What searches should an electrician's website target?
Short answer
The searches for the specific jobs you want, in the cities where you want them. "Electrician" alone is too broad to build a site on. Group searches by job (urgent repairs, panel upgrades, EV charger installation, lighting, rewiring), give each job a page, and include the questions homeowners ask before a planned job.
An electrician’s website should target searches for the specific jobs the company wants, in the cities where it wants them, along with the questions homeowners ask before a planned job. The word “electrician” covers work that has little in common, so a site built around that one word matches none of it well. The useful unit is the job.
Start with the jobs, then find the words
The list of jobs decides everything after it. Write down the work you want more of and the work you’d turn down. A typical residential list has small urgent repairs, panel upgrades, EV (electric vehicle) charger installation, lighting and rewiring. Each is searched by a different customer in different words.
Then find the words real people use, which is a matter of knowing which keywords your customers search. Google Search Console shows the searches your site already appears for. Typing a job into Google shows the completions and related questions other people have searched. Your own phone log is another source: the way a caller describes a problem is usually the way they typed it.
Four kinds of search for each job
The same job turns up in different kinds of search, and they are won in different places.
| Kind of search | Example | Where it’s won |
|---|---|---|
| Job and city | “panel upgrade La Mesa” | The job page, and the map pack |
| Symptom | “breaker keeps tripping” | A repairs page that names the symptom |
| Question | “do I need a panel upgrade for an EV charger” | A plain answer on the job page |
| Near me | “electrician near me” | Your Google Business Profile and your distance from the searcher |
The last row is one many owners ask about, and it’s the one a web page influences least. There’s no page to write for “near me”. Ranking for near me searches rests on the profile and your distance from the searcher.
Searches to leave alone
Some searches bring visitors who will never hire you, and electrical topics attract a lot of them:
- People doing the work themselves (“how to wire a three-way switch”).
- Job seekers and students (“electrician salary”, “apprenticeship”).
- Shoppers looking for parts or a supply house.
- Jobs you don’t take, such as commercial work if you only do houses.
A page that ranks for a how-to search can bring plenty of visitors and no calls. Visits aren’t the goal. If a report shows traffic rising while the phone stays quiet, this is one place to look.
One job per page, not one phrase per page
“Panel upgrade”, “electrical panel replacement” and “upgrade to 200 amp service” are, for most companies, the same job. Give that job one page and let the page cover the different wordings. Three pages for them would compete with each other, a problem called keyword cannibalization. One page that uses the wordings naturally is the better build.
Cities work the same way on an electrical company’s website. A separate page for a city is worth having when you can say something true and specific about working there, such as the age of the housing in Clairemont compared with newer streets in San Marcos. Twenty pages that differ only in the city name aren’t.
Deciding which searches come first
The order comes from what each job is worth to you and where you’re missing. I measure each job with its own rank grid, the same search run from many points across your service area, and compare the results with your list. Some searches are held by companies with years of reviews behind them, and I’ll say so before any work is spent on them. A job you want that is invisible in a city you serve goes first, and I leave alone a job that already ranks.