Article · Digital marketing
Starter’s Guide To Digital Marketing For Electricians
This guide simplifies how electricians and electrical business owners can get started with digital marketing. Follow these three steps to succeed.
01 / OPENING
First off, thank you for reading our digital marketing for electricians guide. The information here is to help electricians and electrical business owners to know the steps to take to get their company to be seen and found when customers need an electrician. We spent quite a bit of time researching and compiling this information for you.
To start, it’s important for electricians not only to be online but to be found. In the United States, the term “electrician” is searched, on average, 368,000 times a month. Doing a bit of easy math says that that equates to just over 12,000 searches a day. Similarly, the term “electrician near me” is also searched 246,000 times a month, or just over 8,000 times a day. So, people are looking for you online.
Some electricians will look at that number and think that it’s all well and good, but they’ve been in business for decades, their family business is well-known in the area, and they feel like they have a handle on their competition. Because of word-of-mouth referrals and friends they’ve made in the community, there’s no way their clients will choose someone else. Unfortunately, that loyalty and brand recognition only last so long as new people move into the area who don’t know you at all.
The reason we created this guide is to help explain what digital marketing for electricians looks like, provide recommendations on what to do, where to start, and how to get seen online continuously. Keep in mind, this is a great outline with a lot of steps, but it can be time-consuming. However, if you are serious about helping your company grow, let’s address how marketing for electricians has shifted over the years, then go through the three steps.
Shift From Traditional to Digital Marketing for Electricians
Looking back, marketing and advertising used to be a lot easier. How to advertise as an electrician included billboards, the phone book, radio ads, TV ads, and newspapers. Once people saw your ads a couple of times, they’d remember you and then call you when needed. However, with the internet and AI entering the conversation, it can take upwards of seven customer interactions to be remembered as a company.
Now, you may look at seven interactions and think that it’s not possible to see that many ads or interact with brands that much. However, Forbes estimates that people see at least 6,000 advertisements a day. As a local electrician, it’s foolish to think you need to be all of those ads they see, because people have many different needs. However, the idea is to be in front of your audience in your market when they need your electrical skills and become your leads.
So, now that we’ve established plenty of people are online searching for electricians and have a lot of potential interactions with ads every day, let’s walk through the first three steps of digital marketing for electricians.
02 / KEY IDEAS
Step 1: A Website Is Your Digital Storefront
In the center of your company’s online presence is a website. It is the only place online where you can control everything that is posted, said, displayed, read, and produced. In essence, it is the source of truth for your electrical company. So, what information needs to be on there, and how do you create a website that will engage the reader and help them choose you over any other electrician in the area? Well, we’ve listed a few things to keep in mind when building your website. Most companies will have a professional web development agency build it for them, but it’s good for you to know, so as not to build a website blindly.
Note: Only having a Facebook page for your business isn’t enough.
Basic Website Information
Ok, this may sound obvious and goes without saying, but there are a lot of electricians’ websites we’ve visited that don’t have the company’s name, address, phone number, email address, or service area plainly and easily found. These basics should be front and center, obvious, and quickly read. If a customer goes to your website and they don’t know if you service their specific neighborhood or area, you’ve lost a customer. Likewise, if they don’t know what phone number to call, they can’t contact you.
Starting Website Size
A good strategy for a new basic website is to start with at least ten pages. While this starter site won’t bring in a large number of leads, it’s a good place to start. What’s surprising is the state of the websites of the electricians we’ve audited. Out of about 160 electricians’ online businesses, we found the following:
- 5.10% of the websites were down
- 7.01% only had a Facebook page
- 22.92% don’t have a website at all
- 36.95% of websites have 10 pages or fewer
- 20.38% have 11-49 pages
- 7.64% have at least 50 pages
Design The Website For Mobile Use
A common mistake for electricians is that they build their website on a laptop and look at how it interacts, feels, and looks. However, when it is placed on a mobile phone or tablet, the appearance gets squished, the layout changes, the images are not appropriately sized, and the buttons sometimes can go tiny and not be tappable.
Also, Google is now mobile-first indexing, meaning they will rank websites that are mobile before they’ll have desktop-only sites.
Clean Website Structuring
IJust like wiring a home or business, the organization and structure of your website needs to be planned and logical. Just as an easy reference, every website needs to have a home, about us, services, blog, and contact us pages. Once you get those basics done, you can add service pages dedicated to each electrical service, sub-pages for locations, and more.
Strong Calls-to-Action Everywhere
Remember, you’re not building a website just to have something nice and shiny online that is just for you as a pat on the back. It needs to be there to get the right information and get the visitors to take an action like calling, filling out a form, emailing, or otherwise providing information so that you, the electrician, know who came to the site and is interested. Some easy ways are buttons or links that say “Book Your Inspection”, “Get Your Free Quote”, or “Call For Emergency Services”. These need to be everywhere, but not spammy.
Consistent Layout and Design
As people go through your website, the design and layout should be cohesive and consistent. Major differences can leave people confused, unable to navigate easily, and they usually will jump off the site before having a second thought. Part of that consistency is branded coloring, logos, and speaking style. Think of it like reading a story in a book. If the story dramatically changes, people put the book down.
Images and Videos
This is one that we also see lacking a lot on websites: good images for the content on the site. Some of the images that are needed include pictures of the owners, master electricians, workers, and staff. Next, have before-and-after pictures of projects or jobs that you have worked on. We can safely say that less than 5% of websites we’ve observed have minimal to no images of jobs done.
In terms of videos, they help increase engagement on pages and to draw in the viewer. Videos can be DIYs, introductions of the workers, or shorts that talk about something specific for customers to do on their own. The trick with images and videos is to embed and size them appropriately so as not to slow down your website.
Step 2: Optimize To Appear Locally
Claim Your Google Business Profile
Claiming your Google Business Profile (sometimes called GBP) is an easy way to instill confidence in your local market. Your profile (which used to be called Google My Business) features your name, address or service area, phone, reviews, links to social media profiles, and your website. If you don’t work on your profile, Google will guess about the information and create one for you.
To get an idea of what other electricians are doing, we reviewed the Google Business Profiles of close to 150 electrical businesses in three states and found that:
- 15.38% didn’t have a GBP at all
- 60% hadn’t claimed their profile
- 24.62% were actively managed
Optimize Your GBP
For your company to be better represented on your Google Business Profile, regularly upload high-quality images for new blogs, your team, completed projects, customer reviews, new technologies, special offers, and more.
Another easy way to improve your profile is to include what hours you’re open and what days you’re closed. While you can put that you’re open for emergencies, indicating when you’re closed will prevent awkward phone calls and upset customers from calling you when you’re not available.
A final tip is to always respond to customer reviews. You have the ability to send all of your customers a link to leave a review, but you need to respond to each and every review, regardless of how positive or negative they are.
Theme and Keyword Targeting
Every new entry on your website, whether it’s a blog or a page, needs to have a planned focus in mind. So, before adding anything new, think about who wants to read that information and how they’re going to find it. For example, if you are an electrician wanting to get new customers in Phoenix for new construction, create a page specifically about that theme.
You can also create a blog with the dos and don’ts of wiring a new home or office. Like this blog, ensure you cover all the information that your readers want to read. After your page or blog, look at sub-themes or topics. The more relevant and accurate the information, the higher the chance your website will be cited by AI tools like Claude, ChatGPT, and others.
Note: Do not forget to include geographical wording like city and state in the text a few times to ensure information appears locally.
On-Page SEO Fundamentals
On each of your pages or blogs, formatting the information to be easy for Google to index and AI to cite will help the information to be processed and ranked. Ensure that each page and blog has title tags, meta titles, meta descriptions, proper headers, and alt tags for the images. These technical markers help map the information clearly and allow crawlers to understand what each element is.
Individual Service Pages
For each of the services that you offer as an electrician, your digital marketing would be incomplete without letting your clients know all that you can do. Mentioned before was creating a master page that lists all of the services that you offer. Once that’s done, create a subpage for every service that you offer and then expand on how you perform those services, what those services entail, what the customer can expect, and so on. To help, here is a list of ideas:
- Residential Services
- Commercial Services
- Emergency Services
- Wiring & Rewiring
- New Construction
- Ceiling Fan Installation
- Outlet & Switch Installation
- Electrical Inspections
- Appliance Wiring
- Generator Installation
- Home Theater Wiring
While this list is not all-inclusive, be sure to create enough pages to represent what you do properly.
03 / TAKEAWAY
Step 3: Content Marketing For Local Expert
With current content and information improved, now comes the part of creating new content that is pertinent to your clients. This has been said many times, but content is king online. We’re not talking just writing anything and posting it. That’s like throwing everything against the wall and seeing what sticks. What we’re talking about is content that answers questions, provides valuable insights, and enhances the customer’s experience. There are different types of content that you can create.
Blog Content That Drives Traffic
Most of the content that is created by companies as a whole is via blogs. You can find out how many blogs is good for your website to know what to plan for with your electrical site. When writing your blogs, you want to choose topics that people want to read. You can write about topics like “Top 10 Electrical Safety Tips for Homeowners”, “Know When You Need To Upgrade Your Home’s Wiring”, or “What Appliances Cause The Most Electrical Problems”. As with current content, new blogs need to target specific themes and keywords.
YouTube And Videos
Videos on any platform attract more attention, bring more viewers, and engage more people. While Google is the most visited website in the world, YouTube is in the second spot. Since YouTube is owned by Google, having great content on both platforms will help your digital marketing as an electrician. Your videos don’t have to be a professional shoot with a large budget. Rather, think about the quality of the content and information you’re giving. Videos can also be used on Social Media platforms and repurposed many times.
Infographics
One easy way to give a lot of information in a simple and sharable format is through infographics. Some simple ones that you can create is a basic explanation of how wiring is done in a home, where most energy in your home goes, and safety tips. Like videos, they can be shared on websites, social media, and sites like Reddit. These informational images can help position you as an electrical expert.
Scheduling
One of the keys to content marketing is consistency. Regardless of how much content you create, keep a schedule and stick to it. When we’ve reviewed websites of electricians, it’s crazy to see how many haven’t posted anything new on their website for at least a year. Customers want to know that you are active, current, and the business is still open.
That’s How To Start Digital Marketing For Electricians
So, let’s recap. Digital marketing for electricians starts with a website that has basic business information, is mobile-friendly, is cleanly structured, has frequent calls-to-action, is consistent in its layout, and is full of images and videos. Once the website is up, claim your Google Business Profile, optimize it, focus pages on a theme or keyword, implement fundamental SEO practices, and expand with individual service pages. Next, expand with content marketing that has good blog content, videos, infographics, and a schedule of when to post.
Now, if this beginner’s list of digital marketing for electricians might come as a shock (yes, pun intended), it’s the way to get started. It would be tragic for your company not to be seen on Google or AI tools because you don’t have these three steps covered. If running a business and taking care of your clients ties up your time, and you need additional help, our digital marketing experts at Burning Ox Marketing can help.