PCT/BASF Announce 2020 Technicians of the Year - PCT - PCT Magazine

Editor's note: Go Local Interactive, a marketing firm that focuses on organic, paid, and web solutions for its partners, submitted the following article to PCT that focuses on three simple actions PCOs can take to establish an SEO-driven marketing strategy.

If you're a marketing department of one for your pest control business, it can be a challenge to juggle an in-depth, SEO-driven digital content strategy while focusing on operations. From discovering how to engage your audience on social media to answering your customers' pest-related questions through quality blog articles, it takes time, research, and creativity to produce content that your audience—and search engines like Google—wants to see. 

Fortunately, establishing a solid foundation to your digital content marketing strategy doesn't take thousands of dollars, complicated programs, or a ton of time if you know where to focus your efforts. The following guide from Go Local Interactive provides three easy ways you can level up your pest control content strategy — allowing you to connect with your current audience and establish trust with new customers throughout your service areas.

(1) CREATE DEDICATED SERVICE AREA PAGES WITH UNIQUE CONTENT. The first step to establishing a digital content strategy for your pest control business is to create dedicated service area pages on your website. No matter if you have one service area or 50, service area pages allow you to capture online customers searching for pest control services within your markets. 

For example, if you have a large footprint in a city like Chicago, IL, your website should feature a dedicated page with unique, location-based content for your Chicago customers. This content should include:

● "About" Content - In as few as 300 words, your service area pages should feature "about" content with location-specific keywords (e.g., pest control in chicago). This content could showcase general facts about the city, how far your service area spans, common weather patterns and climate that affects pest seasonality, and why pests are attracted to residential and/or commercial properties in this climate.

● Targeting Primary Pests - After you've established why pests might be attracted to this service area, detail the primary pests that local customers encounter. If a customer lands on your service area page by searching "pest control in chicago," they should know right away what types of pests you treat.

● Pest Control Options - Listing your specific pest control services or packages gives the user an immediate look at the breadth of what you offer. The more information the user has about your services right away, the easier it is for them to move down the sales funnel.  

●Why Choose Your Company - To conclude your service area page, it's best to provide a brief summary of why a customer should choose your company over your local competitors. Whether you have years of experience servicing the local community or you focus on eco-friendly treatments, this is a way to set yourself apart from other companies. 

To go one step further with your service area pages, create hyper-local pages that focus on neighborhoods and surrounding areas within your city-level service area. For instance, with our Chicago example, you could create a Deerfield, IL, location page that targets residents and businesses in that area with keywords such as "deerfield pest control." 

Note: If your pest control business has wide-spanning service areas, try to focus on creating unique location pages for cities or towns where you do most of your business first.  

(2) START A BLOG TO ANSWER YOUR CUSTOMERS' QUESTIONS. Your customers are flocking to the web to ask questions about pest control. Whether they are searching for DIY pest treatments or trying to find out why certain pests have invaded their space, starting a blog will allow you to answer those questions easily. 

Blogging about important pest-related queries will help your customers make informed decisions, increase your top-funnel awareness, and showcase your expertise, authoritativeness, and trust (E-A-T). Plus, E-A-T is also an important aspect of how search engines like Google rank your pages and website. 

Just how do you go about discovering the questions your customers are asking online? With a few simple, free digital tools, you can view historical search volume on the types of queries your customers are asking on the web:

Google Trends. Google Trends is a user-friendly tool to visualize the search results of a keyword or query throughout time. For example, if you search the term "ant control" in Google Trends and filter the data to show trends in Chicago, IL, during the last five years, you will see that searches for ant control spike around April through June each year. 

While this data doesn't give hard numbers on search volume, it does allow you to establish a publishing timeline or content calendar—helping you create fresh content that is relevant when users are in need of your services most. 

Answer the Public. Answer the Public is another great tool to discover what your customers are talking about on the web. Primarily focusing on questions, prepositions, and comparisons, this tool allows you to visualize common keyword-related queries in a mind map-style graph. Additionally, Answer the Public also gives you alphabetical lists of Google autocomplete suggestions that can appear when users type in a given query. 

Generating Creative Blog Topics. After you've done keyword research on Google Trends or Answer the Public, it's time to start developing a blog topic. Depending upon your market and pest seasonality calendar, you can create a topic that targets your customers' pest-related concerns or questions and your keyword selection. For example, knowing that the keyword "ant control" spikes around April through June each year, you can create a blog that encompasses both ant seasonality and ant control specifics. 

Whether your title is a first-person question your customers might ask themselves (e.g., "Why Do I Have Ants in My Kitchen this Spring?") or a complete overview of DIY ant control (e.g., "Your Guide to Dealing with Ants This Summer"), you can easily incorporate the keyword "ant control" into these pieces while directly answering your customers' questions. 

Note: Try to incorporate your keyword naturally, and don't go overboard inserting it into your content too many times. Search engines like Google will penalize your page if they identify keyword stuffing within your article.

Tackling Pest Control Blogs as a Non-Writer. Even if you have a blog topic and a keyword ready to go, the process of actually writing a blog can feel daunting. Rather than giving up before you get started, you can follow these rules to ensure your piece is thoughtful, engaging, and meeting standard blog best practices:

1. Write with the inverted pyramid in mind - In journalism, the inverted pyramid is a story structure that highlights the most important information first. Keep this structure in mind and answer the main purpose of the article in the introduction. After, you can focus on summarizing key details. 

2. Format for the web - The key to formatting blogs for the digital world is to make your writing easily scannable for your audience and search engines. You can do this by splitting up your writing into short paragraphs and splitting up main topic ideas into sections with their own headers. Additionally, things like bulleted lists and imagery placed throughout the article will break up walls of text and keep your readers hooked.

3. Insert digital media - A key element to blog writing is adding digital media throughout your text. Whether you have relevant photographs of technicians working in the field or a video documenting your pest control treatment process, customers are more likely to engage with your blog if captivating visuals are present to support the copy.

4. Include a call-to-action - At the end of your blog, it's important to provide your readers with a call-to-action (CTA). A CTA will give the user a clear idea of what action to take after they are done reading your article. Something as simple as, "Contact us today!" or "Get in touch with our pest control experts today and say goodbye to ants!" will help your reader move one step further down the sales funnel.

If you still feel uneasy about writing or your grammar skills, remember free writing tools are available online to help you compose a blog like a pro. 

(3) CONNECT WITH YOUR AUDIENCE ON ORGANIC SOCIAL CHANNELS. Organic social media messaging increases your pest control company's top-funnel awareness, playing an integral role in your overall sales funnel. Whether you're using Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, LinkedIn, or any other social media platform of your preference, social messaging showcases your core values to new customers and establishes trust with repeat customers. 

While knowing where to begin with social messaging might seem overwhelming, it's important to remember that posting on a social media account means focusing on the human side of your business. From creating a Facebook post centered around a customer's testimonial to publishing an Instagram post of a technician working on the job, effective social communication is a combination of your commitment to your customers, your field expertise, and interesting subject matter that captures the attention of your audience. 

Share Engaging Posts. Many avenues can create engaging content for social media. As an industry expert, you can do things like:

● Discuss your company's community initiatives.

● Share interesting pest control articles or infographics from other industry experts.

● Highlight your customers' real-world experiences with your services.

● Showcase your employees and how they make a difference to your business.

● Display captivating media (i.e., imagery, videos, etc.) that engages and inspires.

● Feature posts related to your pest seasonality calendar.

● Repost positive messages your customers tag you in.

Note: To establish a solid social media strategy, keep up-to-date with your social profiles and post regularly. If you share pest-related articles or feature a customer, employee, or industry-related product, include all appropriate profile tags so it's easy for others to share your post with their followers. 

Additionally, it's important to research popular hashtags related to your posts to reach wider audiences. But remember, only include a few of the most relevant ones rather than overwhelming viewers with a wall of tags.

Respond to Customer Communication. No matter what social media accounts your business has, responding to your customers' comments or concerns is critical for your overall brand sentiment. Even if a customer has responded negatively to one of your posts, let them know you've seen their message and that you're doing everything you can to remedy the situation. 

Remember, your customers' goals are your goals, so do your best to stay in direct contact with users who are interacting with your business. 

FINAL THOUGHTS. You don't have to be a digital marketing expert to establish a solid foundation to your pest control company's organic content program. To get started today, you can:

1. Create hyper-local service area location pages on your website.

2. Answer your customers' pest-related questions through timely blog writing. 

3. Connect and engage with your audience through social media channels.

By implementing these three strategies into your daily workflow, you can increase your brand's top-funnel awareness, showcase your E-A-T to search engines and your audience, and reach new customers in your targeted markets or service areas.