SEO Marketing Strategies for Transportation Companies

The larger your transportation company’s website gets, the more opportunities for technical problems to occur. While it might seem intimidating at first, it’s best to get on top of it now before things get worse. At SyncShow, we recommend conducting a technical assessment of your website on a quarterly basis. This is a great way to check in and make sure everything is still functioning properly. If you use a good software or agency, they will also notify you of things that may have changed in Google’s algorithm since last quarter. This way, you can continue to stay up to date with the latest trends in SEO.

When conducting a technical SEO audit, there are many things to watch for including, but not limited to:

• Duplicate Content
• Broken Links
• 4XX Status Codes
• Site Security
• Robots.txt Errors
• Sitemap Issues
• Site Speed

Choosing the Right Keywords

Choosing the right keywords is a key piece in developing a solid SEO marketing strategy for transportation companies. The transportation industry has a lot of competition. That competition does not go away when it comes to choosing keywords to optimize your content around. Keywords are search terms that people type into Google. If your site is properly optimized around these search terms, Google will push your website to the top of its results page. There are three things to keep in mind when choosing which keywords to go after.

1. Search Volume

Search volume refers to the number of people per month who search for a term on Google. Simply put, if nobody is searching for a keyword phrase, it’s not a good idea to optimize your web page around it. Nobody will find you!

2. Difficulty

Keyword difficulty is a relative score that most SEO software (or even the free Google Keyword Planner) will give you. Some systems give a numerical score from 1 to 100 while others just state whether the difficulty is high, medium or low. This score refers to how difficult it would be to rank on page 1 for that keyword. Any keyword with high search volume is going to have a relatively high difficulty score. Don’t let that scare you! Just strategically pick keywords that are attainable for your website.

3. Search Intent

Search intent refers to why someone is typing a keyword phrase into their search engine. Are they a student doing research about third-party logistics companies? Are they a potential customer comparing you to competitors? Are they a regular person searching for a word with the same name as your services but a completely different meaning (i.e. Apple computers vs. apple the fruit)? Keep in mind search intent when choosing keywords so you can ensure the right people, like potential customers, are reaching your website.

If you need additional guidance or you’re ready to discuss your needs, please feel free to contact us today!

Creating Relevant Content

After you have identified a set of keywords that you want to go after, it’s time to start creating content around them. Creating content for SEO is often simply a numbers game. The more content you create, the higher your chances are to rank on Google’s first page. This is why blogs are often incorporated into marketing strategies for transportation companies. Blogs are an easy way to add more web pages to your site without it getting cluttered and ruining the user experience.

That being said, Google prefers quality over quantity. SEO tactics like creating numerous keyword-stuffed pages without any relevant content no longer work. In fact, not only do they no longer work, Google actually punishes sites that do this by flagging them and purposely not ranking them. To avoid being flagged by Google, create meaningful content that is of great value to your website visitors and leads.

Identifying Your Competition

When creating an SEO marketing strategy for your transportation company, it’s important to keep in mind business competitors as well as keyword competitors. Business competitors are the other transportation companies that are always on your radar and you generally keep a close eye on. However, you can also have keyword competitors in the SEO space. Keyword competitors are companies that may not compete for the same business as you, but they are trying to rank for the same keywords as you.

For example, many freight companies offer an ecommerce service to help online businesses ship large items. Shopify is certainly not a business competitor for a freight company. However, Shopify may write a blog post titled “The Best Ways for Ecommerce Businesses to Ship Items to Customers.” In that case, Shopify and the freight company are competing for very similar keyword phrases and content topics.

Using a great marketing agency and/or SEO software, you can identify which keywords are generating the most traffic for your business competitors. If it’s a keyword that also resonates with your business, try ranking for it too! Suddenly, you might just be stealing their website traffic and generating more leads.

Next Steps

Now that you have armed yourself with all kinds of SEO marketing strategies for transportation companies, you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed. Don’t worry—that is where we come in! Multiple logistics and transportation customers have relied on us to solve their most complex marketing needs. With many years of experience, our team knows how to communicate to and for transportation companies in a compelling and differentiated way. Contact us to discuss if partnering with SyncShow is the right fit for your company.