9 Step SEO Guide For Subcontractors to Win More Projects
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- Hi there, I'm Archie Begley, the proud owner of Construct & Growth. I am passionate about partnering with website design and marketing agencies by helping them to free up time while increasing profitability and helping their construction clients to acquire more high quality customers.
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9 Step SEO Guide For Subcontractors To Win More Projects
Are you the owner, a marketing manager or a marketing assistant within a growing construction company that is attempting to win more commercial projects? What if I was to say that this is achievable without relying on word of mouth referrals or submitting tender bids on crowded tender portals?
If you fit one of the profiles above then this article is perfect for you as it breaks down the core foundations of your marketing, Content and SEO strategy into clear, actionable steps which you can then implement directly on your website which will help your business to win more commercial projects while boosting profitability, strengthening your authority and driving sustainable long-term business growth.
1. Identify Your Overall Marketing Strategy
Before diving into tactics, it’s crucial to align your SEO and content strategy with your overall business direction. This means identifying your overall marketing strategy which includes getting clear on the services you want to carry out, the types of projects you aim to win, the locations you want to target, and most importantly, the clients you want to serve.
These clear answers will be used as the foundation of your SEO strategy which will contribute towards attracting your desired customers and helping your business to move in the right direction.
WHAT Services Do You Want To Promote?
Your “what” is the core service you offer and the value clients gain from it. Before defining this, narrow your focus—decide which services you want to grow and cut those you no longer enjoy or see value in. A streamlined offering sharpens your message, attracts the right clients, and aligns your SEO with your long-term goals.
For example, a building company handling both domestic and commercial work might choose to focus solely on larger commercial projects. This shift allows for a more targeted SEO and content strategy.
If your value is consistently delivering on time and on budget, then your “what” becomes,
“We deliver commercial building projects on time and on budget.”
Understand WHO Your Ideal Target Customer Is
After narrowing down the services you want to expand on, it’s essential to clearly define your ideal customer. This will guide both your content and overall SEO strategy. To effectively grow your chosen service areas, you need to identify who has the greatest need for them. For instance, if you’re targeting larger commercial projects, your key audience might be main contractors or architects who are responsible for purchasing your service and overseeing complex builds.
The more specific you are, the more effective your efforts will be in attracting your ideal customers.
Where Do You Want To Operate?
Knowing and then stating throughout your content later on the locations that you wish to carry out your service offering is essential to acquiring the correct customer.
For example, if your building company is based in Essex but aims to serve clients in Essex, London, and Kent, its important to establish this as it will later allow you to clearly state this throughout your content. It further help to attract the right prospects while filtering out enquiries from outside your service area, saving time for both you and potential clients.
WHY Should Your Customers Choose You?
Your “why” should be a statement which contains proof behind why clients should trust you over anyone else and it will become one of the most powerful parts of your messaging. It could be your specialist track record on complex commercial builds, rare accreditations that few others hold, working with partners or just by being consistent, reliable and easy to work with. Whatever it is you must be able to back it up with imagery, certification or data, and company logos. Ways in which you could evidence this include, “for the past five years, we’ve been Morgan Sindall’s trusted partner for all commercial roofing projects,” “We’re one of the few UK engineers certified to deliver Secured by Design security door solutions”.
HOW You Will Achieve This?
Your “How” is the method you use to help your ideal client achieve their desired outcome. For example, your commercial building company might help main contractors to complete commercial projects on time and on budget through implementing transparent and clear communication strategies from pre-project planning through to final completion.
2. Understand Your Sales Process
One of the biggest mistakes made in marketing is creating a marketing system or strategy that doesn’t align with the sales process. Fully understanding your sales process allows you to tailor your marketing funnel to feed straight into your sales team’s funnel and process so that they have the highest chance of succeeding at converting the prospect into a customer. To understand your sales process you must understand the following,
Chain Of Thought Leadership
Even though a single role like a procurement manager or an architect may sign off on the final purchase decision, the buying process in commercial construction often involves multiple stakeholders. For instance, a procurement assistant might begin by searching for “commercial roofing companies in London” before shortlisting three reputable firms. A technician may then assess the technical specifications of those options, narrowing the list to two based on suitability and performance. Finally an architect could then make the final choice based on factors like trust, track record, company values, and overall credibility.
Decision Makers’ Preferred Contact Method
Different sectors within the construction industry have different communication preferences. While some prospects may be happy to fill out a website form, others might prefer to send an email or schedule a Zoom call. If your website fails to offer the wrong communication type, viewers may not convert and become prospects and potential customers.
How Your Sales Team Will Contact The Prospect
Once you understand how prospects prefer to contact you, the next step is to understand how your sales team respond. For instance, if a commercial building prospect submits a website form, your team might follow up with a phone call or send tailored information related to their enquiry. Aligning your response method with the customer’s expectations helps build trust quickly and increases the chances of converting the lead into a project.
Whats Your Offer?
Creating a compelling offer can increase the likelihood that readers enquire and become prospects. Each business has its unique offering however you want to choose one that resonates with your service offering that the sales team can also fulfil. The offer should be of something like “contact us today for your free building survey report” or “Enquire from our experts today”
Plan Your Primary Call To Action
Your primary Call To Action should be your offer X how your sales team will respond to the prospect. The way in which your CTA is displayed will be your decision makers’ preferred communication method.
For example if a roofing company offered a free project assessment and the sales team responded to an enquiry by calling the prospect, the call to action would be “request your free roofing assessment and our roofing specialists will call you within 24 hours to schedule your on-site visit”. (CTA as a website form submission)
Another primary CTA could be “email our sales team and our team will respond within 24 hours to discuss your needs further” This CTA would be in the form of a clickable button on the website. This CTA would suit viewers who prefer to enquire through email.
Strategise Your Secondary Calls To Action
Your secondary calls to action should be alternative ways for viewers to contact you as well as those who aren’t quite ready to become customers who may have enquiries first.
Examples of a secondary CTA could be buttons that contains. “Email Us” or “Give Us A Call” or “Speak To Our Experts Today”.
3. Logically Structure Your Home Page
Fully structuring your home page to include the relevant information while offering content to all viewers is extremely important. Structuring your home page below will allow you to achieve this,
- Hero Section (Above)
- Which customers you serve and their pain points (Who)
- (What) you do to solve their pain points
- The value that you provide to your customers
- Testimonials/social proof
- Different service offerings
- Success stories
- Social responsibility
- Networks you’re part of
- How you work
- Primary Call to Action
- Frequently asked questions which handle objections
- Primary CTA+Secondary CTA
- Links to articles and supporting content
- Website footer
4. Create SEO-Optimised Service Pages
Each one of your product and service pages deserves its own detailed, keyword-rich page. For example a solar panel company should create individual pages for regular solar panel installations, flat roof, ground mounted, summer house, integrated solar panel installations and commercial solar panel installations.
The start of the page should be created in the same way as a home page which includes structuring the hero section in the form of title-tagline-call to action button. The rest of the page should be structured below,
- Hero Section
- Pain Points
- How You Solve The Problem
- Written Testimonials And Social Proof (award badges or industry certifications)
- Benefits Of Your Solution + Long Term Outcome
- Brief Information On Case Studies + Link To The Page
- How You Work (Schedule your free consultation and our certified experts will advise you on the best solutions to solve your needs)
- Form or CTA Button
- Frequently Asked Questions which also contain any objections
- Images of industry certifications or membership organisations
- Other Articles
- Website Footer
5. Create Engaging Success Stories
Success stories are the most powerful form of marketing as they clearly tell the story of how your product and service solved a problem for your ideal customers. An example of how success stories should be structured is listed below,
- Headline (Catchy and data-driven, we provided a commercial office fit-out 2X faster than our client’s previous subcontractor)
- Introduction (purpose of the case study – who it is for and what you want them to know, e.g the purpose of this case study is to show architects how our bespoke steel doors have reduced break-ins by 30%)
- About your client and their project requirements
- Initial consultation to understand their pain points, needs and what a desired outcome looks like
- The solution you recommended
- How you planned and executed your service offering
- The end outcome, ROI, benefits and takeaway for your clients
- Call to action that relates to the success story (are you looking to have your roofing project completed on time like X client, if so, request your free assessment below (website form)
6. Use Correct Call To Actions Throughout Your Content
Multiple Options For The Top Of The Funnel
Not everyone engaging with your content is ready to buy straight away. Often, someone lower down the decision-making chain, who may not have deep technical knowledge, is tasked with shortlisting or ruling out suppliers. A top-of-funnel article like “5 Hidden Plumbing Issues That Could Be Costing Your Commercial Building Thousands” primarily attracts readers who are looking to understand warning signs in their systems. If they recognise any of those issues, they will naturally want to move further down the funnel and view a comparative article. To satisfy this, the CTA on this TOTF article would be viewed as a middle of the funnel article, such as “What To Do If You’re Seeing Signs of Plumbing Problems in Your Commercial Building”, which offers helpful actions like DIY tips or contacting your team.
Middle Of The Funnel CTA's
In this middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) article, some readers might consider handling minor plumbing issues themselves, but many solutions will clearly require professional expertise due to the complexity involved. That’s why a strong CTA like “Contact Our Experts Today!” is essential. For those who are interested but need more reassurance, a secondary CTA could direct them to case studies showcasing how you’ve successfully helped other commercial clients, helping to build trust and encourage conversion.
Bottom Of The Funnel Content CTA's
The bottom of the funnel content should contain calls to action which tissues into enquiring about yoru services and becoming a prospect. These could include “request your free project assessment”, “contact us for your free quote” or “request your free project plan”.
7. Use High Quality Visual Content
High-quality visual content never goes a miss! Professional photography and videography always engage viewers and can help to build trust and credibility. Google can also detect AI images and stock photography, which is why authentic real-life photography and video graphy also helps to build trust with Google, subsequently helping SEO Rankings.
8. Showcase Testimonials And Social Proof
Showcasing testimonials and social proof can help you to build trust with potential customers who view your website as well as with Google which can help with ranking for your keywords, converting prospects into leads and them subsequently turning those leads into paying clients.
Testimonials can come in the form of a client writing something positive about how you helped them to solve a problem and achieve their desired outcome.. Social proofing can be in the form of showcasing industry partners that you work with, award badges even past clients that you have worked with.
9. Showcase Industry Regulations
Google looks for trust signals like industry accreditations when assessing a website’s credibility. Highlighting your certifications can boost your rankings, as Google prioritises content from businesses that appear trustworthy and qualified to speak on specific topics. Examples of Industry accreditations that you can showcase can be seen below,
- CDM Regulations
- HSE Safety Standards
- ISO Certifications
- GDPR (for marketing agencies)
Mention these in your service pages and trust pages to show that you’re a qualified company.
What Next?
Feel free to use the insights from this guide to improve your construction business website. If you have any questions or would like support, feel free to get in touch. If you would like to understand in detail how I could help you get more clients for your business, request your free SEO consultation below.
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