SEO for Commercial Cleaning and Maintenance: Ultimate 7-Step Guide [Our Agency’s Playbook]

SEO for commercial cleaning and maintenance websites has unique particularities, such as addressing an audience of decision-makers in their companies who need objective reasons to pick your company. And you must also invest heavily in local SEO.

That said, you’re on the right page to kickstart your SEO efforts.

We’ll show you:

• The tools you can use, with real use cases
• The examples you can copy
• Our ultimate 7-point strategy for commercial cleaning SEO

Let’s dive in.

What Is SEO for Commercial Cleaning and Maintenance?

SEO for commercial cleaning and maintenance refers to the strategic optimization of your cleaning service’s online presence to enhance its visibility on search engines. This specialized approach will connect your commercial cleaning and maintenance business with potential customers actively searching for cleaning services, building maintenance, and related offerings.

Search engine optimization for cleaning and maintenance involves specific tactics, especially if you have a B2B website.

Our agency recommends you to focus on the following pillars:

• Targeted keyword optimization: Identify and integrate keywords related to commercial cleaning, maintenance services, janitorial supplies, and industry-specific terms to improve search rankings and attract a relevant audience.
• Local SEO emphasis: Given the regional nature of cleaning services, local SEO strategies, including Google My Business optimization and local keywords, are crucial for reaching potential clients within specific geographic areas.
• Content strategy: Develop informative and engaging content that addresses your prospective customers’ needs. Consider cleaning tips, maintenance guides, and the benefits of professional cleaning services to establish authority and trust.
• User experience and website optimization: Ensure the cleaning service’s website is user-friendly, mobile-responsive, and fast-loading to provide a positive experience for visitors and improve SEO rankings.
• Link-building: Getting mentions from authoritative websites in your industry is an important search ranking factor for Google. The more domains pointing to your content assets, the higher you can rank – if you also have a good content strategy and fix your technical and on-page issues.

Here’s a good example from Maintenance One:

Their website has a low DR of just 23. However, their organic traffic value is $14,700.

Insider tip: Even without digging deeper, we can say that’s thanks to a solid keyword strategy, seeing as they’re ranking for 7,000 keywords.

Also, they have 830 backlinks from 236 referring domains. This part could be slightly improved, but we’ll discuss all this below. First:

Why Do You Need SEO for Your Commercial Cleaning Website?

We know business referrals are a powerful source of clients in your business. However, SEO can create a streamlined source of long-term potential customers. You can even nurture your existing customers better so they can return or purchase more expensive packages.

Let’s get back to Maintenance One’s website analysis.

A quick glance shows their performance wasn’t always great:

In July 2019, for example, they had 393 monthly visitors and an average organic traffic value of $568.

You can see the ascending curve starting in November 2022, when they doubled down on their SEO efforts.

Tl;dr: SEO’s primary goal is to increase the online visibility of commercial cleaners, making it easier for potential clients to discover their services through search engines. This long-term strategy can drive more organic traffic to your website, generate leads, and ultimately convert these leads into loyal customers.

Just like Maintenance One.

Here’s why:

• Increased visibility in search results: SEO helps your website rank higher in search engine results for relevant queries, making your business more visible to those searching for commercial cleaning and maintenance services. Thus, optimizing your website for search engines helps you stand apart in a competitive market and ensures potential clients can easily find your services online.
• Cost-effective marketing: Compared to traditional advertising, SEO provides a cost-effective way to reach your target audience. Once your website ranks well for key terms, it continues to attract potential clients without the ongoing costs associated with paid advertising.

• Relevant traffic: SEO allows you to target specific keywords related to commercial cleaning services, ensuring that the traffic coming to your website is from potential customers genuinely interested in your services. That means solid search engine optimization helps you attract more marketing-qualified leads.
• Local client acquisition: For cleaning services operating within specific geographic areas, local SEO strategies can optimize your online presence for local searches, connecting you with nearby clients more likely to convert.
• Builds credibility and trust: Potential customers perceive a well-optimized website with a high ranking in search results as more credible and trustworthy. High-quality content that addresses customer concerns and showcases your expertise further enhances your reputation.
• Long-term results: Unlike paid advertising campaigns that stop generating leads once the campaign ends, the benefits of SEO are long-lasting. With ongoing optimization, your website can continue attracting potential clients.

Let’s get back to Maintenance One and look at its performance:

The website has 72 pages, bringing hundreds of visitors per month. Its pages also have high-traffic values.

Even more interesting:

Notice that the website’s number of organic pages has decreased over time while its organic traffic increased.

That’s what a good SEO strategy can do for you: first, you invest more effort into creating relevant content, and then you can reap the results.

Our Agency’s 7-Step SEO Plan for Commercial Cleaning Websites

If Maintenance One’s journey has convinced you, here’s our SEO company's 7-step plan you can copy and implement today.

We recommend this plan specifically for commercial cleaning and maintenance businesses. However, you can also steal it if you’re in B2C.

1. Pick an SEO Tool and Conduct an SEO Audit

At Blue Things, we believe that data-driven results come faster and are easier to control.

That’s why you need a comprehensive SEO tool with which to perform an in-depth SEO audit. This foundational step helps identify opportunities and improvement areas in your website’s current SEO setup.

Choosing an SEO Tool

Select a versatile SEO tool that offers a broad range of features, including keyword research, website audit capabilities, backlink analysis, and competitor insights. Tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs, or Moz are popular among professionals for their extensive functionalities and user-friendly interfaces.

Insider tip: We love Ahrefs for keyword research. We also use Google Analytics and Google Search Console to monitor our clients’ websites’ performance, understand trends, and grasp consumer search behaviors.

Related: Ahrefs vs. SEMrush vs. Ubersuggest: The ULTIMATE 7-Point Comparison Guide

Conducting an SEO Audit

An effective SEO audit for a commercial cleaning website involves several key steps:

• Technical SEO review: Assess your website’s technical aspects, such as website speed, mobile responsiveness, and secure connections (HTTPS). Ensuring your website is technically sound is crucial for both search engine crawling and user experience.
• On-Page SEO analysis: Examine on-page elements like title tags, meta descriptions, and content quality across your service pages and blog posts. Each page should be optimized for relevant keywords that potential customers might use to find your services.
• Content evaluation: Evaluate the relevance and usefulness of your website’s content. For a commercial cleaning website, content should address common customer questions, showcase your services, and highlight your expertise in the field.
• Backlink profile assessment: Analyze the quantity and quality of external websites linking to your website. A strong backlink profile from reputable sources can significantly enhance your website’s authority and ranking on search engine results.
• Local SEO check: For cleaning services, local SEO is particularly important. Ensure your Google My Business profile is claimed, verified, and optimized and that local citations across the web are consistent and accurate.
• Competitor benchmarking: Identify your main competitors and analyze their SEO strategies. Understanding their strengths and weaknesses can offer valuable insights and help you identify gaps in your own strategy.

2. Keyword Research

Effective keyword research is the cornerstone of any successful SEO strategy. It involves identifying the terms and phrases potential clients use when searching for cleaning services, which guides content creation and optimization efforts.

As you can see, Maintenance One’s team of SEO content strategists found very lucrative target keywords addressing their audience’s key pain points:

Here’s how you can do it, too.

2.1. Identify Seed Keywords

Start with broad seed keywords that represent your core services and industry focus. For a commercial cleaning company, these might include “commercial cleaning,” “office cleaning,” “building maintenance,” and “janitorial services.”

These seed keywords are typically more competitive.

Take “janitorial services”:

With a keyword difficulty of 18, a new website might need about 20 referring domains to rank in the top 10 – possibly much more to rank among the first three.

However, Ahrefs suggests several keyword ideas that can be easier to rank for. These are called long-tail keywords.

2.2. Expand to Long-Tail Keywords

Branch out from your seed keywords to more specific long-tail keywords. These could be more detailed phrases like “eco-friendly commercial cleaning services in [Location]” or “after-hours office cleaning services.”

Long-tail keywords are less competitive and more likely to attract qualified leads.

For example, “janitorial services near me” is easier to rank for and still has a decent search volume.

2.3. Understand User Intent

Categorize the keywords based on user intent to ensure your content aligns with what potential clients search for. This can include:

• Informational content: Users looking for information, e.g., “Benefits of professional commercial cleaning.”
• Navigational intent: Users searching for specific services or companies.
• Transactional intent: Users ready to hire a cleaning service, e.g., “Commercial cleaning quotes” or “Book office cleaning service.”

If we go back to Maintenance One, you can see their website features a slew of such topics across search intents.

Insider tip: Employ keyword research tools like Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush, or Ahrefs to uncover additional keyword opportunities, understand search volumes, and assess competition levels. These tools can also provide insights into related keywords and questions potential clients might have.

2.4. Analyze Competitors

Examine the keywords your competitors rank for, especially those with high search volumes and low competition. This can help you identify gaps in your own keyword strategy and find new opportunities for targeting.

For example, Ahrefs reveals the following competitors for Maintenance One:

Stratus Clean and The Rug Cleaners have the highest content gap, so we can reveal hidden gems in their strategies.

In seconds, we can uncover close to 1600 new keyword ideas:

Plus, we can filter these ideas by keyword difficulty and search volume to get relevant keywords that are easier to rank for.

Insider tip: Notice that we’ve clicked to exclude the brand name “Stratus” from the search results to get more relevant search terms.

2.5. Local Keyword Optimization

Given the local nature of cleaning services, incorporate geo-specific keywords relevant to your service areas, such as “commercial cleaning services in [City]” or “[Neighborhood] janitorial services.” This is crucial for appearing in local search results and attracting nearby businesses.

Insider tip: Correlate factors like monthly search volume, keyword difficulty, and cost per click when you pick your local keywords. Obviously, make sure they’re relevant to your actual location.

2.6. Keyword Mapping

Assign each keyword to specific pages on your website, such as service pages, blog posts, or FAQs. This ensures every page targets relevant search queries, improving your website’s overall SEO and user experience.

3. Content Creation

Content creation is pivotal for enhancing your website’s SEO and user experience. It involves crafting informative and engaging content that:

• Highlights your services
• Addresses potential clients’ pain points and questions

We advise our clients in the commercial cleaning niche to focus on the following content assets to begin with:

3.1. Content for Service Pages

Develop comprehensive service pages for your offerings, such as office cleaning, industrial maintenance, or specialized cleaning services. These pages should clearly articulate your services’ benefits, processes, and unique selling points, incorporating targeted keywords naturally.

Remember: Include compelling calls-to-action (CTAs) that guide visitors towards taking the next step, whether it’s requesting a quote, booking a service, or contacting you for more information. The purpose is to increase the conversion rates.

3.2. Content Linking to Service Pages

Enhance your content marketing strategy with blog posts, case studies, and guides that delve into topics relevant to your services and industry. For example, a post on “The Importance of Regular Office Cleaning for Employee Health” can link to your office cleaning service page.

Remember: This type of content not only drives search traffic to your service pages but also positions your company as a knowledgeable authority in the commercial cleaning sector.

Here’s a good example from Maintenance One:

You can also notice the internal links pointing to their resource pages.

On the downside, they didn’t optimize their images – but we’ll discuss all that in the on-page optimization section.

3.3. Content Addressing Customer Pain Points

Identify common challenges and questions your potential clients face and develop content that provides solutions and advice. These are also very likely organic search queries.

For instance, create content on “How to Choose the Right Cleaning Service for Your Business” or “Top 5 Maintenance Challenges in Commercial Buildings.”

Pro tip: Use data from your chat bots, customer panels, interviews, or sales team to ensure you address the right pain points.

3.4. Content Showcasing EAT (Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness)

Google values content that demonstrates Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness (EAT), particularly for businesses in service industries like commercial cleaning.

Here’s what we would do for your website to maximize EAT:

• Enhance your About Us page by detailing your company’s history, mission, and your team’s expertise. Highlight certifications, awards, or industry memberships that underscore your credibility.
• Develop a Gallery page showcasing before-and-after images of your work, client testimonials, and case studies to demonstrate your expertise and results visually.
• Optimize your Contact page to ensure it’s user-friendly and provides multiple, easy ways for potential clients to reach out to you.
• Craft a comprehensive FAQ page that answers common questions about your services, cleaning processes, safety protocols, and pricing. This not only aids in SEO but also helps build trust by addressing potential concerns upfront. Therefore, you can attract more qualified leads and convert more website visitors into clients.

4. Local SEO

For commercial cleaning and maintenance companies, we recommend having a well-optimized Google My Business profile as a key component of your local SEO strategy, enhancing visibility in local search results and Google Maps.

Here’s how to effectively set up and optimize your Google Business profile:

4.1. Claim and Verify Your Listing

Start by claiming your GMB listing. If one doesn’t exist for your business, create it. Then, go through the verification process, typically done via a mailed postcard, phone call, or email, to confirm your business’s location and authenticity.

4.2. Optimize Business Information

Ensure your business name, address, phone number, and website are accurately listed and consistent with the information on your website and other online directories. This consistency is crucial for local SEO.

4.3. Choose the Right Business Category

Select categories that best describe your business, such as “Commercial Cleaning Service” or “Janitorial Service.” Accurate categorization helps Google understand what your business offers and match your listing to relevant searches.

4.4. Craft a Compelling Business Description

Write a detailed description of your services, highlighting what sets your cleaning and maintenance business apart from competitors. Incorporate relevant keywords naturally to improve your profile’s search visibility.

4.5. Upload High-Quality Photos and Videos

Add professional photos of your team, equipment, before-and-after shots of cleaning projects, and any other visuals that represent your services. Update your gallery regularly to keep your profile engaging and relevant.

4.6. Collect and Respond to Online Reviews

Encourage satisfied clients to leave positive reviews on your Google business profile. Actively respond to all positive or negative reviews to show that you value customer feedback and are committed to providing excellent service.

4.7. Utilize Posts to Engage with Your Audience

Use the Posts feature to share updates, special offers, or useful tips for commercial cleaning and maintenance. This keeps your profile active and provides valuable information to potential clients.

4.8. Add FAQs and Messaging

Use the Q&A feature to answer common questions about your services preemptively. Enable the messaging feature to allow potential clients to contact you directly through your GMB profile.

5. On-Page Optimization

On-page optimization is essential for improving the visibility and effectiveness of your commercial cleaning website in search engine results.

Think of on-page elements like words or symbols for search engine crawlers. You want those symbols to be accurate so crawlers can index your website. Besides, on-page optimization also makes your website user-friendly.

Warning: This task is time-consuming and not very exciting. However, we advise you to take the time for it because it can show big improvements in your SEO.

5.1. Optimize Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Craft unique and descriptive title tags and meta descriptions for each page, incorporating relevant keywords. For a service page, a title might be “Professional Office Cleaning Services in [City] | [Your Company Name].” Ensure meta descriptions offer a clear value proposition, encouraging clicks from search results.

5.2. Use Header Tags Effectively

Organize content using header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to improve readability and SEO. The H1 tag should include your primary keyword and provide a clear overview of the page’s content. Subsequent headers can be used to structure content and include secondary keywords.

5.3. Optimize Content with Keywords

Integrate relevant keywords naturally into your web content, including service descriptions, blog posts, and FAQs. Avoid keyword stuffing; instead, focus on creating valuable, informative content that addresses the needs and questions of potential clients.

5.4. Improve URL Structure

Use concise, SEO-friendly URLs that include keywords. For example, use "/commercial-cleaning-services" instead of a generic or overly complex URL. A clear URL structure improves user experience and search engine understanding of your page content.

5.5. Optimize Images

Images can make your compelling content even better. However, they must load correctly to enhance your blog post. Ensure all images on your website have descriptive file names and alt attributes that include relevant keywords. This not only aids in SEO but also improves accessibility for users with screen readers.

5.6. Internal Linking

Use internal links to connect related content within your website, helping users navigate and discover more of your services. This also aids search engines in crawling your website and understanding the relationship between different pages.

6. Technical SEO

Technical optimization ensures that your website is structured and coded so that search engines can effectively crawl, index, and rank your content. Addressing technical SEO improves website functionality and user experience. And both are crucial for search engine rankings and customer satisfaction.

So, focus on:

6.1. Site Speed Optimization

A fast-loading website is a powerful tool for keeping prospective clients engaged and decreasing bounce rates. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to identify and rectify elements slowing down your website, such as large image files, unoptimized code, and slow server response times.

6.2. Mobile Optimization

With the increasing use of mobile devices, your website must perform seamlessly across all screen sizes. Implement a responsive design to ensure your website is accessible and user-friendly for mobile users.

6.3. Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate

Security is a top priority for users and search engines. Install an SSL certificate to encrypt data between your server and the user’s browser, indicating to visitors that your website is secure, which is signified by HTTPS in your web address.

6.4. Crawlability and Indexation

Ensure search engines can easily crawl and index your website by optimizing your robots.txt file and submitting an XML website map to search engines. This helps search engine bots understand which pages are important and should be indexed.

6.5. Structured Data Markup

Implement schema markup to provide search engines with more context about your content, enabling rich snippets in search results. For a commercial cleaning website, you might use Local Business, Service, and Review schema to enhance visibility and click-through rates.

6.6. 404 Error Management

Regularly check for and fix broken links and 404 errors. These not only detract from user experience but can also hinder search engine crawlers. Setting up proper 301 redirects for deleted or moved content helps preserve link equity and guide users to relevant pages.

6.7. Duplicate Content

Address duplicate content issues by implementing canonical tags, indicating to search engines which version of similar content is the preferred one. This prevents the dilution of ranking signals across multiple pages with similar content.

6.8. Hreflang Tags for Multilingual Websites

If your commercial cleaning business operates in multiple regions and languages, use hreflang tags to tell search engines which language you are using on a specific page. This helps deliver the most language-appropriate content to users in different regions.

7. Off-Page SEO

Off-page SEO enhances your website’s authority and online presence beyond its own pages.

Our team uses a mix of strategies aimed at building your website’s reputation and trustworthiness to improve search engine rankings and attract potential clients.

Here’s a page out of our playbook:

• Quality Backlink Acquisition: Focus on earning high-quality backlinks from reputable websites within the cleaning, maintenance, and business industries. Guest blogging, participating in industry forums, and creating shareable content can help in acquiring these valuable backlinks.
• Local Citations and Directories: Ensure your business is listed in relevant local directories and citation websites, such as Yelp, Yellow Pages, and industry-specific directories. Consistent NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) information across these listings helps improve local SEO performance.
• Influencer Collaborations: Partner with influencers or thought leaders in the commercial cleaning and maintenance industry for content collaborations, interviews, or endorsements. Their authority can lend credibility to your business and extend your reach within the industry.
• Community Engagement: Participate in community events, sponsor local initiatives, or engage in charitable activities related to cleaning and maintenance. These efforts can lead to mentions and links from local organizations and media, enhancing your local SEO and community presence.

Wrapping Up: Monitor and Adapt

Successful SEO for commercial cleaning and maintenance websites is an ongoing process to enhance your digital presence.

Take it from our SEO experts:

You should continually monitor your metrics, identify what’s working, and adapt your strategy accordingly. 

Focus on techniques that drive results, whether it’s a particular type of valuable content, a backlinking strategy, or local SEO efforts.

Then, consider branching out your SEO efforts with complementary strategies like Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising to target industry-specific keywords and capture high-intent traffic. Combining SEO with PPC can provide a more comprehensive digital marketing approach, maximizing your online visibility and lead generation.

At Blue Things, we specialize in crafting and executing dynamic SEO strategies tailored to the commercial cleaning industry. Our expertise can guide you through the complexities of SEO, from initial audits to ongoing optimization and integration with PPC campaigns.

Ready to elevate your online presence? Set up a free strategy call with us today, and let’s discuss how we can boost your business’s growth through effective SEO.