieces of content.

When it comes to keywords your decision on what keywords to use are fundamental. Most people aren’t looking for your specific home inspector company, and if they are most of the time the name of your website, twitter, facebook, etc should be sufficient.

However when you want to rank you want to use the keywords people will be using to happen upon your website.

Instead of using “A Plus Home Inspections” as a keyword (or key phrase), you should use “Miami Home Inspection” your keywords should be the KEY words that a visitor will be looking for.

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