SEO for Your Industry

If you’ve done any work on a digital marketing plan, you know by now that SEO, or search engine optimization, is absolutely critical if you want to remain relevant and top-of-mind for your customers. What you may not know, though, is that general optimization is not going to net you the biggest results. SEO for your industry will.

While there are some general guidelines that every online business should pay attention to, like crafting quality content, optimizing for keywords, and tracking when and where your audience is looking for you, you can get down into some very specific practices depending on what industry you work in. We’ll look at some examples of industries that benefit the most– legal, trade, medical, and retail– and how a particular sector within those industries would utilize SEO tailor-made for them.

Legal Industry: Lawyer SEO

Online search is the #1 way for clients to find legal services, so beefing up your lawyer SEO is necessary if you want your digital marketing strategy to be successful.

First, make sure you have an online presence and that it’s optimized for mobile. FindLaw’s 2017 U.S. Consumer Legal Needs Survey showed that 58% of people who start their quest for lawyers online use search engines to find legal representation, as opposed to 42% who go to online legal directories. Furthermore, 52% say they use their mobile phone when they search, versus 27% who use their PC.

Another great place for you to boost your industry specific SEO is in the local search arena. Typically, when someone gets into a legal dispute or incident, they are looking for someone close by who is knowledgeable and reliable. Ensuring that your Google My Business listing reflects those qualities is key if you want to be seen by the people who are actually looking for legal firms just like yours. GMB allows you to post contact information, online review averages, announcements, offers, photos, and links that appear right on their SERP, and directs them to learn more about you.

Trade Industry: Plumber SEO

Like the legal industry, the trade industry is going to want to focus on being both locally known and well-informed in their craft.

Content marketing is a good jumping-off point, as it allows you to showcase your skill and knowledge without appearing too “salesman-y” or pushy in your marketing. Many times, people will try to fix or research a plumbing problem themselves before actually calling an expert. Creating well-written, informative content that offers possible, easy solutions lets your clients know that your focus is not necessarily on making money by gouging them on prices, but instead on offering expert knowledge that people outside of your industry don’t have. That also means that when they get in over their heads, whether this time or the next time something happens, they’ll remember how helpful your business was without them even having to contact you first.

Of course, you’ll also want to ensure that you’re optimizing your website with the right mix of keywords that folks who need plumbers, electricians, and other tradespeople are searching for when there is a sudden home emergency. Tools like Google’s Keyword Planner and SEMRush uses data from search engines, competitors, and other analytics to compose lists of targets you should aim to hit with your website content and advertisements.

E-Commerce Industry: Retail SEO

Retail SEO is huge. In many industries, services aren’t available online, or not to the extent that online shopping offers. Sure, you can research cars online, book test drives, and even chat with a salesperson, but at the end of the day, the vast majority of people are going to end up in the waiting room at their local dealership. Retail, on the other hand, is thriving in the digital world. Year-over-year, e-commerce has been on a steady rise. In Q1 of 2010, 4.2% of total retail sales were done online. In Q4 of 2019, that number was 11.3% and jumped to 16.1%, due to COVID-19 related shutdowns and quarantines

Even when people aren’t buying online, they still turn to their phones, computers, and tablets for research. In an infographic compiled by MineWhat, a site platform offers e-commerce product analytics, they note that:

• 81% of shoppers research online before buying
• 61% of shoppers read product reviews before making a purchase
• 60% of consumers start their research on a search engine before heading to a specific website
• On average, consumers visited at least 3 online stores before making their purchase

Online retailers are in a unique position in that they can offer their products outside of a particular service area. While targeting local SEO is a good idea, you need to hit a wider spread. You can use your product descriptions to catch the ever-illusive eye of Google’s algorithm by eloquently and artfully targeting keywords that your business would rank for.

For example, if you sell artisanal soaps and body washes made with goat milk, whether it’s on Etsy or on your own website, you want to include keywords that people are looking for when they’re researching goat milk soap. This list is from SEMRush’s keyword magic tool, which quickly tabulates the most popular related search terms and offers them up for you to write about:

Including those terms in your product descriptions, along with other general SEO best practices like metadata, headings, and image optimization, is going to help Google recognize your content as trustworthy and meaningful to the people who are looking for products like yours. That means higher placement on the search engine results page, which is absolutely a good thing when “less than 6% of content on pages two and three receives clicks.”

Let NATIV3 Boost Your Industry SEO

If you’re new to SEO, it’s a tough nut to crack. Even businesses that have been doing it for a long time often rely on the help of digital marketing experts to get the process just right. It’s a complicated strategy to undertake, but one that is absolutely necessary to stay relevant and visible in a world that now contains over 1.5 billion websites, many of which are competing in industries like yours to reach the same audience of clients and customers.

To get on top, you’ll want a digital marketing agency with an innovative approach and a proven track record of success. We’ve blazed the trail for our clients, helping them move from “Should I SEO?” to “I can’t believe we weren’t doing this before.” Let us do the same for you! Set up a call or drop us a line. We’d love to hear from you and to help you accomplish your digital marketing goals.

UPDATE: Since the publication of this article, NATIV3 has been named one of the Best SEO Companies by DesignRush. Contact us to get started today!