SEO For Gas Engineers: The Easy 7-Step Guide
SEO is an incredibly powerful marketing strategy for gas engineers and heating businesses. It helps you find local customers and doesn’t need a constant flow of money to keep finding work.
In the UK, there are tens of thousands of searches every month for local gas engineers. Have a look at how many there are just for the “near me” keywords:
In all of these searches, Google serves up results like this:
If you want to be the one who appears at the top of search results and is most visible online, you need to know your way around some basic SEO as a gas engineer. Keep reading or jump ahead:
What is SEO for Gas Engineers?
SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) is the process of improving your website so that it becomes more likely to appear in search results. There are many small modifications you can make that contribute to SEO, all working towards the goal of getting your company name directly in front of people who need the services you offer.
Here’s a quick breakdown:
- On-site optimisation: Everything from including relevant keywords in your content to writing good headlines.
- Technical SEO: Optimising your website’s structure and performance to improve loading speeds, mobile performance, and security.
- Content: Creating high-quality, relevant content that engages users and aligns with search intent.
- Link building: Building a network of reputable backlinks to boost your site’s authority and rankings.
Local SEO is King for Gas Engineers
Local SEO is a part of SEO that can help your heating business appear in location-based searches. For example, ranking for terms like “emergency plumbers in Manchester” or “plumber near me” ensures you attract local homeowners actively seeking plumbing services near them.
Local SEO ensures you’re visible to customers who need your services the most and live in your service area.
For example, if a customer searched for “gas engineer sevenoaks”, they would see something like this:
All of these businesses have lots of good reviews, a solid website, and good SEO. Other gas engineers who serve the same area are far more difficult for customers to find online.
Creating an optimised website with basic local SEO principles offers you:
- Improved Visibility
Potential customers searching for local keywords like “emergency plumber swansea” will find your business right when they need it. - Higher Conversion Rates
Local keywords are often searched by ready-to-buy customers. - Extra Trust
A strong local presence makes your business look more reliable to potential customers. - Competitiveness
Your competitors are investing in local SEO. To stay ahead, you need to optimise as well.
How to Master SEO as a Gas Engineer
1. Claim and Update Your Google Business Profile (GBP)
Your Google Business Profile is one of the easiest and most effective first steps in local SEO.
If you’ve ever searched for a brand or services, you’ll have seen a Google Business Profile. If you haven’t yet claimed yours, do this first. Here’s a quick guide from Google to help you with that.
Next, you’ll want to optimise it:
- Add accurate business details such as your name, address, phone number, hours, and services.
- Add all your different services
- Upload professional photos of your work, tools, or van (especially if you’ve wrapped it).
- More long-term, but encourage customers to leave reviews on Google and they’ll show up here.
- Be sure to link your website from your Google Business Profile.
- Write a description of your business that includes information about your services, where you operate, how many years of experience you have, and so on.
2. Use Local Keywords to Target Your Audience
Local keywords are essential for guiding nearby customers to your website. The first step is to find the keywords you want to target. There are some more obvious ones, but you’ll want to find keywords for all the services you offer.
How to find your keywords:
- Use free tools like Google Keyword Planner to find keywords with high local search volume.
- Start typing into Google and see what it auto-suggests.
- Note down phrases like “gas engineer near [Your City]” or “boiler service [Your Area].”
- Map out all your relevant local keywords for towns, cities, and regions you cover for each different type of service.
Tip: You do not need to write “near me” into your content, as Google will use location data to match the searcher with relevant local plumbers.
Adding keywords to your content:
- Use AI tools like ChatGPT or Google Gemini to help write your content. Let them know what your services are, what page you’re writing for, and what keywords you’re trying to include.
- Try to map certain keywords to specific pages. A good rule of thumb is to create a different page for each service you offer, as well as each location. For example, if you service both Stoke-on-Trent and Crewe, you should have pages for both. Likewise, if you do boiler servicing, drain cleaning, and bathrooms, then have pages for each of those.
- Don’t stuff keywords in content just to include them. Be natural, write relevant content, and Google will do the rest.
3. Join Local Directories and Build Citations
Citations are mentions of your business online, particularly in directories. These help confirm the legitimacy of your business to search engines.
How to build citations effectively:
- Add your business to popular directories such as Yelp, Checkatrade, and TrustATrader, and link to your website.
- Ensure your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) is consistent across all platforms, including your website and Google Business Profile.
4. Gain Reviews from Happy Customers
Online reviews are critical for SEO and building trust with local homeowners.
Quality reviews signal to Google that your business is trustworthy, and make it more likely for you to appear in search results.
At the same time, they quickly provide confidence to potential customers browsing these results.
Once you have reviews, be sure to include a few nice ones throughout your website, as well as before/after photos to demonstrate your experience and expertise.
5. Build Local Backlinks
Backlinks from trusted websites signal credibility to search engines, boosting your site’s ranking.
How to build local backlinks:
- Partner with local trades like electricians or builders and exchange links on your websites.
- Sponsor community events or local charities and request a mention on their websites.
- Submit your contact details to local business associations
- Paste your website link across all the different directories mentioned above.
6. Ensure Your Website is Mobile-Friendly
Nowadays, over half of website searches come from mobile devices. It’s crucial to make sure your site is easy to use on smaller screens as well as a computer.
Quick Wins for Mobile Optimisation:
- Use responsive web design so your site adjusts to any screen size.
- Make sure all elements (such as menus, phone numbers, and contact buttons) are visible and clickable on mobile.
7. Finish With Some Technical Optimisations
These are all the small things you can do on the back-end of your website that can help. For instance, many users will click away from a website that takes more than just a few seconds to load.
- Image optimisation: Large images are by far the biggest reason for slow websites. Instead of including fewer images, just make sure they’re compressed and ready for use on the web.
👉 A simple online image compressor can help with this, such as https://compresspng.com/
- Schema markups: These are structured data snippets added to your website’s code to help search engines understand your content better and improve search result visibility. For your user, this might appear as additional links underneath your listing, or star ratings as seen here:
Use Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper to quickly generate the code, which needs to be placed into the <head> code of the page.
There’s never been a better time to optimise your site
SEO gives long-term, reliable results – but it doesn’t happen overnight.
Start small, be consistent, and make changes gradually. Over time, you’ll see your visibility grow, your leads increase, and your customer base expand.
Then, with more jobs coming in, you’ll need some proper job management software to manage your time effectively. With Gas Engineer Software, you can create paperless & professional industry certificates, manage your customer data, and much more.