Carpet cleaning can be a lucrative business if you can generate consistent leads. It’s one of the many reasons there always seem to be a lot of new carpet cleaners. In order to continue to gain exposure to new customers staying up-to-date with carpet cleaning marketing ideas can help bring your sight the attention it deserves.
Starting a carpet cleaning business has low entry costs, high-profit margins, and with almost $5.4 billion in industry revenue to fight over, it’s the ideal business for many.
Still, the fact is some 95% of cleaning & janitorial businesses fail within their first year of operation, according to data from the International Janitorial Services Association. If you want your ensure your business can keep thriving, follow along. We’ve put together eight carpet cleaning marketing ideas to help do just that.
1. Choose a specialty and use traditional marketing methods
One of the best ways to make sure your carpet cleaning business is in the 5% that make it past the first year is to specialize in a niche. Choosing a specialty, like commercial carpet cleaning, for example, can dramatically increase your chances of success.
Not only will there be less competition, but you will also have an easier time ranking in search engines for important keywords.
Also, don’t be afraid to use traditional marketing methods to advertise your niche services, as many are still effective. From flyers to decorating your vans with your logo and number, not all marketing has to be online. However, the most effective marketing tactics these days are.
2. Start content marketing with a blog to generate inbound leads.
Another top carpet cleaning marketing idea is Content marketing. Content marketing is about creating and sharing quality, informative content online. This kind of content is created to educate your audience and generate consistent inbound leads.
From large to small, every carpet cleaning business should have a quality website. Part of what makes a website good or not is the content. In particular, adding a blog to your website can help generate inbound leads, improve your organic web traffic, and enhance your professional image.
Read more: 5 Carpet Cleaning Blog Topics for More Customer Calls
For example, ChemDry, one of the largest carpet cleaning companies in the US. They have an extensive blog where they share tips in different areas, from cleaning to green living and allergies.
Their blog helps establish them as an industry leader and draws in leads from customers who are looking for carpet cleaning advice.
Even smaller carpet cleaning businesses benefit from blogs. Here’s an example from Paradise Carpet Cleaners.
In the Paradise Carpet Cleaners’ blog, they post three times a month and touch on everything from cleaning tips to the best industry products. Content marketing takes time, but it’s been proven to be effective.
These days 77% of companies have a content strategy according to data from a 2019 SEMrush survey, so don’t get left behind. Start a blog and increase your inbound leads ASAP!
3. Create and optimize your GMB profile for local SEO
Before starting your blog, you need to establish your presence online so customers can find your business. The best way to do that is with local search engine optimization (SEO) and a Google My Business (GMB) profile(s).
Local SEO is the process of increasing your business’s visibility in local searches and on Google Maps. This all starts with a GMB profile(s). GMB profiles allow Google to feature your business in local search results. See the example below for the search ‘commercial carpet cleaning.’
The local results box appears above organic search results, but below paid ads. As you can see, landing a spot in these search results can lead to consistent inbound leads from customers looking for commercial carpet cleaning.
On top of that, your GMB profile will feature your business in Google Maps.
However, there are pages and pages of results. If you want to get to those top spots, you’ll need local SEO services and an in-depth small business SEO strategy.
4. Ask for and respond to reviews
Sometimes new carpet cleaning businesses are too shy when it comes to asking for reviews, even when they do a great job. Don’t be shy! According to a BrightLocal survey, some 68% of customers will leave a review if asked.
Reviews are incredibly valuable these days, especially for local businesses. In fact, according to data from the research firm BIA/Kelsey, 97% of people read reviews for local businesses.
Plus, according to Google, “high-quality, positive reviews from your customers will improve your business’s visibility” for local searches.
Not only that, but Google also says you’ll need to respond to reviews consistently to improve your rankings in local search results and on Google Maps for important keywords. “Responding to reviews shows that you value your customers and the feedback that they leave about your business.”
So don’t be shy, ask for reviews, and engage with your customers, it will become one of your most relevant carpet cleaning marketing ideas.
5. Build your local customer base with citations in business directories
Building a local customer base takes time and consistent quality services. However, if you don’t have that time, you can help save years of work building a customer base with local SEO to increase inbound leads.
One of the top tactics in local SEO is building citations in business directories. Citations are online references to a business that list your business name, address, and phone number (NAP) to potential customers. This can also include a link, map, and more, depending on the directory.
A lot of carpet cleaning companies like to get citations from general business directories like the Better Business Bureau. These citations are solid lead generators. Meaning, these citations help to improve your professional image, and improve your business’ local SEO.
Other carpet cleaning companies use more industry-specific carpet cleaning directories to secure citations. These are often free, and while the traffic to their websites is much lower, they provide more relevant referrals and a backlink. Backlinks are important in determining your business’s position in local and regular search results.
6. Get published in online publications to improve online presence
Getting published in online publications is one of the easiest ways to improve your online presence. Why?
Online publications will provide a backlink to improve your site’s domain authority. A backlink is a hyperlink from one site back to yours.
These backlinks will help you rank in top spots in search engines for important keywords. The higher you rank for relevant keywords, the more organic traffic your website will receive. More organic traffic = more sales.
If you’re interested in getting published in an online carpet cleaning blog, or in having a story about your business featured in an online publication, contact our Digital PR services team for more information.
7. Use local social media groups to market your services
One of the best ways to find carpet cleaning marketing strategies is to scour forums for unique perspectives. These can be community or neighborhood groups, where residents near you are always looking for quality services.
For instance, this carpet cleaning company owner, says they can make “about $2000 a week for free by posting in [their] local community groups (on Facebook).”
This carpet cleaning company owner follows a very simple strategy:
- Makes a Facebook ad with before and after shots of the carpet cleaning work
- Revisits the ads every two weeks to message people who engaged
The instant connection with potential clients is one of the reasons why you should consider using social media. Even if you don’t have the time to post every day, the smallest of social media efforts can yield big rewards. And a quality social media presence generates leads and creates a professional image for your company.
8. Complete a technical SEO checklist to ensure your site is squeaky clean
Finally, one of the most important parts of carpet cleaning marketing ideas or plans in our modern world is ensuring websites are properly maintained and optimized with carpet cleaning SEO. That way they not only draw in organic traffic but also convert that traffic into paying visitors.
The best way to do that is with what’s called technical SEO. There’s so much that goes into technical SEO that we can’t list it all here, but this quick checklist should help you get started making your site squeaky clean for your human and search engine readers.
- Set up SEO tools. Step number one for tech SEO is setting up SEO tools to track your website’s analytics and SEO optimization. That means at a minimum, installing and familiarizing yourself with Google Search Console, Google Analytics, and Yoast SEO plugin (for WordPress users).
- Submit a sitemap and check site speed. If you haven’t already, build and submit a sitemap to Google. It helps the search engine better navigate your site. Also, take advantage of Google Page Speed Insights to discover ways to improve your website’s page speed.
- Optimize headers and title tags. To clarify, optimizing headers and title tags is all about making your site readable not just for a human audience, but also for search engines. It’s done by using HTML code for title tags that would look something like this (<title> “title here” </title) and for headers H1, H2, H3, etc. in order of importance.
- Compress images and correct ALT text. If you want your site to run optimally, you’ll need to have small image sizes to make sure the files aren’t slowing down the site. You’ll also want to optimize the ALT text of your images. ALT text is a keyword or phrase that defines the picture in HTML code.
- Optimize for mobile users. Mobile-first is the name of the game. In fact, 52% of global internet traffic comes from mobile devices, so you need to ensure your site is properly optimized more mobile traffic.
Next steps to get started with marketing and SEO
If all these carpet cleaning marketing ideas sound interesting, you can take things a little further with a brief consultation with some marketing experts. We can help provide you with all the marketing ideas you could need.
In particular, it pays for most carpet cleaning companies to put their website through our free SEO audit. With this consultation, you’ll know just how much work you have to do to get those consistent inbound leads. Therefore, you’ll have a better understanding of what so many carpet cleaning companies have from SEO and other marketing tactics on this list.
At the end of the day, carpet cleaning marketing plans are what separates the best from the rest. So consequently, if you want your business to stand out, start marketing as soon as possible.
Markitors is a digital marketing agency specializing in SEO. We help small businesses rank higher on Google to get more traffic to their websites and increase revenue. Explore what’s in our SEO toolbox: audits and keyword research, digital PR, technical SEO, and local SEO.
