A Guide From Semalt On Positioning Of A Transport Company
Advertising a transport company is quite a demanding task. The competition is considerable and not idle, and there are only ten places in organic search results that guarantee a satisfactory level of conversion. In today's article, we will suggest how to approach the process of positioning a transport company. We will provide practical tips that will increase the probability of achieving high positions in the Google search engine. Enjoy reading!
What is the positioning of a transport company?
Positioning of a transport company consists in implementing optimal SEO (Search Engine Optimization) activities that improve the visibility of a selected page in organic search results for specific key phrases.
First of all, we recommend you optimize the technical side of the website, then select keywords, go to content optimization, and finally implement initial link-building activities. For clients cooperating with Semalt, we also recommend creating a Google My Business business card, which will also allow you to position yourself locally - increasing the group of potential customers.
5 easy steps to approaching transport company advertising
When starting the positioning of a transport company, pay attention to the following elements:
1. Technical optimization
Positioning should start with the implementation and improvement of the necessary technical aspects of SEO, including:- URL optimization (so that they are short and user-friendly);
- creating and editing a sitemap in XML format (sitemap.xml) and robots.txt file;
- implementation of redirects and SSL certificate;
- adding or reconstruction of meta tags (title - title and description - responsible for the page description);
- complementing the ALT attributes of the graphics.
When optimizing the website for technical SEO, we also recommend paying attention to the elements responsible for the UX (User Experience) of the website, including:
- minimizing the HTML and CSS code of the website;
- implementation of elements improving website responsiveness on mobile devices (e.g. smartphones, tablets, smartwatches);
- graphics size optimization;
- JavaScript file minification;
- elimination of multiple redirects;
- implementation of asynchronous file loading;
- adding the lazy loading function (a mechanism responsible for loading files only when they are needed, not when the website is accessed).
Applying the above principles will positively affect the performance of your website, which will improve the user experience and, consequently, your website ranking. In the technical context of SEO, it is also worth taking care of the optimization of Core Web Vitals indicators (FID - First Input Delay, LCP - Layout Contentful Paint, and CLS - Cumulative Layout Shift) responsible for the interactivity of the website.
2. Choice of keywords
We recommend that you choose low and medium-popular general key phrases as well as long-tail SEO ones. Their positioning is cheaper and much less time-consuming. It is also worth adding popular phrases to the positioning strategy, but we should not focus all the potential on them.
When choosing keywords for your shipping company ad, remember the following:
- general phrases such as transport company + seat location should be added on the home page;
- phrases with other cities (outside the headquarters) should be placed on separate landing pages and be positioned with phrases such as: "transport services" / "transport" / "logistics services" + specific location.
- SEO long tail phrases (e.g. "transport services in New York up to $150") allow you to get the highest conversion rate, being the cheapest phrases for positioning, because customers who enter them are aware and determined to buy.
Phrases are best searched using the Dedicated SEO Dashboard, which is a next-generation tool used by most SEO experts. In addition to the standard two or three-word keywords such as "New York transportation company", we recommend using long tail phrases (for example, "How much do transportation services cost in New York?").
Keywords can also be selected from the free tools. However, it is worth using a paid tool, which presents various very practical information about the keywords you should use. This will save you time and money.
3. Content optimization
The statement "Content is king" is still gaining in popularity - and no wonder, since properly prepared content in accordance with the SXO principles has a positive effect on search engine positions. Currently, guides and educational blog entries are of the greatest interest in the transport industry. Customers also prefer FAQ ( Frequently Asked Questions), i.e. the most frequent questions that answer key issues, including:
- Do you accept orders outside the European Union?
- Are the transports you organize insured?
- How much does the transport cost?
- Do your employees have appropriate qualifications?
- What means do you use to transport your parcels?
- Where is your headquarters located?
- Can I order as an individual client?
Thanks to this, the customer can find out the most important information from a potential carrier before making a purchase. It also facilitates the positioning of the transport company. How? Well, the FAQ section is usually a collection of the most popular long-tail SEO questions, the use of which will strengthen the authority of the site both from the point of view of Google robots and users.
What is worth remembering when optimizing content for SXO or SEO?
- implementation of additional graphics and instructional videos (if a given issue requires it);
- saturation of texts with key phrases (general - one- or two-word and long tail SEO, i.e. phrases consisting of more than 3-4 words);
- increasing the attractiveness of the article (e.g. by adding bullets, lists, or tables);
- taking care of the correct structure of headers (H1-H6);
- implementation of sections that will interest users (e.g. "Remember" or "Good to know" sections);
- strengthening the profile of internal links (adding links to help exhaust the topic);
- verification of the duplicate content phenomenon (we recommend checking if any subpage of your website contains the same content).
4. Link-building
Effective positioning of a transport company will be possible if we correctly perform all of the above activities and take care of a valuable and reliable profile of external links.
Dofollow links (i.e. links that affect the value of our website on Google) can be obtained in 7 ways:
- exchange of guest posts - send an offer to create a high-quality guest post to the press service related to transport (publishing the content will help to acquire not only the dofollow link, but also new customers who will be interested in your services);
- paid, nationwide websites - buy the dofollow link on a high-quality nationwide website (preferably, it should be placed in the department related to transport or forwarding);
- viral blog content - create a high-quality, substantive blog entry that will interest Internet users enough to become viral (then you will have a chance to obtain links not only from Internet users, but also from the largest portals);
- list of companies - a method that is currently evolving and which makes it possible to obtain a recognized business link exchange in your sector of activity;
- directories - prior to the Google Penguin Update, they were extremely effective, but now they are a good solution for diversifying links, increasing the probability of ranking high in SERPs ( Search Engine Results Page ), i.e. organic search results;
- advertising portals - new, valuable places for URL diversification (depending on your own preferences, you can place links on portals);
- comments on forums or blogs - in this case, remember that your account (e.g. on a given forum) should be credible, i.e. have a minimum of a few weeks (from the date of first registration) and at least 30-60 posts (then the dofollow link in the comment will be high-quality).
5. Google My Business card
Creating a Google My Business listing allows you to advertise your transportation company in a local context. To set up a business card profile on Google, go to business.google.com and perform the necessary steps.
Summary: positioning of a transport company
Positioning a transport company is quite a demanding task. As you can conclude from today's article - the most important are the skills we have. Just taking the time to implement specific actions is not enough because you need to be able to perform certain of them.
For this purpose, it is worth regularly training in the field of website configuration (e.g. in terms of website HTML and CSS code optimization), copywriting, and web analytics to verify the results achieved (thanks to this, we will know if the implemented SEO strategy is correct). We also recommend regularly reviewing changes to Google algorithms - if we keep improving, the updates of the Mountain View giant will not cause drastic drops in SERPs, i.e. organic (free) search results.
If you need to learn more about the subject of SEO and website promotion, we invite you to visit our Semalt blog.