Standing out online is crucial for any business, especially in a localized industry like pest control. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a powerful tool that can help pest control companies reach more customers, increase search visibility, and organically grow their business.
By optimizing your website and online content, you can ensure that, when potential customers search for pest control solutions in your area, your company appears at the top of their search results. In this blog post, I dive into why SEO is important for pest control companies, 4 best pest control SEO practices to implement on your website, and how SEO services can benefit your business. Keep reading to find out how to beat competing pest control companies online and generate a massive amount of qualified leads with these SEO strategies especially tailored for pest control companies.
What is pest control SEO?
Pest control SEO is the practice of optimizing a pest control company’s website, online business citations, and other digital assets to outperform competitors on search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, to name a few. Search engines consistently scour the internet for legitimate, relevant, and trustworthy sites to list on the front page (and/or top) of search results, ensuring searchers find what they’re looking for and have their questions answered.
Leveraging the power of effective organic techniques, following SEO best practices optimizes your pest control company’s site, proving to search engines that your business is reliable and that your site adequately addresses online searchers’ queries, resulting in higher positioning on the search results page. Improved keyword rankings on popular search engines can lead to increased website traffic and an influx in qualified digital leads. Here are a few stats from Ahrefs showcasing just how powerful SEO is for exterminators:
- 45.1% of total search result clicks came from organic clicks in 2022.
- Less than 1% (0.44% to be exact) of Google online users visit the search engine’s second-page results.
- Over 90% of website pages never receive organic traffic.
The Importance of Local SEO for Pest Control Companies
Local pest control SEO involves optimizing your site and online local business listings (like your Google Business Profile) for location-specific searches (e.g., “pest control services Nashville”). By implementing organic best practices, local SEO helps your company’s site rank higher for geo-specific search results pages, resulting in local searchers finding and engaging with your pest control company.
With 46% of all Google searches being localized, ranking among the top results—especially for a service area business like pest control—is crucial to converting searchers in your community into qualified leads. Both traditional and local SEO techniques serve essential roles in increasing your site’s organic search visibility. To create an effective digital marketing plan for your pest control company, it’s necessary to utilize both. But where do you start? We’re outlining these 4 best practices you can implement today to kickstart your SEO efforts:
- Exhaustive Keyword Research & Optimized Content
- Utilizing Proven Local SEO Strategies
- Leveraging Backlinks
- Tracking & Improving Technical Website Performance
Learn how to effectively implement local SEO for your pest control company with these expert tips!
Pest Control SEO: 4 Practices to Get Started
Here are 4 SEO practices pest control companies can execute to skyrocket online traffic and targeted lead generation:
1. Focus on optimized content for your website.
Search-conscious content is any content on your site that’s optimized to rank at the top of the search results page. This content can take the form of core web pages (e.g., home, about, contact us, etc.), service area pages, blogs, guides, and more. To successfully create content that satisfies online searchers and Google, you’ll need to understand and utilize the power of keyword research and effective targeting of these search terms throughout your pest control company’s site.
Keyword Research & Targeting: The Building Block to Effective Search-Optimized Content
Keywords are the phrases or words that online searchers use to find products, services, answers, and other information online. In keyword research, your primary goal is discovering and filtering search terms that generate a significant amount of searches and are relevant to your pest control business. Once you identify these terms, you can create fitting content to address them appropriately.
Here are 3 steps to effective keyword research and implementation for pest control companies:
1. Brainstorm keyword ideas
Start by developing a list of relevant phrases you think online searchers would use when looking for your pest control services, especially considering the types of pests you treat for.
Here’s a basic keyword list for a business that treats bed bugs, rodents, and termites can start with:
- Pest control in [your service area]
- Bed bug control in [your service area]
- Rodent control [your service area]
- Termite inspection [your service area]
- Termite control in [your service area]
- Exterminator [your service area]
Expand your keyword variations by entering these phrases into keyword research tools such as Semrush, Google Search Console, Ahrefs, Google Trends, and AnswerThePublic. These tools help you discover the language online searchers use in your pest control company’s individual service areas to find your services.
When brainstorming keywords, it’s important to consider both long-tail and localized phrases. Long-tail keywords are highly specific terms (e.g., “bed bug control Dallas, TX”) that are more targeted than broad keyword phrases (e.g., “bed bug control”). These phrases often have lower search volume than the broader terms. Still, online users have a precise intent and are usually closer to the purchasing/hiring step of the process when using long-tail queries. Localized keywords, such as the terms listed above, include the name of the city, county, or state in which your pest control services are offered. These searches are incredibly relevant as they allow pest control businesses to target potential customers within a specific geographical area, which means you’re more likely to attract relevant users who are looking for services nearby, resulting in higher conversion rates and enhanced online engagement. Localized keywords also increase your pest control company’s ranking in regional searches, which builds trust within your community and establishes your business as a reliable option for pest control.
An Important Note: Don’t neglect blog-soliciting keywords. These are search terms with informational intent (something we’ll explore in more detail below), meaning searchers are looking for information about a topic rather than searching for services to invest in. Blog-soliciting phrases can be searched as a question (e.g., does peppermint oil repel mice) or a topic (e.g., DIY pest control methods). Since blog-soliciting keywords are rarely localized, the copy produced to target these terms can drive a significant boost in online traffic but usually won’t drive an equivalent increase in qualified leads. Nonetheless, increasing online traffic helps your site gain favor with Google and may help your conversion-focused pages rank higher on search engines.
To make this work, it’s essential to implement effective internal linking strategies within your blogs. By strategically linking your blogs to high-value, conversion-focused pages—such as service pages or contact forms—you can direct traffic to these critical areas, increasing the likelihood of user engagement and conversions. Additionally, internal links distribute “link equity,” or SEO value, across your site, helping your key pages rank higher in search engine results.
2. Determine which phrases and terms are relevant and attainable for your pest control business.
When choosing keywords to target on your website, it’s important to consider several factors: search volume, search intent, and keyword difficulty. Here’s a breakdown of these elements and how to leverage them for optimal keyword selection:
- Search Volume: Search volume details how many times online searchers enter a specific keyword into Google per month (on average). Higher search volume indicates more people are searching for that keyword, which can increase your pest control company’s potential to attract traffic if your site ranks well for it. However, ranking for high-volume keywords can also be more competitive, making it essential to balance search volume with keyword difficulty and relevance to your business. By targeting keywords with a manageable competition level and clear intent, your site has a better chance of ranking well and attracting valuable, qualified traffic.
Furthermore, avoiding keywords with no search volume at all is best. Targeting phrases with no search volume leads to content that fails to drive traffic to your site, even if it ranks well. Keywords with zero search volume indicate there’s little to no demand for that topic, meaning searchers are unlikely to encounter or engage with your content. Instead of wasting resources on such terms, focus on keywords with measurable search volume and intent. By targeting phrases that people are actively searching for, you increase the chances of your content being seen, driving relevant traffic, and ultimately achieving your business goals. If you’d like to ensure that your content is actually relevant and answering questions searchers have, pay special attention to the search volume of keywords.
You can find the search volume of keywords with tools like Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool.
- Search Intent: Search intent represents the intention behind an online user’s search. To comprehend how to best utilize and rank for pest control-focused keywords, you need to understand the search intent behind them. There are four categories when it comes to a keyword’s search intent:
Navigational: The user is looking for a particular page or site (e.g., “willard’s pest control”).
Informational: The searcher is trying to find general information on a topic or an answer to a question (e.g., “diy pest control”).
Commercial: The user is researching different options before deciding which product/service to invest in (e.g., “pest control nyc”).
Transactional: The searcher is looking to buy a particular product or service immediately (e.g., “moxie pest control near me”).
When creating content—whether it a blog, location page, or a service page—ensure it aligns with the intent of the keywords you’re targeting. For instance, if you’re targeting the keyword “pest control Boston,” which has commercial intent, it’s best to create a location page specifically focused on your pest control services in Boston. This ensures your content meets the needs of potential customers searching for services in that area, increasing the likelihood of engagement and conversions. Additionally, include numerous calls to action (CTAs) throughout the page to encourage user interaction. Examples of effective CTAs include linking to your phone number for easy click-to-call access, prominently displaying your address, and embedding your Google Maps location to help users find your business effortlessly. These elements enhance the user’s experience, build trust, and make it easier for potential customers to take the next step.
If you’re unsure what type of content would best address the intent of a specific keyword search, analyzing the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) is a valuable strategy. Tools like Semrush (as shown in the image below) allow you to analyze the SERPs for your chosen keyword, providing insights into the top-ranking pages. This can help you determine the type of content users expect to find when utilizing different search terms, such as blog posts, service pages, or location pages. By studying the SERPs for a given keyword, you can ensure the search terms align with your pest control business’s goals and target audience. This strategy makes certain you’re investing your efforts in keywords that are relevant and have a high potential to drive valuable traffic to your site.
- Keyword Difficulty: Keyword difficulty (KD%) is an SEO metric that represents how challenging it will be to rank a page in the top 1–10 positions for a specific keyword in search engine results. Keyword difficulty is an estimate influenced by several factors, including the authority of your pest control site vs. top-ranking domains, your current ranking position, the number of backlinks directed to your site, content quality, and more.
The higher the keyword difficulty percentage is out of 100, the harder it will likely be to rank for that phrase and capture the organic traffic it generates. It’s best to target keywords with an appropriate difficulty score for your site, ensuring you’re targeting search phrases that are attainable for your pest control business to rank for and yield an increase in organic traffic and high-quality leads.
3. Target select keywords throughout your site.
After you’ve curated a comprehensive list of relevant and attainable keywords, you need to naturally implement these phrases throughout your pest control company’s site. Depending on the intent behind the search phrases, you can target different keywords on various service or location pages, blogs, guides, and more. For example, targeting “pest control salt lake county” would call for a location page, while the search term “how to get rid of bed bugs” solicits an informational blog article.
Insider Tip: Strategically structure your content to gain favor in the eyes of search engines. How can you achieve this? Google, Bing, and Yahoo read your site’s content similar to how you read this blog:
- First, they study the headers (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to determine the topic of the page or article.
- Then, they investigate the text to ensure it supports the headers and provides helpful information relevant to the keywords throughout the content.
When creating content for your pest control site, make it easy to navigate both for online searchers and search engines. For instance, if you’re creating an article about the effectiveness of DIY pest control, you could use an H1 heading such as “Does DIY Pest Control Work? Everything You Need to Know,” followed by H2 headings for various categories like “How Can You DIY Pest Control?” and “When to Call the Professionals.”
2. Implement local SEO best practices to show up in regional search results.
Pest control companies, particularly franchised pest extermination businesses, must focus on proven local SEO practices, ensuring they meet local searchers online before competitors. One common local SEO practice for pest control companies is creating city pages for each service area and office and county and state pages if there is search volume and/or it improves navigation for the user. Here are a few things you’ll want to include on your location pages to optimize them for search engines:
- Types of pests you exterminate in the area, with links to the corresponding service pages
- Your company’s unique selling points (e.g., affordable pest control plans, excellent customer service, years of experience, certified technicians)
- Brief description of your pest control process
- Business name, address, and phone number (NAP) for the office(s) that service the state, county, or city and a link to the offices’ Google Business Profiles (GBPs)
- Embedded Google Map that’s connected to the GBPs (not just a map with the address or city)
- Internal links to the sub-areas nested under the page (e.g., Florida > Duval County > Jacksonville)
In addition to location and areas-served pages, you should optimize your other online local business listings (e.g., Bing Places, Apple Maps, Waze, and hundreds of others) to ensure your pest control company shows up in regional search results.
Optimizing Your Google Business Profile & Other Local Business Listings
The first step in optimizing your GBP is to claim and complete your profile, especially if you own a multi-location pest control company, ensuring local customers can find you when searching for nearby pest control services. Here are a few best practices for enhancing your GBP and other regional business citations:
- Fill out your business name, address, and phone number, ensuring this information is consistent and accurate across all business citations (it can vary between differing offices, of course).
- Complete your GBP by selecting all relevant categories, writing an engaging and relevant description that organically includes keywords and primary service areas, including various high-quality photos on your profile, and more.
- Regularly post updates, whether a snippet of a recent blog or a new promotion your pest control company offers to potential customers.
- Respond to all reviews, whether positive or negative.
- Keep updated hours of operation across all local business listings, ensuring your pest control company stands out as a reliable extermination provider.
3. Backlinking
Earning backlinks, or acquiring links from other sites to your website, is an important SEO strategy that proves to search engines that your pest control company’s site is reliable and trustworthy. High-quality backlinks can lead to an increase in your search engine results rankings. How exactly do you generate backlinks? The most organic and preferred way to earn backlinks is by publishing relevant, helpful content that online users naturally want to reference and link to. Another option is to lead an outreach campaign to request backlinks from relevant sites or publish guest posts on other sites that link back to your pest control company’s website. Here are a few things to look out for when earning backlinks:
- Focus on niche-related sites (e.g., home and family, agriculture, environment).
- Target domains with high Authority Score (AS is Semrush’s way of representing a site’s authority) Domain Authority (DA is a metric from Moz, similar to Semrush’s AS).
- Determine how many keywords the host site ranks for, indicating whether or not Google favors it. Look at the site’s ranking trends; if the site is ranking for a lot of keywords but is quickly losing them, that’s a good indication that the site is losing favor with Google.
- Pay attention to the link’s anchor text (text that becomes clickable when you add a hyperlink), which sends important signals to Google. If the anchor text of a link to your rodent control service page says, “a reliable rodent control team in Kansas City, MO,” Google is more likely to relate your rodent control page with that service and service area than if the link’s anchor text just reads, “learn more.”
- Ensure the content published that links to your site is of high-quality, is helpful, and answers online searchers’ questions. Building links within quality content is critical to successful backlinking campaigns and earning favor with search engines.
4. Check the technical performance of your website, ensuring optimal performance online.
An essential part of technical SEO for pest control companies is constantly analyzing their website’s performance to ensure it is competitive in their industry and region. You can optimize the following site factors for optimal online performance:
- Load speed through caching
- Broken links
- Broken pages (404 errors)
- Lazy loading
- Image compression
- Sitemap.xml
- Site Security
- CSS and JavaScript minification
- Click Depth
- Robots.txt
- Accessibility
It’s also crucial to focus on additional Core Web Vitals, such as reducing cumulative layout shifts, enhancing first input delay, and improving contentful paint.
Your site’s technical performance is critical to favorable search engine rankings. If online users visit your site and immediately leave (called “bouncing”), it could signal to Google that your site isn’t valuable and reliable, leading to decreased search engine results performance. With a user-friendly, easily navigable, and SEO-conscious website, online viewers will stay longer, checking out additional pages and reading blogs, leading to enhanced domain authority and increased search visibility.
How SEO Services Can Benefit Your Pest Control Business
Pest control SEO dramatically improves your company’s site visibility and increases qualified leads and local brand awareness. While it may take about 6–12 months to start seeing monetary results, SEO yields substantial returns. In fact, 49% of professional marketers report that SEO tactics have the best ROI compared to any marketing channel. Unfortunately, many pest control professionals simply don’t have the time to constantly conduct keyword research, optimize their websites, build backlinks, and ensure their sites are set up for peak performance online. That’s where hiring an SEO agency specializing in the pest control industry is essential for your online success.
Here’s how investing in pest control SEO services can benefit your company:
- It saves time, money, and energy to focus on other matters of your business
- Professional expertise with particular knowledge about the extermination industry
- Consistent monitoring of your website, ensuring it’s performing optimally
- Targeted analytics and detailed reporting of how SEO techniques are improving your site’s visibility
- An increase in qualified leads, organic online traffic, and sales
If you’d like to partner with an agency with a proven track record of success for pest control companies, Rock Salt Marketing is the team to do it. Our experts specialize in comprehensive SEO services for pest control companies, including local SEO, search-friendly content ideation and creation, site performance tracking, link-building on niche-related sites, business profile management, performance tracking, detailed reporting, and more. Rock Salt’s SEO team is determined to help you climb to the top positions of search engine results pages, beating competitors and generating qualified leads for your pest control business. If you’re searching for top-rated pest control SEO services, contact Rock Salt Marketing and achieve peak performance online.
