SEO for Pest Control: Become a Pro with These 12 Steps

The pest control market size is expected to grow to 34.3 billion USD by 2030. So if you want your pest control company to achieve infinite success, you should implement some SEO best practices to improve your website’s visibility and rankings.

Your SEO content Strategy should also be top-notch so that readers get fabulous content and become regular customers — or at least, keep coming back to you when the parasites go back to them. For pest control companies, we have compiled a comprehensive SEO guide to help you reach the success you dream of.

Why Is SEO Important for Pest Control Companies?

Competition is high in the pest control industry, so it gets challenging to attract and retain clients. But today’s digital age has brought search engine optimization (SEO) to the forefront of digital marketing ventures. 

SEO involves optimizing your website and online content to rank higher on search engine result pages (SERPs). This means it’s crucial to improve the visibility and organic traffic of your pest control professional’s website. 

Here are four reasons why having an SEO campaign is essential for pest control professionals:

1. Increased Organic Traffic

Good SEO = more organic traffic. Organic traffic is the number of people who visit your pest control website simply after finding it on a SERP — not through paid ads. So if you create informative and helpful content and optimize it for the relevant keywords, you can attract more visitors to your website who are interested in your pest control services.

2. Higher Brand Awareness

When you consistently put out content that ranks high on SERPs, people will know more about your pest control company. And when they do, you’ll become a go-to for anyone with a bug problem. On top of that, when you produce high-quality content, you’ll become a thought leader in the industry, which means more people will know you for what you do. The more people know and love your pest control services, the better your bottom line — and it’s all thanks to SEO.

3. Lower Costs

SEO is a cost-effective strategy for pest control professionals to improve their online presence and attract more clients. Unlike paid advertising, which can be expensive and may not provide long-term benefits, SEO can provide long-lasting results and improve your website’s visibility in the long run.

4. Concrete Measurable Results

With SEO, pest control professionals can track their website’s performance and see measurable results. By analyzing website traffic, keyword rankings, and other metrics, you can identify areas for improvement and adjust your strategy accordingly.

How to Implement SEO for Pest Control or Exterminator Company Website

Step 1: Develop A Website Architecture That Defines Your Core Service Areas

The first step to implementing better SEO for a pest control or exterminator business is to understand your company’s core areas. When you do that, it’s easier to conduct keyword research and develop a plan. 

For this step, you’ll categorize your offerings into core areas, then break them down into sub-areas. Here’s a table as an example: 

Core Offering Areas	Extended List of Sub-Areas
Residential Pest Control	1. Ants control 2. Bed bug control 3. Cockroach control 4. Flea control 5. Mosquito control 6. Rodent control 7. Spider control 8. Termite control
Commercial Pest Control	1. Ant control 2. Bed bug control 3. Cockroach control 4. Fly control 5. Mosquito control 6. Rodent control 7. Spider control 8. Termite control
Wildlife Control	1. Bat removal 2. Bird control 3. Raccoon removal 4 . Squirrel removal 5. Snake removal 6. Skunk removal 7. Opossum removal 8. Bee and wasp removal
Pest Inspections	1. Residential inspections 2. Commercial inspections 3. Termite inspections 4. WDO inspections 5. Real estate inspections

When you do this task, it becomes easier to conduct keyword research and develop a plan that targets specific areas of the business. This approach helps in creating a website architecture that is simple and easy to navigate for both users and search engines.

Step 2: Perform Extensive Keyword Research

Before you dive into the research for your pest control business, you should keep these three things in mind: 

1. Gather the list of keywords in each of the core areas of your website
2. Don’t keep any irrelevant or outdated keywords in your lists
3. Combine all the CSV files you get into one, but keep the individual files for extra organization

For this step, you can either use Semrush or Outranking.

Method 1: Use Semrush

1. Input a relevant keyword for your core area into the Semrush Keyword Research Tool, like “Termite control”, “Rodent control”, or “Bed bug control”

2. Remove all irrelevant keywords — i.e., the keywords that have nothing to do with what you’re trying to achieve

3. Download and combine the CSV files you get for each of the core areas

4. Repeat steps 2-4 for each sub-group in a core service area. For example, for “Termite Control,” you might have sub-groups such as “Liquid Termite Treatment,” “Baiting Systems,” and “Pre-Construction Termite Treatment”

At the end of it, you should get something like this:

Method 2: Use Outranking

1. Enter your defined core service area into Outranking’s available keyword generator

2. Refine the list of keywords using Outranking’s streamlined cluster analysis

3. Download the refined list of keywords for each core area and combine them into one file for easier management

4. Repeat this process for each sub-group in each core area, like “raccoon removal” or “residential inspections”

Step 3: Perform Keyword Clustering

Keyword clustering groups similar keywords together based on their meaning and intent. When you use keyword clusters for your pest control website, you can see which keywords are most relevant and valuable for your business. That way, you can create good content that resonates with your audience. 

For example, if you are an exterminator, your keyword list may include terms such as “pest control,” “termite treatment,” “bed bug removal,” and “rodent extermination.” By using a tool like Outranking’s keyword clustering tool, you can upload your keyword list and group them into clusters such as “general pest control,” “termite services,” and “rodent control.” This allows you to focus your SEO content strategy on specific areas of your business and improve your chances of ranking higher on search engine results pages.

When you get your clusters, you should pick a primary keyword for each cluster. It should have lower competition and fewer backlinks. Also consider:

• Whether you can create better content than your competitors
• How many backlinks do your competitors have
• What’s your topical authority for this matter

Note that keyword clustering — and SEO in general — can get quite complex. So it’s good to get an in-house SEO or marketing team for your pest control business.

Step 4: Create a Content Calendar And Stick To It

To prioritize keywords for creating and optimizing content for a pest control website, you should first create a list of primary keywords and groups related to pest control. Once you have your list, you can use Outranking’s keyword strategy topics and planner page to map out a plan and schedule for your content.

Outranking provides a priority-setting feature, so you can set keywords as High, Medium, or Low priority. You can then determine which keywords are most important for your business and should be focused on first.

You can also use this table to prioritize your keywords for a pest control website: 

Priority	Keywords Containing	Why
High	Termite control, Bed bug extermination, Rodent removal	These keywords are essential for pest control businesses, and ranking high for them can define you as a thought leader and support your important pages for the flow of information.
Medium	Ant control, Spider control, Mosquito control	These keywords can place your pest control business among many competitors and help you stand out in the market.
Low	Pest prevention tips, DIY pest control, Natural pest control	These keywords can define you as a thought leader and support your important pages for the flow of information, but they may not be as essential as the high and medium-priority keywords.

Step 5: Organize a Content Production Process

As a pest control business owner, implementing SEO can be a daunting task. However, having a process in place and creating detailed SOPs or content briefs is essential to ensure the success of your SEO strategy. The following two tips can ensure a thorough content creation and optimization process for your pest control business:

1. Create Solid Content Briefs

Before creating any content, it’s essential to have a clear understanding of the purpose, target audience, and goals of the content. Creating a solid SEO content brief will help you stay focused and ensure your content is aligned with your business objectives.

2. Setting up Workflows for Tasks

An optimal workflow helps you streamline your content creation process and ensure that everyone involved in the process knows what their role is and what they need to do. This helps you avoid confusion and ensures that your content is created efficiently.

By using these tips, your content creation process becomes seamless, productive, and efficient. 

Step 6: Create SEO-Optimized Content For Your Pest Control Website

Creating SEO-optimized content for each service page and blog is crucial for ensuring that your pest control business spends money on content that will yield results. SEO-optimized content helps improve the website’s organic reach, which means more potential customers can find your business online. 
So using on-page SEO tools like Outranking’s SEO content optimization and writing platform can help busy business owners with limited time to write and optimize these pages to ensure the highest possible organic exposure.

Outranking offers real-time optimization benchmarks for all on-page SEO aspects: titles, descriptions, outlines, headings, word count, common NLP terms, unique entities, lists, tables, statistics, media, links, etc. With its advanced features and real-time on-page SEO score and on-page SEO optimization capabilities, Outranking is the best tool for SEO content optimization, helping you to improve your website’s search engine rankings and attract more organic traffic. 

Hiring an agency, consultant, or freelancer can be costly and time-consuming, but with Outranking, busy small business owners can easily create and optimize their own content without sacrificing quality. You can learn more about Outranking’s features from the following video:

Step 7: Optimize Internal Linking

Optimizing existing pages for pest companies with better internal linking can help improve the overall traffic of the website. Basically, you’ll be taking some authority from pages that are already ranking and transferring it to the pages that aren’t. 

When you analyze your existing pages’ positions, you can find the ones ranking in the top 4-14 positions, and focus on them for internal linking. For your pest control site, you’ll want to optimize pages with keywords like “pest control services”, “exterminator near me”, “rodent control”, “termite treatment”, etc. 

Outranking can connect to Google Search Console and identify these pages while showing internal linking opportunities by integrating with the Google Search Console API. This will allow Outranking to pull data directly from the website’s Google Search Console account and provide suggestions for internal linking based on the keyword positions of existing pages. This can save time and effort in identifying the pages to optimize and improve the website’s overall traffic.

Step 8: Build Your Website’s Reputation With Backlinks And Citations

Your pest control business can’t thrive without local SEO. To get that, you need local citations and backlinks.

Local citations are basically mentions of your business’s name, address, and phone number (NAP) on other websites. Backlinks, on the other hand, are links from other websites to your pest control website. 

These two factors help search engines like Google verify the legitimacy of your business — is it real? Does it operate? And are your claims correct? At the same time, citations and backlinks can help more people discover your business online.  

Business directories also dominate search engine result pages. So getting your pest control companies on one of these directories can be a huge plus.

But it’s also important to note that citations come in two types: structured and unstructured. Structured citations are listings that display the NAP information in the same way, such as directory listings and social media profiles. Unstructured citations are contextual mentions of the business, such as blog posts or press mentions.

To build local citations for your pest control business, it’s important to focus on quality over quantity. Here are four steps to follow:

1. Get Listed with the ‘Big Three’ Data Aggregators 

These are companies that collect and distribute business information to other websites. The ‘big three’ are Data Axle, Localeze, and Acxiom. By getting listed with them, you can ensure your pest control business’s NAP information is accurate and consistent across a wide range of websites.

2. Submit to Other Core Sites 

These are websites that are relevant to the pest control industry or the local area. Examples include Yelp, Angie’s List, and HomeAdvisor. By getting listed on these sites, your business can increase its visibility to potential customers and improve its local SEO.

3. Submit to Popular Industry and Local Sites 

These are websites that are specific to the pest control industry or the local area. Examples include PestWorld.org and the local Chamber of Commerce website. By getting listed on these sites, your business can establish itself as a reputable and trustworthy source of pest control services.

4. Pursue Unstructured Citations 

These are mentions of the business that occur naturally on other websites, such as blog posts or news articles. By creating high-quality content and building relationships with other websites in the industry, your pest control business can increase the chances of receiving unstructured citations.

Here’s a table with a list of data aggregators and websites that a pest control business should get citations from:

Data Aggregator	Websites to Get Citations From
Data Axle	Yellow Pages, MapQuest, Superpages
Localeze	Yahoo Local, Bing Places, Foursquare
Acxiom	Facebook, Apple Maps, TripAdvisor

Step 9: Optimize Page Speed and Website Experience

It’s essential to optimize your page speed and website experience for better rankings in 2024. In fact, page speed directly affects user experience, bounce rates, and ultimately, conversions. A fast and well-optimized website won’t just rank higher on SERPs — it’ll also attract more customers and increase revenue for your pest control business.

To quickly optimize page speed and website experience, you can use better and lighter themes specifically designed for pest control websites available on CodeCanyon. Additionally, you can use Nitropack-like WordPress plugins to optimize your website’s performance and speed.

Step 10: Track Rankings Using Google Search Console

For a pest control business, connecting to Google Search Console and tracking website ranking is essential to increase organic traffic and improve the overall SEO content strategy. 

By analyzing the ranking data, a pest control business can identify which pages need better internal linking structure, uncover new opportunities to create fresh content, and expose underperforming pages that need improvement or redirection.

To interpret the website ranking data, a pest control business owner can use the following table as a guide:

Goal	Ranking Data	Action
Optimize internal linking	Pages with keywords in the top 4-14 positions	Identify your pest control’s web pages that need better internal linking structure to improve Pagerank
Find new opportunities to build topical authority	Pages with no ranking keywords in the top 20 positions that don’t align with the user’s search intent	Discover your pest control’s web pages with no ranking keywords in the top 20 positions that don’t align with the user’s search intent
Find underperforming pages	Pages with no ranking keywords in the top 20 positions that don’t align with the user’s search intent	Expose your pest control’s web pages with no ranking keywords in the top 20 positions that don’t align with user’s search intent

Step 11: Leverage Google Business Profile For Stronger Online Presence

Google Business is a free service that allows pest control businesses to provide more information about their business when it appears in searches, including photos, videos, business hours, and links to reservation services. To optimize your pest control company’s listing for local search, simply:

1. Claim and verify your Google My Business listing. Provide accurate and up-to-date info, and write your business name, address, and NAP 

2. Choose the most relevant category for your business, such as “Pest Control Service” or “Exterminator”. Make sure your service description is concise but keyword-rich

3. Add high-quality photos. You can show your team at work, your equipment, or even before and after shots of homes you’ve worked with. This will showcase your expertise and build trust 

4. Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews on your Google My Business listing to improve your visibility and reputation. Handle negative feedback with respect and professionalism

5. Use Google My Business Insights to track your listing’s performance and make data-driven decisions to improve your local search visibility

6. Ensure your NAP information is consistent across all online directories and platforms, including their website, social media profiles, and local business listings. Inconsistent or inaccurate NAP information can harm your local search rankings and confuse potential customers

Step 12: Focus on the Ultimate Goal: Leads and Conversions

Most websites focus on organic traffic because it’s a cost-effective way to attract potential clients to their site. Organic traffic is generated through search engine optimization (SEO) techniques, which involve optimizing the website’s content and keywords to rank higher in search engine results pages (SERPs).

But organic traffic isn’t always good, because it’s sometimes unrelated to your business offering. For example, one short-tailed keyword that brings lots of unrelated traffic is “pest control”. This keyword could get you organic traffic, but it’ll be from people just looking for DIY methods or general information about pest control methods. These people aren’t interested in your services.  

On the other hand, a more specific keyword like “termite extermination services” may only bring in a few people, but they’re more likely to be looking for professional pest control services. That means they’re a more targeted audience for your pest control company. 

It’s important to focus on leads and conversion and not get distracted by the traffic mindset because ultimately, the goal of your website is to convert visitors into customers. A high volume of traffic is meaningless if it doesn’t result in leads and conversions.

How to Evaluate an Agency to Help with Your Pest Control Company’s SEO

As with every other collaboration, you should pick your agency well. It all boils down to three key things. The three points below will help you assess each company you want to work with based on these ideas: 

1. Expertise, Reviews, and Results

When evaluating an agency to help with SEO for your pest control website, it’s important to look for expertise, reviews, and results. Here are some tips to help you make the right choice:

1. Check for creativity and innovation: The best SEO agencies are highly creative and innovative. Ask the agency what creative strategies they’ve implemented to help their pest control clients stand out from the pack.
2. Evaluate real-world SEO experience: Look for an SEO agency with a minimum of 5 to 10 years of real-world experience, preferably working with pest control or exterminator websites. Agencies with hands-on experience in your niche will have a better understanding of the competitive landscape and deliver superior SEO results.
3. Check for reviews and results: Look for an agency with positive reviews and a track record of delivering results. Ask for case studies or examples of how they’ve helped other pest control businesses improve their search engine rankings and drive more traffic to their websites.

2. SEO Services Offered

When evaluating an agency to help with SEO for your pest control business’s website, it is important to look for certain qualities that will ensure the agency can deliver effective results. Here are some key factors to consider:

1. Proven Process and Customized Approach: Look for an agency that follows a proven process and principles for SEO, but also tailors their approach to your unique competitive position in the pest control industry. 
2. Results-Driven: The agency should be focused on delivering results for your business, such as increased website traffic, higher search engine rankings, and ultimately more leads and conversions. 

3. Contract Duration and Flexibility

Make sure the agency you choose is transparent about its contracts and offerings. Don’t jump into a deal if it’s not exactly what you need. You should also avoid entering a contract that is longer than what you need — otherwise, you’ll be stuck with a company even if you don’t need it, which is a money drain. 

Need an SEO Strategist to Set up the Plan and Answer all the Pressing Questions?

If you’re a pest control company looking to improve your online visibility and attract more leads, it’s important to have a solid SEO plan in place. But that can be easier said than done. That’s where an SEO consultant and strategist can be useful. 

When you hire an SEO consultant like Outranking, you can get a comprehensive and effective SEO plan before you sign up with an agency. Our experts can help you with strategy, planning, and execution — so everything goes smoothly and gives the best results. 

With an SEO consultant on your side, you can avoid the pitfalls of DIY SEO and the uncertainty of working with an agency that may not have your best interests in mind. Instead, you can have peace of mind knowing that you have a trusted partner who will help you achieve your goals and grow your business.

So if you’re ready to take your pest control company’s online presence to the next level, contact us today because we’re here to help you every step of the way.