A HubSpot Study indicates that 97% of people learn more about a local company online than anywhere else. And 78% of location-based mobile searches result in an offline purchase. In other words, if you are a mold removal company, capturing more Google searches = more customers.
What’s more, SEO can be done by anyone with some basic education and knowledge. Aligning with Google’s search objectives is simply a matter of responding to a search query and this basis of SEO applies to all industries.
SEO for Mold Removal Companies Isn’t Complex
Mold removal companies often find SEO frustrating and confusing. Some SEO professionals claim you need complex strategies to rank well. However, the truth is that just a few critical factors account for most of a company’s search engine rankings. By focusing on optimizing these key areas, mold removal companies can dramatically improve their visibility without getting overwhelmed:
- Content and Keyword Research
- Online Promotion and Backlinks
- Site Structure and Technical SEO
Is SEO Useful for Mold Removal Companies? Yes!
Local mold removal companies often struggle with online visibility and converting website visitors into paying customers. However, with the right SEO strategy, it is possible to rapidly grow your customer base. In this case study, we will showcase how we helped a small mold remediation business increase its annual revenue by over 1,000% in just 15 months through targeted SEO tactics.
We didn’t rely on shady techniques or outdated link building strategies. Instead, we focused on optimizing the website for ranking higher in Google for relevant search queries homeowners use when looking for mold removal services.
The key was understanding both Google’s goals of providing high-quality search results as well as what information potential customers wanted to see when researching mold remediation companies. By aligning the website content with these two objectives, we were able to dramatically improve their search rankings.
SEO for Mold Removal Companies
Should You Hire a Mold Removal Marketing Agency?
Deciding whether to hire a marketing agency or DIY is an important choice for any mold remediation company. The right marketing approach can rapidly grow your customer base and revenue.
A good benchmark is being able to dedicate at least $3,000 towards marketing costs and effort. This allows testing of multiple strategies to see what provides the best ROI for your business.
Our agency spends over $100,000 on marketing campaigns. Not every effort generates a positive return, but the wins are huge. A highly effective marketing campaign can exponentially increase a company’s revenue.
The Basics of Mold Removal SEO
Keyword Research for Mold Removal Companies
Whenever we speak with prospective mold removal clients, the main thing we hear is that they want more revenue and lower costs. Rarely do we encounter a company that has done thorough research to make implementing a marketing campaign easier.
In this section, I’ll show you how to set your SEO campaign up for success on Google.
Before starting, determine if SEO is even a good opportunity for your mold remediation business. Sometimes it actually makes more sense not to pursue SEO. We’ve had to turn companies down before, so keep that in mind.
I’m covering basic SEO concepts here. This is not an advanced guide, so I’ll assume you have never done keyword research before and just want to start learning about optimizing for Google.
You might be surprised that even some large mold removal companies don’t have their website properly set up!
Perhaps in the future we can explore paid tools, search volume metrics, keyword difficulty, and more. But for now, we’ll focus on the essentials.
Now, let’s get started on some basic SEO keyword research!
What is a Keyword?
A keyword is a word or phrase that describes the main topic of your web page. For example, a page about “mold testing” will be optimized for that primary keyword. All the content should directly relate to mold testing services.
Effective SEO results in your website pages ranking for terms prospects are searching for. To do this, you need to plan ahead rather than just blog randomly.
Simply creating content without intent is unlikely to drive results. A better approach is to create content around common customer questions.
Remember to have a content plan focused on ranking for target keywords. Potential customers search for mold removal information online, and you may think you know what they want, but their questions can be surprising. Identifying the right keywords to attract customers is key, and the strategy above will help you get started. Always research keywords before creating content.
Why is Targeting Specific SEO Keywords So Important?
Google analyzes page content as part of ranking pages. While strictly stuffing keywords isn’t as important as it used to be, they still influence rankings. Using relevant keywords prospects search for is key to optimizing content.
How to Start Researching the Right Keywords
To gain an edge and generate ideas, research the right competitors, create a customer avatar, and continuously brainstorm new keywords as needed.
Here are the key steps to basic keyword research, which should take about 100 minutes:
- Spend 30 minutes or less creating a detailed profile of your ideal customer. The more specific the better – include demographics, hobbies, lifestyle factors, income range, communities they engage in, etc.
- Spend 30 minutes or less finding the top 10 competitors online. Search for the keywords you think your ideal customers use.
- Spend 30 minutes or less selecting your top 10 target keywords to rank for.
- Spend 15 minutes deciding where to place keywords on your website.
- Double check your work. Repeat this process quarterly.
You won’t be perfect right away, but some effort goes a long way. Do these steps in order – each builds on the previous.
The most important thing is to start – you can always do more research later. Our least successful clients try to over-optimize everything upfront. They wait too long planning without taking action.
Your ideal customer profile may evolve over time. Schedule quarterly reviews of this target customer and keywords. Pivot your approach if needed – very few businesses get it exactly right out of the gate.
Let me know if this properly repurposes the keyword research steps for a mold removal company audience. I’m happy to keep rewriting sections until they read as completely new content.
Creating Profile of an Ideal Client for Better Keyword Research
Before diving into keyword research, ask yourself:
“Who am I creating content for?”
If you don’t have a target customer in mind, you’ll attract random traffic and obscurity. Below we’ll guide you in researching and defining your ideal customer.
For example, my agency’s ideal clients are mold inspection and remediation companies. We specialize in that niche and aim to build a competitive advantage.
While you may serve various clients, there’s likely one service you excel at and is highly profitable. Customers who need that service may be your ideal target.
To identify your ideal customer, consider:
- Who to date has been your most profitable customer and why?
- Who do you enjoy working with most and why?
- For which clients have you made the biggest impact and why?
For my agency, mold remediation companies are often the most profitable because they understand the value of specialization. They don’t expect us to be experts in their niche. The trust and clarity allows their campaigns to thrive with little oversight needed. Their retention is fantastic as a result.
We enjoy working with mold removal companies because they have healthy budgets and give us space to drive results. They know we have marketing expertise they lack, so they grant us control. Plus, helping them grow aligns with our values as they provide an important service to homeowners.
Identify Your Top Competitors to Get Better Keywords, Fast
Here’s a rundown of what we’re going to do in this section:
- Write down competitors or industry leaders you admire off the top of your head
- Use Google and research the top 5 companies in your niche
- Use Spyfu to estimate their traffic budgets and find other competitors
Write Down Any Big Competitors in Your Space Off the Top of Your Head
All right let’s take some time to analyze the brand leaders in the mold removal niche and find out what makes them successful. To do this, we’ll need to dedicate more than 10 minutes to research the top competitors. Don’t worry if our list isn’t perfect; the purpose of this task is to brainstorm potential ideas.
We’ll focus on local competitors (Seattle) providing mold removal services. Let’s quickly jot down 5 or more businesses operating in this niche that stand out for their presence online.
Here are 5 we know of:
- Environix
- Attic Projects Seattle
- PureDry
- Seattle Mold Inspection
- Restoration Master Finder
It’s okay to hit a wall with your thoughts sometimes. Leaving something unfinished is better than not doing it at all, so if you find yourself stuck, don’t hesitate to reach out to me via email (vlad@logicinbound.com)
Use Google and Search for the Top 5 Companies in Your Niche
Let’s take a peek at the five top-ranking companies for the keyword ‘mold removal’ on Google. These organizations should be your primary targets in terms of optimizing search engine visibility.
Uh oh, it looks like the highest ranked sites for that search query don’t really meet our needs. This is because Google is looking for the best websites for ‘mold removal’. Fortunately, the EPA is one of the top sources for this topic and can serve as a great resource in the future. To get the most accurate search results, we’ll want to use more specific terms, such as ‘mold removal Seattle’.
The top results from Google results are:
- Environix
- Attic Projects Seattle
- PureDry
All these competitors are gaining noteworthy attention and traction.
Examining the content of these competitors can provide valuable insight for a mold removal company in Seattle. It’s clear they have done their due diligence since they are ranking high for very specific search terms such as ‘mold removal services in Seattle‘.
Use Spyfu to Get Top Keywords from Competitor Sites
Environix is a respectable website that has some of the traffic we’d like. By using Spyfu (free but will charge you after multiple uses) we can see exactly which terms they bid online for and approximately how much traffic they get from it:
Upon further inspection of the top organic keywords from Environix, we can identify relevant key phrases that would be ideal for our mold removal company to pursue. After we have identified these keywords, we can create a list of the top 10 and move forward with our mission to reach the pinnacle of success!
Mold Removal Keyword Research Recap
To maximize income from Google, mold removal companies need to focus on all potential search terms used by different kinds of clients. This may range from generic ‘mold removal’ searches to specific queries like ‘mold inspection’. Here are one of our mold removal clients’ top-ranking keywords:
Clients search for local mold removal companies in various ways, depending on their level of knowledge regarding their issues and the amount of research they have conducted. From online reviews and directories to word-of-mouth recommendations, there are several options available for those seeking mold removal services. While this list is not exhaustive, it comprises the most common mold removal keywords:
- mold remediation
- mold removal
- black mold removal
- mold inspection
- mold testing
On Page Optimization for Mold Removal Companies
When it comes to ensuring your mold removal company ranks well on search engines, there’s a simple yet crucial strategy: create dedicated pages for each type of mold issue you tackle and the services you offer.
Relevance is a crucial factor when it comes to ranking your website on Google. The more a page on your website corresponds to the search query you’re aiming to rank for, the more likely it is to be successful. Thus, making sure your content is accurately tailored to searchers’ needs can help you significantly improve your ranking.
Google determines how relevant your page is to a particular search query by looking at very specific places on your page:
- URL
- Meta Title
- Meta Description
- H1
- H2s
Searching “mold inspection Seattle” on Google reveals that mold removal companies in Seattle are well-optimized for on-page SEO. This proves that optimizing mold removal websites for visibility through on-page tactics isn’t difficult or mysterious.
Notice how almost every website on the 1st page mentions the word ‘mold’, and ‘Seattle’?
That is not a coincidence.
Google has determined that the most pertinent information on mold removal in Seattle is provided on this company’s page.
Don’t believe me yet? Still not convinced? Need more evidence to be swayed? Here it is!
Let’s illustrate the vital role relevance plays in achieving higher rankings on Google’s search engine results pages. One further example should suffice to make the point abundantly clear.
Google “mold removal Seattle”, and you should see again, that this company has used the keyword they want to rank for “mold removal Settle” better than their competition across the URL, Meta Title, and Meta Description.
Website Content for Mold Removal Companies
After creating a landing page that is highly relevant to your target audience, the next step to dominating other mold removal companies on Google is having better content. Content plays a crucial role in SEO for mold removal companies as it can be used to gain credibility in the field. Producing top-notch content will entice people to link to it, allowing you to demonstrate your knowledge and expertise. Through providing quality content, you will have the upper edge on Google over the competition.
Google uses an algorithm to determine the best website content. It looks at factors such as relevance, quality, and popularity of the page to determine which websites have the most valuable content. By analyzing these characteristics, it can effectively prioritize search results to serve the highest quality content to its users.
As smart as Google is, Google is still unable to read, and understand whether content is good or not, so Google relies on user engagement signals that indicate whether the content is good.
Through trillions of searches, Google has found that web pages that have more of these signals have better user engagement metrics. User engagement metrics include things like:
- Time spent on site
- Bounce rate
- Pages visited
- Overall engagement with the site
So what are the signals that indicate good quality content? Well, it’s very intuitive:
- Content that is longer (more words) than the competition generally has better user engagement metrics than pages with less content
- Content that includes structured data, such as lists, bullet points, tables, table of contents, pictures and embedded YouTube videos generally has better user engagement metrics than web pages that does not have, or has less structured data.
Mold Removal Copywriting for SEO Example
Let’s take a look at this page: https://moldsolutionsnw.com/mold-remediation-seattle/
- 2100 words
- 1 embedded infographic
- 1 CTA form
- 1 numbered list
- Several user reviews
This page has almost every kind of structured data and is designed to keep users on the site as long as possible.
How to Create Original Content for Your Mold Removal Company
Investing in content tailored to that specific target audience is essential when it comes to building trust and authority. This will increase the chances of drawing in customers who are actively searching for mold removal answers. Additionally, paid advertising may be a viable option for mold removal companies, but the best way to reach potential customers is through content that is actually helpful and relevant.
This is why mold removal companies need to realize that it’s worthwhile to invest in creating helpful, targeted content for acquiring more customers. Within the mold removal niche, there is tremendous opportunity to attract customers by creating content and gaining visibility on search engines through it.
Creating Engaging Mold Removal Company Content
Content will be more engaging, when created by a true expert in the subject. Mold removal companies have an advantage, for example, when creating content about mold removal advice, treatments and things to watch out for, as they have extensive, hands-on experience to draw from. As such, this experience helps them distinguish their content, providing unique insights and touches from the competition.
Outlining and Documenting a Content Strategy
Having an effective content strategy before execution is key to setting performance benchmarks. To ensure this, determine who the target audience is, what topics you want to cover to establish yourself as an authority in your field, and which platforms you will use to share and promote your content.
Documenting and sharing these answers with your mold removal company is essential for understanding why the content strategy is necessary and what goals it needs to accomplish. Use that knowledge as a cornerstone for your content strategy and success is sure to follow.
Tips for Mold Removal Content
If you’re a mold removal company looking to create optimized content to attract more customers, these top tips are for you.
Target Audience: Think about who your target audience is. Are you targeting homeowners or commercial customers? Understanding who you’re writing for will help you tailor your content to their needs.
Use the Right Words: Use language that resonates with your target audience. They’re looking for a reliable, professional service, so avoid over-promising and focus on the benefits of your services.
Problem-Solving: Focus on the problems your customers are facing. People often turn to mold removal services when their home has a mold problem, so you can offer advice on preventing mold or explain what to do if it does happen.
Services Offered: Provide information about the services you offer. Explain clearly what the process entails, how much it will cost and what the results will be.
Success Stories: Content that focuses on real customer success stories is a great way to engage with your readers. These stories should showcase the before and after of the customer’s house condition, and how mold remediation with your company had a positive impact. Instead of talking about the mold removal process, focus on the outcome and the improvements customers have seen in their lives – from an environment with unhealthy air quality to a safe, healthy atmosphere. Not only is this type of content interesting for readers, but it also encourages sharing of positive messages, bringing emotional value to your audiences.
SEO Optimized: Make sure your content is optimized for search engines. Use keywords related to your services, and don’t forget to include links to your website and social media profiles.
Explore Specific Issues: Instead of general content, why not use content marketing to make mold removal easier to understand? Delving deeper into specific topics can provide valuable insight and resources for those affected. This type of content isn’t just beneficial for reaching a larger audience, but for SEO purposes as well – Google loves content that is thorough and tailored to a niche. Writing content on mold removal topics will also help build authority in this area.
People dealing with mold issues often require up-to-date information and helpful guidance, and by providing it you’ll gain their trust and potential customers. Depth and detailed information is invaluable when it comes to mold removal because understanding one’s mold issues is essential. Crafting content that provides easy-to-understand explanations and discussions can help people comprehend the effects of mold on their lives and how to best remove it.
Gauge Content ROI: Crafting engaging content is excellent, however if you’re not obtaining business outcomes from it, it might be prudent to reconsider your strategy. Remember, the focus should remain on generating business results and you should have a method of gauging how successful (or otherwise) your content is proving to be.
A few key ways to track your content’s performance include:
- New website traffic
- Organic searches for your company
- New customer inquiries, contact form submissions, booked jobs
Monitoring metrics is crucial for an effective content strategy. If you don’t see improvements, reassess whether you are fully optimizing and promoting your content. We’ll explore optimization and promotion tactics later on!
Treat Content as an Integral Part of Marketing
Mold removal companies should strive to provide assistance to people in difficult and confusing times regarding their property. Content generation shouldn’t be limited to optimizing for SEO only. Rather, content should serve as a valuable resource and empower customers by providing insights into the mold issue they are facing. If your company has thus far been limited to providing service descriptions, it’s never too late to create content specifically tailored to your target audience. This not only has the potential to be immensely helpful but also offers an added bonus of potentially improving your SEO.
Site Structure and Technical SEO for Mold Removal Company Websites
Having great content and quality backlinks is a great start to building an SEO-friendly website. However, the structure of your site can be a major contributing factor in how your site is viewed by both visitors and Google. Paying attention to the structure of your website can help make it more user-friendly and appealing to search engines.
What is Site Structure?
Site structure plays an essential role in organizing content and providing users with a pleasant navigation experience. Clarity of navigation and ease of access to content create a seamless user experience, while disorderly and disorganized pages can deter visitors and harm your search engine rankings. Structure your pages concisely and thoughtfully for optimal site satisfaction.
Everyone utilizes this, it’s website 101. Above all else, think about how your website structure can help your visitors in the easiest and fastest way possible.
Clear Internal Linking Achieves Four Goals:
- Transfer the power from your homepage (most powerful page on any site) to your landing pages
- Ensures Google is able to find and index your landing pages
- Tells Google that these are the most important, and relevant pages to your business
- Makes it easy for visitors on the homepage to jump to where they want to go
I hovered over “services” for example (above) and you can see we have all the services grouped together. This is an example of good site structure.
To properly organize your site you need to make it easily crawlable by Google and in turn easy to navigate by your users.
⚡ The deeper in the site and more clicks it takes to access something the less valuable Google will think it is. The closer it is to the home page the more powerful it can be.
Good Site Structure + Good User Experience = More Leads
If we stuffed all our content onto one page, it would be difficult to locate what the user was searching for and that could be the downfall of any sale. Google also wouldn’t approve, making it harder for people to find your site in the first place. Additionally, if someone wants to book a consultation, a bad site structure will slow them down – and thus, slow down your sales cycle.
Do Yourself a Favor, Make Sure the Content is Neat!
Regular reviews of your site every quarter are essential for keeping it organized and running smoothly as it grows. Don’t let yourself fall behind – stay on top of the changes to keep your site running at its best!
No More Than 2 to 3 Clicks From One Page to Any Other Page
As a general rule, content should be easily accessible—no more than three clicks away from the home page, and two clicks if possible. Hiding important information can lead to a loss of value, so make sure your content is placed where it can be seen. If there is too much content, then employing a recategorizing strategy can help keep your site organized and user-friendly.
Main Categories, Sub Categories and How to Balance Your Navigation Bar
Take a glance at your site and analyze all the related content. Then, break this content down into its own distinct categories. Now, focus on creating the primary pieces of content that you feel would be most attractive to users. Moreover, take time to research your competitors and, most of all, consult with your own audience to get their insights. With this new knowledge, you can now update your website’s navigation bar.
⚡ Ensure that the navigation bar contains your phone number, and is fixed so it is in view as users scroll through the pages. This will enable visitors to easily click on other pages, while keeping your phone number at the forefront of their minds.
URL Structure
Now that you have your content in order, make sure you fix your URLs! If you’re trying to get to our blog for example, how would you feel if it was:
www.logicinbound.com/logicinboundblog
That URL is too long and just looks plain ugly. That’s why our blog’s web address is:
If you go to any blog post within our blog, you’ll notice the URL is something like: https://www.logicinbound.com/seo-services/
The above link is for a service page, and it contains the main keyword for the page (SEO services). We design our URLs this way so they’re:
- More readable
- More Google-friendly
- Not nested deeply into the site, so Google treats them as important pages
- The keyword in the link may help in Google rankings
Internal Linking
Want to keep people hooked?
An effective way to engage readers and provide them with more information on a topic is to utilize the power of internal links. These links allow people to quickly click on related topics when they are mentioned in an article, without having to navigate away from the page. It’s a great way to provide more value to visitors as they explore your site.
⚡ Make sure it’s an anchor text link (has a word in it like I did with hooked).
The best websites boast top-tier internal links that make browsing rewarding and enjoyable, transporting the reader on an immersive journey down their desired path.
To create an internal linking structure:
- Take a look at your content and draw a user funnel.
- Figure out which piece of content fits in what stage of the funnel
- Make sure that each internal link leads to the next funnel buyer stage
Boom you’re happy, Google is happy and everyones happy ?
⚡ Google follows your site links, and each link transfers power. Therefore, by internally linking to a certain page, you can boost its authority in the eyes of Google. Careful consideration should be given when deciding which pages to link.
Site Links
What are site links? Simply put, they’re additional links that are shown when your site comes up in Google search results. Here’s an example to understand this concept better:
But, how do you get these, how do you control these!?
Well at the end of the day Google is actually the one that decides what pops up. Or as they say:
“Our automated sitelinks are constantly being improved. While there currently isn’t a way to input webmaster preferences, there are steps you can take to enhance your sitelinks. Consider using descriptive anchor and alt texts that are both concise and devoid of redundancy. By doing this, your sitelinks’ quality is guaranteed to improve.”
You can strive to shape this organized data based on the order of your site’s navigational bar and content.
How Good Site Structure Will Help You
Following these tips on great site structure will:
- Earn you points with Google
- Make your vendors, partners and other websites love you more on the internet and
- Help you potential clients navigate your content better and ultimately do more business with you!
Ensure your site’s structure remains organized by taking the time to review it on a quarterly basis. Otherwise, you may find yourself overwhelmed with growth in an unsystematic way. As Jim Rohn wisely stated, “If you wait too long, the weeds will take the garden”.
Important Technical SEO Tip for Older Websites: Fix Your Code 404 Errors with 301 Redirects
If you’re dealing with an outdated website that can’t be saved and needs a total revamp using modern coding or a content management system (CMS) like WordPress, SEO issues are inevitable. To keep your existing URLs relevant to your new webpages, try setting up redirects from the old website to the new one.
Why You Need to Redirect Old URLs
Although the aesthetic look, features, user experience, and ease-of-use of your existing website may be out of date, there is still one thing to be said for it – its search engine value. With time, search engines such as Google and Bing become accustomed to a website’s URL structure and the associated web pages. Meaning that the existing pages already have a ranking or have been indexed correctly, resulting in a good search optimization. Therefore, if you choose to update your website without redirecting all URLs to their new counterparts within the new website structure, you will be missing out on search engine optimization that should not be overlooked.
What is a 404? Why Do Broken Pages Exist?
When visiting a URL that has no corresponding web page, you will be presented with an error code of 404. It is akin to arriving at an address where the home is not there. The result is the same – absence of the desired outcome.
If you’re launching a new website, don’t forget to double-check for 404 errors. Search engines may still index the URLs from your older website, meaning they will appear in search results. If you haven’t created new pages using these old URLs, visitors to these links will be presented with a 404 error message.
How to Find Broken URLs On Your Website
Searching for broken URLs manually can be a tedious process, and usually impractical. The most efficient way to locate broken URLs is by leveraging specialized tools designed for this purpose.
Screaming Frog is a free tool that ‘crawls’ your website and finds broken pages or URLs containing 404 errors. Since it’s a free tool, it will only scan 500 URLs on your site, which should be fine for most mold removal business websites.
Why Not Delete a 404’ing URL?
You can delete a URL from your site which is causing 404 errors, as it is simply an address to a page that no longer exists. However, search engines will still have the URL in their directory. Therefore, submitting a de-index request for that URL is not recommended. Instead, it is better to redirect the URL to another page on your site that has content relevant to that URL.
How to Do URL Redirect
Once you identify broken URLs on your website, it is important to determine which pages they will be redirecting users to. It is essential that the old URLs redirect people to a relevant page, rather than giving them something completely unexpected. By doing so, you can ensure your visitors are not taken off guard by what they find.
Fixing a 404 in WordPress
WordPress makes it relatively easy to fix your broken URLs. To redirect an old URL to a new URL, we’re going to use what’s known as a 301 redirect. We love it so we’re going to go over how to fix errors in this platform.
Email us and we can go over other platforms, but if we went over all of them this book would never get finished.
Email me anytime: vlad@logicinbound.com
A 301 redirect tells search engines that the old URL has moved permanently. Let’s create a 301 redirect for an old URL that redirects users and search engines to the new URL.
⚠️ This guide makes use of the Redirection plugin for WordPress. Redirection makes it extremely easy to create 301 redirects within WordPress. Install it before following the next steps.
- Navigate to Tools > Redirection in the WordPress dashboard
- Under the Add New Redirection section, enter your old URL in the Source URL text field
- Set the Match option to URL only. And set the Action to Redirect to URL (since we know what the new URL is)
- In the Target URL text field, enter the new URL. This URL is going to be the address the old URL will redirect to
- Complete the process by clicking on the Add Redirection button
To check if the 301 redirect is successful, simply enter the old URL in your web browser. If you are directed to the new URL, it indicates that the redirect has worked correctly.
Difference Between 301 and 302 Redirect
“A 301 redirect lets your browser know to take you from the old URL to the new URL, and also signals to search engines that there’s been a permanent move to the new URL. On the other hand, a 302 redirect redirects users to the new URL, but informs search engines that it’s a temporary move.
In rare cases, website owners may want to temporarily move a URL, but it is not recommended. Furthermore, Google may decide the redirect was an oversight and instead index the old URL, completely disregarding the new URL.”
So why take the chance of doing a 302 redirect at all?
How Often Should You Check Your Site for Broken URLs
To keep your mold removal website in top shape, regular checks for broken links are essential. Use tools like Screaming Frog for quick and efficient site crawls.
Why is this important? A clean and error-free website reflects professionalism and attracts potential clients.
As for frequency, opt for automated tools to save time and ensure your website is always visitor-ready.
How to Improve Site Speed
Did you know that loading times can have a dramatic effect on user engagement and satisfaction? According to recent studies, 40% of visitors will abandon your website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load. This massive drop in traffic highlights why site speed is a key factor for success.
Additionally, Google favors faster loading websites in its search rankings. Their goal is to deliver the best user experience when people search online, and Google recognizes speed is critical for that. This means if your mold removal company wants to acquire customers through search, having a fast-loading website should be your top priority.
On top of this, other positive improvements can be seen when optimizing site speed. Such as increasing lead generation, contact requests, and engagement time. All this shows why technical optimizations are low-hanging fruit for any website.
Investing in marketing is essential for driving users to your website, but you don’t want their experience to be hindered by a slow and sluggish user experience. It’s time to optimize your site for speed and responsiveness; doing so will ensure the best user experience possible.
How to Check If Your Site Is Slow
Even if you have engaged professional developers for your website, there’s no certainty that it will be swift. Fortunately, there are multiple handy tools to evaluate your website’s loading speed and potential outages.
⚠️ The tools outlined below are free and comprehensive in their analysis. However, be aware that they operate on a per-page basis, meaning that they will only scan the exact URL that you provide, rather than your entire website.
Checking Site Speed with GTmetrix
A great tool that we personally use to check site speed is GTmetrix. It’s free to use and gives you a detailed insight on your site’s load performance.
To check your site speed with GTMetrix, follow the steps listed below:
➡ Open GTmetrix
➡ Enter the address of your website in the text field and click ‘Test your site’.
For the purpose of this example, we’re going to be analyzing www.logicinbound.com.
➡ Wait while GTMetrix analyzes your site. Since this is a free tool, it gets bombarded with requests like yours, so bear with it.
➡ After a minute or two, you’ll have your site’s page speed report.
⚡ Logicinbound.com loads fast – in just 2.9 seconds – and has an excellent PageSpeed Score of 91%. You can scroll down to view details on the score calculation, including GTmetrix’s suggested improvements for optimization.
➡ These certainly are a lot of things to look at.
In order to maintain a positive user experience, it’s important to keep your site’s loading time within 3 seconds. Anything exceeding this timeframe should be addressed using the recommendations provided by GTmetrix.
Checking Site Speed with Google PageSpeed Insights
Google’s page speed tool provides invaluable insights on what matters in terms of page speed optimization for your site. Not only is it a useful tool, but it also offers other metrics that can help you improve the performance of your webpages.
- Go to Google PageSpeed Insights
- Enter the URL of the page you’d like to analyze, and click ‘ANALYZE’. As an example, we’re going to run the tool for www.logicinbound.com
- PageSpeed insights will display an aggregated number indicating the level of optimization of the page in terms of load speed. Generally, it should be above 90.
- Scroll down to see the warnings and recommendations to improve your page load speed.
- As you can see, there are a couple of opportunities for optimizations. Simply following these recommendations could help www.logicinbound.com load up to 0.6 seconds faster. That may not sound like a big number, but remember, all it takes is a moment above 3 seconds to see a 40% user drop off.
Keep an eye on your website’s performance by routinely checking its score on Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. If you notice it performing poorly, don’t hesitate to speak with your development team and have them review the situation. This way, you’ll increase the potential of your development team and move closer to improving the speed of your website.
Basic Fixes for a Slow-Loading Website
Making changes to the codebase is one way to improve overall website load speeds, yet it is not the only way. Here are a few simple steps you can take to enhance your website’s loading time.
Image Optimizations
It is essential to ensure that all images on your website are optimized for size in order to provide the best user experience. While it may be tempting to simply download a large image from stock and upload it straight away, this risks neglecting visitors who may not have access to a reliable internet connection. Therefore, it is important to strike a balance between keeping images of great quality, yet minimal in size in order to keep user engagement at an optimal level.
How to Compress an Image
Compressing an image is pretty easy, simply upload the desired image to TinyJPG or Compress JPG and these (free) online tools will do the job for you.
Get Rid of Resource-Hogging Scripts
Scripts written in JavaScript and other web programming languages are essential for providing advanced features on your website. However, if your developers are not carefully managing the use of such scripts, it can slow down your website significantly. Poorly optimized scripts can cause your site to take several seconds longer to load.
How to Check Your Site for Heavy Scripts
GTmetrix and Google PageSpeed Insights make it easy to identify problem scripts on your website. Check the recommendation section of the analysis results and you’ll find the scripts that are slowing down page loading speed.
Code Efficiently
Budget and inexperienced developers may develop a website that looks visually pleasing and works as intended, yet the user experience will be hampered by inefficient coding, leading to sluggish response times.
Conclusion
This is it! You’ve now learned the basics. If we missed anything or you’d like to give us feedback feel free to email vlad@logicinbound.com and please leave us some love online!
Online Promotion and Backlinks
If you aspire to be the biggest singer in the world, then having an incredible voice is essential. However, it is also imperative to invest time and energy in promoting yourself, as this will be just as critical to your success as having exceptional singing abilities.
Promoting Your Company Online
Promoting your mold removal company online can provide many benefits. By increasing visibility, it can boost brand awareness and trust with customers. It can also help gain search engine authority by acquiring quality backlinks.
Social Media Promotion
Social media gives unparalleled opportunities for businesses to connect with potential clients globally. Whether advertising services or sharing content, leveraging these vast platforms is essential for growing brand visibility. Harness the power of social media to reach your ideal customers.
Optimizing LinkedIn can be vital for business growth. With a platform tailored to professional use, your page visitors will have active interest in your services.
When making your company profile, clearly differentiate between individual and business information. Include details on your services, years in business, and contact options.
You can also start a group for your brand, with customers and employees, to share info and engage. Use status updates for announcements, offers, customer stories, and tips.
Although it doesn’t transfer authority, LinkedIn backlinks can provide credibility.
Promote content organically on Facebook without spending money. It takes more effort than paid promotion, but works through the right techniques.
Start by adding a Facebook Share button on your blog for readers to easily spread content. Utilize all post types – text, photos, videos and links – and share via status updates.
Be strategic by sharing content multiple times throughout the day, as different people check Facebook at different times. Tag other companies to encourage them to share your posts, but don’t overuse the same tags.
YouTube
YouTube is invaluable for promoting company content. You can reach a massive audience, boosting engagement and visibility for blog posts and customer success stories. Quality videos don’t have to be hard – start with simple slideshows with voiceovers. Leverage YouTube to diversify content and promote your brand powerfully.
⚡ Transcribe YouTube videos into text on your site to aid search visibility, even with imperfect grammar!
Getting YouTube Backlinks
To get YouTube backlinks, first create a channel. Then:
- Login and go to your YouTube homepage
- Click your profile picture in the top right corner
- Select ‘Customize Channel’
- Go to the About tab
- In Links, add your website home page link
- Confirm the changes
You’ve now created a great backlink from YouTube for increased visibility and reach.
Upload videos and add your site links in the description to get more backlinks and boost website traffic.
Instagram is great for mold removal marketing. Create engaging posts for likes and take advantage of high-quality backlinks. Use unique features to elevate your online presence and strengthen digital visibility.
Getting an Instagram Backlink
An easy backlink is creating an Instagram profile for your company. After setup, add your website link in the bio section – the only link allowed. Carefully consider which link to showcase.
Choose between your homepage or a service page. The choice is yours!
Using Instagram to Promote Your Mold Removal Business
Let’s take the promotion of your mold removal business to the next level with Instagram! You can give a glimpse of what goes on in your business by posting pictures of completed jobs, before-and-after photos, and stories from clients. Add in captions to help people get to know you and what you do, and watch your audience grow.
Don’t think twice about writing informative, descriptive captions with your Instagram photos. Not only can this create trust and heighten engagement, but by tagging relevant hashtags, you can give your posts the visibility they need to show up in followers’ Explore feeds. Encouraging your followers to leave comments or contact you through direct messages is also an effective way to start meaningful conversations that will benefit your business. Investing effort in the right posts will help bring traction to your website and attract new customers.
Directory Sites
Create an account on Yelp, GlassDoor and relevant industry specific sites, such as HealthGrade.com, and link your profile back to yourself. Doing so will help amplify your visibility and extend your reach within the industry you specialize in.
Guest Blog Posts
Publishing articles on prominent websites can benefit your mold removal company and its website. Guest blog posts offer a great way to reach a wider audience and showcase expertise in mold remediation. To succeed, it’s crucial that your content is high-quality.
Some marketing agencies overemphasize quantity over quality with guest posts. They care more about getting published than providing meaningful, useful content.
Links are important – they draw attention to your site and improve rankings. But don’t forget about broader promotion and traffic. Getting published on a popular site can provide immediate exposure and an influx of valuable visitors.
Finding and Securing to Guest Post Opportunities
How do you find opportunities for guest posts? Well, this is the easy part.
Simply go to Google and type: Your Keyword + “write for us”
As an example, mold removal “write for us”
You can find even more opportunities by using the following search strings:
- Your keyword “guest post”
- Your keyword “guest blog”
- Your keyword “guest article”
- Your keyword “send us a tip”
Once you’ve used relevant keywords to search for open guest blog opportunities on Google, the next step is to contact those websites and inquire about potential guest blogging spots in their content schedule.
A simple script that works for us is:
Hi [Name],
I’m a long time reader. You may have noticed my comment on your post on [Article] (awesome article by the way).
I’m writing to you because I’d love to contribute a guest post on [Website].
I’ve been brainstorming some topics that I think your readers would get a ton of value from:
[Topic #1]
[Topic #2]
[Topic #3]
I’ll make sure the piece overflows with information that can’t be found anywhere else.
To give you an idea of the quality I’ll bring to your site, here are some articles I contributed to other sites:
[Article on other site link #1]
[Article on other site link #2]
[Article on other site link #3]
Cheers,
[Your First Name]
With the right approach, you can gain a guest spot fairly easily. To start, leave a thoughtful comment on one of their blog posts – this will show them your genuine interest in the company. Additionally, engage with the company on social media by liking, commenting and sharing their posts – this will demonstrate your enthusiasm for the brand and increase your chances of getting a spot.
Podcasts Guest Spots
Being featured as a guest on a popular podcast isn’t as hard as it may seem. With the right qualifications and noteworthy experiences, you can easily make these connections and capitalise on an amazing opportunity to reach out to a wider audience while getting a backlink!
Finding and Reaching Out to Podcast Opportunities
Finding podcast opportunities is fairly similar to the process we described for guest posts. Simply go on Google and type Your keyword + “podcast”. Example, ‘mold removal podcast’ or ‘home maintenance podcast’.
Check out the search results, and see if there are any podcasts that are relevant to your business and its services. Look through the podcast website and find an email to contact them.
With enough podcasts maybe you can end up on your local news and more. With the right strategy, you’ll be famous before you know it ?.
Once you have the email, you can use this script to ask for a guest spot:
Hi [Name],
I’m writing to you today because I have an amazing guest whom I’d like to schedule on [Podcast Name].
[A short 150-word background on the guest, their qualifications and achievements]
When do you think we could schedule him on [Podcast Name]?
Thanks for your time.
Creativity is key when it comes to crafting successful podcast scripts. Not only should you focus on the achievements of the guest, but also make sure you pitch them in a way that provides valuable insights to the podcast’s audience. Furthermore, look beyond yourself when you’ve identified the right niche – it’s highly attractive if someone else is making the contribution on your behalf.
How Much Time and Money Should Be Spent on Growth?
Everyone knows that long-term growth cannot be achieved in a short timeframe. That’s why it is important to go over your marketing processes and budget quarterly, so you can measure the return on the investment you have made.
When reviewing your spending, consider the time and resources spent on link-building, website optimization, and other related activities associated with running your business. Make sure that these processes are effective, and if possible, strive to improve them even more!
To maximize your growth, try to devote at least 50% of your working hours towards promotion, according to serial entrepreneur Gabriel Weinberg. This should be the absolute minimum time spent on growth, but bear in mind that it may take longer to see results.
The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends that businesses who are grossing under $5 million annually and have a net margin of 10-12%, should dedicate between 7-8% of their total revenue to marketing and advertising efforts.
So, set a date now to review your marketing budget and figure out how you can make the best use of your resources. With some dedication and hard work, you will surely be able to take your business to the next level.
When it comes to small business SEO campaigns, a modest investment of $3000 can get you far. Our team of professionals have extensive experience and have perfected the process. Though this is the minimum, depending on the complexity of the campaign, additional fees may be needed to achieve the desired results. To avoid any disruption in your marketing efforts, I highly suggest investing more to ensure the success of your campaign.
So what should you do now if you plan to do SEO yourself? Simple, divide $3000 by however much you pay yourself hourly as base rate, review quarterly based on expectations and adjust.
If you invest your time wisely and pay yourself $100 an hour, you can dedicate at least 30 hours each month to SEO education and implementation. In that time, you’ll be able to focus on building links, crafting content, and making improvements to your website – whatever is needed that week.
Why You Should Calculate SEO Costs:
The most effective way to determine your SEO costs is to assign value to your activities and factor in any associated fees. A timer is the easiest tool for focusing on the task at hand, but you should also consider other costs like partnering with an editor or obtaining images for content (though I don’t necessarily recommend using a significant portion of your budget toward images). However, if you want to accurately calculate your SEO costs, spending time is the best investment.
For example, the guest post outreach process is sure to have a cost, but it’s important to think about the benefits and potential you get out of it. What ROI will you get, and how can you maximize it?
How to Calculate Link Value?
When building backlinks to your site, it’s important to assess the value each link will offer. One way of doing this is to ask yourself whether the website is popular and well-known. If you’ve heard of it, or if it’s within your niche, then it’s likely a good backlink. Examples include Forbes, Home Depot, and other large organizations with high website traffic. Of course, online tools can also be used to measure the value of a link but as an easy rule of thumb, a reputable website is usually a good link.
3 Basic Factors to Calculate Link Value:
Traffic Amount From the Site Giving You the Link
How much traffic does the target website get? You can get that number by using a lot of paid tools online. However, here’s a great free one:
https://app.neilpatel.com/en/traffic_analyzer
How Niche-Appropriate is the Target Site
If you’re looking to establish a backlink from a reliable website, then it would be more advantageous to target something like a Good House Keeping if you’re operating in the mold removal space. This is far better than a generic website like Medium.com.
How Easy is it For People to Find the Link on the Site?
Is the link prominently displayed on the homepage of the website? Is it easily accessible or is it tucked away in some obscure article? The more accessible and visible a link is, the greater the potential for increased traffic and improved ranking from Google.
⚡ Links that are closer to the homepage of a website will be seen as more valuable and important by Google. This is due to the increased attention it can attract from visitors, helping to make the website more visible in search engine rankings..
Nofollow Links vs Follow (Dofollow) Links
Congrats on your new backlink! To make sure the link you’re receiving is a follow link, you can use Chrome’s browser to quickly check. Simply right click and select inspect element, then look for the link the site has given you. This is important if you want to get the most out of your backlink. Moreover, websites nowadays have been given the capability to take some value away from their links (nofollow links), making it a great idea to make sure you get a follow link when sourcing backlinks.
Example here’s backlink Logic Inbound got from Shopify:
As you can see above by right clicking, clicking inspect element and then clicking on the link from my Chrome browser the code for the link is:
<a rel=”nofollow noopener noreferrer” target=”_blank” href=”http://www.logicinbound.com/” >Logic Inbound</a>
Here’s a dofollow link, one that Google looks upon favorably:
<a href=”https://logicinbound.com” rel=”follow”>logicinbound</a>
Why Every Mold Removal Business Should Use SEO
Optimizing search engine results is a must for any mold removal company’s marketing strategy. SEO has become an essential tool for driving potential customers to their business. With the right SEO strategy in place, mold removal companies can gain greater visibility online and increase the chances that homeowners will find their services through search results.
Of course, SEO is a highly technical and long-term process, which is why some digital marketing experts might suggest pay-per-click (PPC) advertising as an alternative for mold removal companies. PPC is completely fine, but it does come with its fair share of drawbacks, which we will discuss in a later section.
Long-term Benefits
The long-term benefits of SEO simply cannot be overlooked because of the following reasons:
Google is the De-facto Standard Search Engine of Today
Researching online has never been easier thanks to search engines like Google and Bing, which provide users with the best avenue for locating answers to their questions. While social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter may have large user bases, they simply don’t offer the same level of information gathering that search engines do.
The Indirect Benefits of SEO: Great Content and Authority
Content is essential to any successful SEO strategy. Crafting quality content can dramatically increase your ranking within Google and other search engines. However, many mold removal companies who own websites often overlook the importance of creating high-quality content which can ultimately hurt their digital marketing efforts.
If users don’t find your content engaging enough, they’ll leave your website. This, in turn, will increase your site’s bounce rate, which is never viewed favorably by Google.
To ensure a successful SEO strategy, it is important to ensure that the content published on your website is of high quality and helps you to establish an authoritative image in your industry or field.
Because of good content, users are likely to stay longer on your website, which sends good signals to Google. This will be reflected in increased ranking for your website.
Crafting content that is of high caliber requires significant effort and dedication, yet when all is said and done, it’s a worthwhile endeavor that every company should be aiming to present to their guests.
What about Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads?
If you’re looking for ways to maximize your mold removal business’s SEO strategy, online advertising is an option worth exploring. Google Ads (previously known as AdWords) is a great platform for leveraging the massive reach of the search engine and leveraging customer data to find the most ideal customers for your business. It’s an amazing way to optimize your marketing campaigns and reach more people than ever before.
But PPC can be painfully expensive, right?
The Cost/Benefit Equation
With pay-per-click advertising, each time a user clicks on your ad, you are charged. The more competitive your niche, the higher the charge. For mold removal companiess, each new lead is especially precious as they can include high ticket servicess, making the PPC rates for household maintenance work like mold removal high.
Hence, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a cost-effective strategy for achieving your desired position on Google’s first page. Previous sections have shown how it is done, and the evidence from our mold removal client case study is undeniable: once you reach the top of Google, leads will skyrocket. In short, SEO is incredibly worth it.
The ROI on SEO is Much Greater than PPC.
As a mold removal company, you have the opportunity to help those with mold issues. As a business owner, your goal is to grow your business. By investing in Search Engine Optimization, you can not only reach more people but also help even more individuals. Ultimately, both of these goals are linked and have one shared purpose – to provide the best mold removal services.