Promoting your roofing company on the internet is a necessity in the modern world. When customers are looking for a roofer they are most likely going to find one on Google. This means your roofing company needs good SEO to ensure you rank well on Google. You want your roofing company to show up for relevant search terms because those searches will lead to customers going to your website, which leads to calls, which will lead to more business.

SEO should be important to any roofing contractor, but there are dishonest actors in the industry that promise you rankings and never deliver phone calls. It is important that roofing contractors hire an ethical SEO company that not only cares about getting you more business, but does so in an honest way that takes into account the long-term health of your business. Here are a few qualities of an ethical SEO.

They Ask You About Your Goals

As an owner, you know what is best for your company more than anyone else. Any SEO company you hire should be asking what you want out of a campaign. What are your long-term goals and what kind of leads do you want? They should help you care about more than just bringing in traffic to your website. They should care about leveraging that traffic into calls. Any SEO company that only talks about rankings and never talks about calls is one you want to avoid.

They Under Promise and Over Deliver

An ethical SEO company will take responsibility for actually generating leads for your roofing company. They will do the keyword research to let you know what customers are searching for and which of those terms will actually lead to phone calls. Shady SEO companies will simply ask you what terms you want to rank for and try and rank you for that, even if it won’t actually help your business. An ethical SEO company will not promise to get you 50 phone calls and only get you 10. They will promise you 10 and get you 50. Ethical companies set realistic expectations and try to beat them.

They Are Transparent with Data

An honest SEO company will not hide data from you, such as how much they are spending per click on Google Ads, what terms they are forbidding, and where they are running ads. An SEO company should work in accounts that you control as opposed to them working in accounts that they control. I have heard stories from clients that thought they were only paying for ads for “tile roof repair” but the marketing company they hired was running ads based on their competitors’ names, or worse, their roofing company's own name. They will tell you they are generating phone calls for you but are actually spending your money to advertise your own name.

They Are Honest About Their Experience

An honest SEO company will be open to questions about their experience and their experience working in your industry. Ask them how many clients they have worked for, what is their strategy for getting links and how they have improved rankings for other roofers. An ethical SEO company will always give you a straightforward answer to these questions.

They Will Get You Good Links and Tell You Where They Are Coming From

You should always know where backlinks are coming from and how the SEO company you hired is getting those links. An honest SEO company will not try to get you shady links and never tell you where they got them. Too many SEO companies buy links as a shortcut to getting rankings. Not only is this practice against Google’s terms of service, it also opens up your website to the risk of a future Google penalty. Ask your SEO company for a list of the links they have built. If they are unwilling to provide that, then that is a red flag. If the links are full of random blog posts of unrelated sites, that is often a sign that they are buying links. An ethical SEO company will spend time trying to get you links from high authority websites and relevant trade publications.

Roofing companies should make improving their SEO a priority. Doing so will make it easier for customers to find you online. However, you want to ensure you hire someone who is going to find you authoritative and ethical backlinks that lead to calls. If an SEO company under promises and over delivers, is transparent with their campaign strategy, and has a track record of producing results, then your roofing company will be in good shape.