Struggling with Local SEO for My Appliance Repair Business: What Am I Missing?

[Anatoliy]

Hey everyone,

I’m the owner of a local appliance repair business, and I handle my own SEO (I’ve got a background in IT and marketing). Here’s what I’ve done so far:

- I’ve optimized my website’s technical SEO, hitting 100% according to aHrefs site audit. It’s indexed by Google and listed on citation directories.
- My landing pages are optimized for key search terms, and I regularly update the site with blogs and other fresh content.
- I manage two Google Business Profiles for my locations, keeping them updated weekly.
- We’ve been diligent about collecting reviews, and in our 4 years of business, we’ve gathered hundreds. My local pack rankings have been improving, according to Local Falcon.
- I’m building quality backlinks, steadily increasing over time.
- I’ve started regular posting on Facebook and Instagram to boost social presence.

Despite all of this, I’m still not ranking as high as I’d like for my main keyword (“appliance repair tucson”), and a few competitors are consistently outperforming me in organic search.

What could I be missing?

I track performance using GA4 and Search Console. I used SemRUSH in the past but found it wasn’t that accurate for local searches, so I stopped. Now, I’m considering Moz or aHrefs to figure out why I’m getting outperformed and to guide me on what to fix.

For those of you running SEO for local service businesses, what tools do you recommend for troubleshooting and improving rankings? What’s worked best for you?

Thanks in advance!

 

[Colan Nielsen]

For those of you running SEO for local service businesses, what tools do you recommend for troubleshooting and improving rankings? What’s worked best for you?

Places Scout is the tool I use everyday.

As far as ranking go, this article has some things you can look into - 5 Things to Check When Your Google Business Profile Rankings Drop - Sterling Sky Inc

 

[PaulSteinbrueck]

It sounds like you're doing a lot of things well. The first thing that comes to mind is your location(s) compared to city center and your competitors. I suggest using a local grid ranking tool to see how you're ranking at various places in your area.

And if you give the name of your company others in the forum might be able to look and see if there is anything else that stands out.

 

[Invalley]

Despite all of this, I’m still not ranking as high as I’d like for my main keyword (“appliance repair tucson”), and a few competitors are consistently outperforming me in organic search.

In cases like this, when you're trying to snipe very specific competitors that are ranking higher than you, it may be a good idea to try competitor link building. You can choose one of the competitors who rank higher than you, check a list of all the links they have using Ahrefs, and see which of those links you can copy. After all, if that page has that link and it is ranking higher than you, then at the very least getting the link won't hurt you. And it may help close the gap between the two of you.

Landing guest posts and publishing press releases isn't trivial. But if your competitor has hired a link building agency, there is a good chance that a lot of their links will just be in forums, business directories, stuff like that. Links you can copy easily with a bit of manual work.

 

[Anatoliy]

That would be an obvious thing to do, however, my biggest competitor's backlink profile looks much like mine, even slightly worse (mine is 5staraz.com):

The data is from Moz, and it is not very accurate: in my profile I see missing a lot of links with high DA. For example, here's the top of my backlinks list from the linkody.com:

So, all this tells me that my problem is not in my backlink profile...

 

[Anatoliy]

It sounds like you're doing a lot of things well. The first thing that comes to mind is your location(s) compared to city center and your competitors. I suggest using a local grid ranking tool to see how you're ranking at various places in your area.

And if you give the name of your company others in the forum might be able to look and see if there is anything else that stands out.

The company name is 5 Star Appliance Repair (Tucson, AZ).
Website: 5staraz.com

I'm doing pretty well in local packs for my East and West locations (according to localfalcon.com):

West is where most of my competitors are located.

But it is the natural search results ranking for my main (biggest search volume) keyword "appliance repair tucson" that I'm falling behind, and I can't understand why...

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[DB_from_localpanda]

I looked at the websites that are ranking for organic search for "appliance repair tucson" and the ones ranking higher than you have significantly better website UI/UX, structure and speed.

Here's one that is ranking higher for organic search:

AFFORDABLE APPLIANCE REPAIR OF TUCSON | UPFRONT RATES

Appliance Repair of Tucson offers comprehensive services for refrigerators, ice makers, dryers, washers, cooktops, ranges, stoves and ovens.

appliancerepairoftucson.com

This is your website:

also, the domain is very closely related to the keyword. While domain may not be in your control, optimizing your website design, structure and speed definitely are

 

[tf131]

I looked at the websites that are ranking for organic search for "appliance repair tucson" and the ones ranking higher than you have significantly better website UI/UX, structure and speed.

Here's one that is ranking higher for organic search:

AFFORDABLE APPLIANCE REPAIR OF TUCSON | UPFRONT RATES

Appliance Repair of Tucson offers comprehensive services for refrigerators, ice makers, dryers, washers, cooktops, ranges, stoves and ovens.

appliancerepairoftucson.com

This is your website:

also, the domain is very closely related to the keyword. While domain may not be in your control, optimizing your website design, structure and speed definitely are

While I agree that site speed can play a role in your rankings. It's typically only if it's absolutely awful. I see sites that are slower than ours and don't pass core web vitals outrank us for the same core money keyword alllllll the time in certain markets (we're a multi-location franchise), and vice versa. Your content, ux/ui, site structure, and quality digital footprint should be a higher focus with your speed scores. So long as you're passing core web vitals, that's as far as I would worry about it.

But here's a few things to consider after looking at your site:

1. You've got content for the wrong appliance on a handful of your appliance pages
2. Your service pages are not in your header menu, they should be.
3. I ran a screaming frog audit, you have all these category pages... that aren't linked anywhere on the site. They also have no content on them outside of the links to the blog posts. I'd either make them linkable as a sub nav on your blog home page and beef them up, or get rid of them and redirect to those service pages.
4. You should connect/list your GBP reviews to your website via API, it makes your business seem more credible, and it certainly can't hurt from an SEO perspective. The way you have that 5 star image all over the site may actually work against you from a conversion standpoint.
5. On the "find a location near you" section - I suggest changing that to links to your GBPs.
6. If you service multiple cities in the area, I would consider adding service area pages
7. If you ever go offsite to the client's location to do repairs, consider trying Nearby Now - this allows you to do daily check-ins with coordinates and check-ins schema in the backend code of the page. It's really cool, and it's working well for us. Great way to keep a continuous flow of unique keyword-rich content onto the site - good for google and good for conversions.
8. Consider playing around with the content on a few of your service pages and see what happens. Look at competitors in your area and in other major markets that rank really well and try to mimick in part what they're doing. I definitely think the UX/UI and content on your site can be improved, it's really not bad, but there's room for improvement. I suggest starting there because your home page is probably your primary traffic driver, so try with less prominent pages first. But your home page could use work too.
9. Continue to build your digital footprint - local PR is a great way to get more links and build brand recognition in your area. I'm not sure how you're acquiring links, but if you're just paying for basic link packages that all these agencies offer, it's likely not going to help you. One simple example could be offering free appliance repair for a major non profit or school or something in the area in exchange for linking you on their website, then you can do social and blog posts on it, and have it shared with some local publications, even your chamber of commerce to see if they'd be interested in featuring you. Other things like guest posting on sites relevant to your industry. Become a regular contributor of a blog that's relevant to your industry. HARO type sites are also a good thing to keep an eye out for opportunities.

That's all the time I got, hope this help!