SEO for movers can work wonders; this is true. Especially local businesses like yours that provide moving services within specific locations.
The best part is that you don’t have to compete with enterprise businesses for short-tail keywords.
There are numerous opportunities to claim the top-ranking spots for local keywords, and this ultimate guide can help you get there.
Summary
- Start with Customer Research
- Carryout Local Keyword Research
- Create Mover Service and Location Pages
- Leverage Google Business Profile
- Craft Top-notch SEO Content
- Apply Link-building Strategies
- Get Citations in Directories
- Perform Technical SEO
- Manage your Online Reputation
- Monitor your Local Search Rankings
- Build Online Presence with Content Marketing
- Final Thoughts
- FAQs
Effective Strategies for Moving Company SEO
As a moving company, SEO helps you appear in two coveted spots on Google: local three-pack and first page of organic search results. We’ve prepared moving company SEO strategies to guide your SEO efforts.
Start with Customer Research
Before beginning your moving company SEO campaign, you must know your customer’s needs and desires.
You already know what they want from a moving company. Are there other needs and expectations besides just moving?
What objections do they generally have about moving companies? The answer to these questions can make your business and SEO campaign stand out.
Here are a few ways to get accurate customer data:
- Take down the common questions they ask before hiring your service.
- Go to forums like user forums like Reddit, Quora, and social media groups to find problems people encounter when moving places.
- Search for the top problems your business solves on Google and see what the “People also asked” and “People also search for” sections reveal.
- Interview or survey your previous customers to get insights and feedback.
- Study the comments section of top movers on YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.
- Monitor reviews on your site, Google Business Profile(GBP), and online directories.
With this information, you can create your customer persona – a representation of your ideal customer.
It also includes their demographics, pain points, values, online activity, etc. A customer or buyer persona will help you create tailored SEO campaigns to target potential customers.
Carryout Local Keyword Research
Keyword research is the foundation of search engine optimization(SEO), and you must include it in your web content. Add them to your site’s home page, service page, articles, FAQs, and other web content.
Keyword research should be a breeze if you’ve researched your target audience correctly.
Here’s a step-by-step process to find relevant local keywords:
- Enter a problem, question, or service in a keyword research tool like Niche Empire, Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz.
- They will likely reveal several relevant keywords, such as “moving companies near me” and “moving services.” Target local keywords using the “include” filter by entering the cities, towns, and states you serve.
- Repeat the process for other keywords and use these filters for:
- Informational Intent: how, what, why, guide, tips, tutorial, ideas, steps, and benefits. These are for answering questions and concerns of people who need your services.
- Commercial Intent: best, top, affordable, pros and cons, pricing, alternatives. These keywords are suitable for searching for a moving service.
- Transactional Intent: near me, now, today, buy, purchase, discount, and deal. Transactional keywords target people on the verge of choosing a moving company.
You can use these filters to find keywords for your blog posts and service pages.
- If you want more keywords, you can check your competitor’s website using SEO tools like Niche Empire, Ahrefs, or Semrush and identify the keywords they rank for.
- Filter the keywords according to your service locations and user intent and save them.
Learn more about local SEO for small businesses.
Create Mover Service and Location Pages
Now is the time to put your keyword research to good use. If your website is new, you have to create service pages for all your services.
For old websites, you can optimize by updating your web content.
For example, you can create service pages for residential, commercial, and special moving services. Also, you create location pages targeting the locations you serve and optimize them with location-specific terms.
Here are some practical SEO best practices for service and location pages:
- Add your primary keyword in your H1 (title) and related terms in other headers like H2-H4 (subtitles, sub-subtitles, etc).
- Add your primary keyword in your title tag or meta title and meta description.
- Use your keywords naturally throughout the body copy of your website and even a landing page.
- Add your primary keyword in the page URL slug. Example www.movingcompany.com/residential-moving
- Write a descriptive Alt text and file name for every visual (photos, infographics, and videos).
- Ensure your website loads fast and is optimized for mobile devices.
- Add structured data so your page can appear on search engines with star ratings and number of reviews.
- Make sure there is enough white space in your web content. Use headers, short paragraphs, and bullet points to make your content easy for the eyes and more readable.
Finally, use high-quality images of your business, customer testimonials/reviews, and compelling copy to gain trust and boost sales.
Also, try acquiring backlinks to your website to increase your website authority and rankings on search engines.
Get more details on SEO basics for your new website.
Leverage Google Business Profile
After optimizing your website, listing on Google Business Profile(GBP) comes next. Google Business Profile(formally Google My Business) can help you rank high in the Google Map pack or local three-pack.
This is especially crucial because of the nature of your business and movement to and from different locations.
You can set up your GBP by entering your service category, service locations, NAP(name, address, and phone number), business description, working hours and days, etc.
To optimize your Google Business Profile, follow these steps:
- Go to Google Business Profile and claim your business.
- Fill in your accurate business information in every field.
- Include all your services in your profile and select relevant categories that suit your business.
- Use local keywords like “local mover in (town/city) and “professional movers in (city/state)” in your business description.
- Upload original photos and quality videos of moving processes, trucks, and others.
- Ask your previous customers to leave reviews on your profile.
However, if you’re unsure, you can get inspiration from your competitors that rank in the local three-pack or hire local SEO services.
Our DIY SEO strategies for small businesses might interest you.
Craft Top-notch SEO Content
SEO content is a key part of your campaign; without it, you can’t give value to your potential customers. It will also be challenging to drive traffic to your website and business.
Start by creating content ideas using local keywords and planning your content calendar.
Creating various SEO content forms, like how-to posts, guides, case studies, listicles, and question posts, is best.
The more quality and relevant SEO content you create, the higher your chances of ranking on local search results.
A schedule will keep you on track for publishing blog posts and articles on your website. After publishing, promote it through social media and email newsletters to get more visibility and engagement.
In addition, regularly analyze your content performance with SEO tools like Niche Empire, Ahrefs, or Semrush to know the keywords you’re ranking.
This will help you improve your content strategy and SEO efforts.
The on-page SEO strategies also apply to your service pages.
Find out the difference between on-page SEO and Off-page SEO.
Apply Link-building Strategies
Publishing valuable content on your website is not enough; your next objective is to get backlinks to your web content.
However, the problem is that website owners and businesses in your industry or related fields will not link to your website just like that.
You must create original, in-depth content to attract backlinks or launch an outreach campaign.
We’ll guide you through the best SEO tips for link-building:
- Create original content that can’t be ignored. Provide intelligent and practical information to establish your business as trustworthy and reliable. This can include thought leadership content, skyscraper content, surveys, or data studies.
- Give quotes to journalists and writers on platforms like Source of Sources and Featured.
- Reach out to the businesses in your industry and link to your competitors.
- Ask for backlinks from related business partners like real estate agencies and home renovation companies.
- Guest posts on websites in your niche to acquire backlinks.
- Contact businesses that mention your company on their website and request a linked attribution.
- Offer content to replace broken links and outdated resources on other quality websites.
- Identify and reclaim broken or lost backlinks to your web content due to page errors or URL changes.
All to know about SEO links.
Get Citations in Directories
Online directories are pretty similar to Google Business Profiles, which contain a brief overview of your business.
And they also contain key decision-making information like customer reviews, star ratings, business descriptions, and website URLs.
Citations from listings put you in front of your local audience looking for packing and unpacking companies. You will also get a no-follow backlink to your site, which doesn’t have direct SEO value but can still contribute to it.
So, sign up for online directories that cover your service location. You can start with popular platforms like Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Angi(previously Angie’s List) and narrow down to more local listings.
Perform Technical SEO
Technical SEO plays a significant role in your website ranking on search engines like Google and Bing. Your website must be user-friendly and responsive for users to follow, allowing search bots to crawl and index your important pages.
Well, here is a technical SEO checklist to ensure your website functions optimally:
- Optimize your website for mobile users.
- Ensure your website loads quickly. Downsize images, use a content delivery network and use browser caching to improve your website speed.
- Fix broken links, error pages, and redirects on your site.
- Use a robot txt file to avoid wasting your crawl budget on pages you don’t want to appear on search engines.
- Ensure there is no orphan page on your site, i.e., pages with no internal links from other pages.
- Delete duplicate content and improve thin content and pages on your site.
- All your important pages should be in your XML sitemap.
- Every page should be accessible from your home page with a maximum of 4 clicks.
- Audit low-performing pages or articles with little or no traffic.
You’d need tools like Niche Empire, Screaming Frog SEO Spider, and Google Search Console to perform technical SEO audits on your website.
Related Post: How to Identify and Repair Broken Links for SEO
Manage your Online Reputation
Positive reviews and high star ratings on GBP and online listings tell Google that you are your moving company is credible. This can result in your business claiming a spot in the local three-pack and search results.
Because of this, don’t leave your online reputation to chance. Instead, you find a strategy to get a lot of positive reviews.
You can achieve this by emailing your customers after each service to leave a review on your online listings, like your Google Business Profile.
Lastly, respond politely to all your reviews, both positive and negative.
Monitor your Local Search Rankings
It takes time before you start seeing the results of your SEO efforts. As you implement, closely monitor your local search rankings to identify the best strategies.
You can track your moving company’s site traffic and performance with free tools like Google Search Console and Google Analytics.
What should you look out for? Well, you should track your:
- Website traffic from different sources, like search engines, social media, emails, and direct online searches.
- Keyword rankings.
- Backlinks to look for link-building opportunities.
- Content performance.
- Click-through rates, impressions, user sessions, new site visitors, and bounce rates.
- Website index coverage.
Ultimately, you would want to monitor your website’s lead acquisition and conversion rates because that’s the goal of your SEO campaign.
Build Online Presence with Content Marketing

Content marketing involves creating and distributing content to attract, engage, and build relationships with your audience. It isn’t a direct search ranking factor but can contribute to brand awareness.
Imagine if you have 1k followers on your Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram, for instance. Sharing your web content on your social media handles allows you to convert to 100-200 referral traffic.
Then, with an effective SEO strategy, email list, and YouTube videos, your search traffic could double by engaging your audience on multiple platforms.
Examples of content you can create include blog posts, case studies, behind-the-scenes videos, and guides. Any form of content that informs, educates, or entertains your audience will work.
Occasionally, you can create promotional content to get prospects looking for a moving company.
Final Thoughts on SEO for Movers
These strategies can shoot your moving company to the top of the search engine result pages(SERPs) for keywords that matter to your business.
Remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget digital marketing strategy. You must keep learning and consistently find the best way to get your services to reach your potential customers.
Go ahead and start implementing these best-moving company strategies; in a short while, your efforts will pay off big time.
If you’d like to learn more about SEO tips, our website has tons of practical and valuable expert SEO content.
FAQs
1. What Makes a Moving Company Stand Out?
A moving company can stand out from its peers by offering excellent services and showcasing itself to many people.
2. Can I Do SEO By Myself?
You can do it yourself if you are interested and willing to learn SEO. Start by learning about the basics of SEO. Then, take a free or paid SEO course. Also, you can get an established SEO expert to mentor you.
3. Does SEO Cost a Lot of Money?
It depends. An average SEO budget could cost between $1000 to $5000 per project. It can also cost below $500.
It depends on the magnitude of your SEO campaign, the nature of your business, and whether you are hiring an agency or DIY.
4. Is SEO Still Profitable?
SEO can help you increase qualified traffic to your site and bring more leads, customers, and, eventually, sales.
It can help you target and convert prospects searching for your services on search engines like Google.
5. What is the Best SEO Tool?
There’s no specific answer because different tools serve different needs and users. However, Empire Niche offers robust SEO functions.
Other good SEO tools include Semrush, Ahrefs, Moz, the Screaming Frog SEO Spider, SE Ranking, Surfer SEO, Google Search Console, and Google Analytics.