You’ve got your eye on a new prospect, a local pest control company. You know they could be getting more calls, more customers, and more revenue.
You also know that their website, while it might look okay on the surface, is likely riddled with technical issues holding them back.
So, how do you prove it? How do you walk into a meeting and show them, in plain dollars and cents, that your SEO services are an investment, not an expense?
It all starts with a killer technical SEO audit. We’re not talking about pointing out broken links, either (anybody can use SEMRush to tell them that, right?).
Instead, you need to connect those technical flaws to lost revenue and showing a clear path to profitability. You need to speak their language, which is the language of ROI.
Let’s break down how to run an audit that doesn’t just list problems but builds a compelling business case that pest control owners can’t ignore.
Framing the Audit: It’s All About the Bottom Line
Before you even touch a tool, you need to shift your mindset. A pest control owner isn’t an SEO expert. They don’t care about crawl depth or canonical tags in the abstract. They care about their phone ringing. They care about beating the local competition that seems to be everywhere online.
Your entire audit needs to be framed around these core business goals:
- Getting more leads: How many more calls could they get for “termite inspection” or “emergency rodent removal”?
- Increasing revenue: What is the average value of a new customer? Let’s put a dollar figure on the leads we’re missing.
- Improving local visibility: Why does “Dave’s Pest Annihilators” show up in the map pack for every town in the county while your prospect is nowhere to be found?
- Boosting customer retention: How can technical improvements help retain satisfied customers and encourage repeat business?
Your Technical SEO Audit Pest Control Checklist
A clear checklist will guide you through the technical weeds and help you gather the evidence you need to build your case. We’ll go through the key areas to focus on and, more importantly, how to translate your findings into language a business owner will understand.
1. Crawlability and Indexability: Is Google Even Open for Business?
If Google can’t find and understand the pages on their site, nothing else matters. It’s like having a fantastic storefront but the doors are permanently locked.
Here’s what you should look for:
- Robots.txt: Are important service pages or location pages accidentally blocked?
- Noindex tags: Check for rogue “noindex” tags on pages you want to rank. It happens more often than you’d think.
- XML Sitemap: Is it properly formatted? Does it include all the important pages? Is it submitted to Google Search Console?
- Site Architecture: Is the site structure logical? Can a user (and a search engine) easily navigate from the homepage to a specific service page, like “Bed Bug Treatments,” in just a few clicks?
Then, you need to frame it to the client in a way they understand. You might say something like, “Your website is telling Google not to look at your main ‘Ant Control’ page. That’s like telling a potential customer who calls that you don’t handle ants. Based on search volume, this one issue could be costing you an estimated 15-20 leads per month.”
2. Site Speed: The Digital First Impression
Pest problems tend to be urgent; that’s the nature of the beast! A person who sees a mouse scurry across their kitchen floor is not going to wait ten seconds for a webpage to load. They’ll hit the back button and call your competitor. Because of this, site speed is a direct line to lead generation.
Do a technical SEO audit for:
- Page Load Times: Use Google’s PageSpeed Insights. How does the site score on mobile? This is critical, as many urgent searches happen on a phone.
- Image Optimization: Are they uploading massive, uncompressed photos of spiders? Large image files are a primary cause of slow sites.
- Server Response Time: Is the hosting plan they’re on slow and cheap? A slow server is like having only one person answering the phones during your busiest season.
- Script and Plugin Management: Are there unnecessary scripts or outdated plugins increasing load times? Streamlining these elements can have a significant impact on performance.
When you present these results to the client, you might say something like, “Your website takes over 8 seconds to load on a mobile phone. Studies show that over 50% of visitors will leave if a site takes more than 3 seconds. If 1,000 people visit your site each month, you could be losing 500 potential customers before they even see your phone number. If just 1% of those converted, that’s 5 new jobs lost every month.”
3. Mobile-Friendliness: The On-the-Go Search
You’re at your office, hard at work, when a coworker screams about a wasp nest outside the window. Chances are, you’re going to pull out your phone and search “emergency wasp removal near me.” If the pest control site isn’t mobile-friendly, it’s game over.
This is what you need to check:
- Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test: Run the homepage and key service pages through this tool.
- Responsive Design: Does the site layout adapt properly to different screen sizes?
- Click-to-Call Functionality: Is their phone number a clickable link on mobile? This is a non-negotiable for a service-based business.
- Usability of Forms and Buttons: Are contact forms and call-to-action buttons easy to tap and use on a mobile device? Complicated or small elements can hurt conversion rates.
When you frame it for the client to make them take notice, tell them, “Over 60% of searches for local services like yours now happen on a mobile device. Right now, your website is very difficult to use on a phone. Making your phone number a ‘click-to-call’ button can increase your mobile call-through rate by up to 20%.”
4. Local SEO Signals: Winning the Neighborhood
Speaking of local, for a pest control company, ranking locally is everything. Technical SEO plays a massive role in sending the right signals to Google about where the business operates and what services it offers.
Be mindful of:
- Schema Markup: Is “LocalBusiness” schema implemented correctly? Does it clearly state their name, address, phone number (NAP), and business hours? Is there schema for specific services like “PestControlService”?
- NAP Consistency: This is a classic, but it’s still crucial. Is the NAP information consistent across their website, their Google Business Profile, and other local directories?
- Location Pages: If they serve multiple towns, do they have unique, optimized pages for each location? Or just a list of town names at the bottom of the homepage?
- Google Business Profile Optimization: Is their Google Business Profile fully completed and regularly updated, including business hours, photos, and customer reviews?
Then tell the client, “We can add a special code to your website, called schema, that acts like a digital name tag for Google. It explicitly tells Google your address, service area, and what you do. This helps you show up more prominently in the Google Map results when people search locally.”
Presenting Your Findings for Maximum Impact
You’ve completed your technical SEO audit pest control checklist and gathered your data. Now it’s time to present it. Ditch the 50-page PDF filled with technical jargon. Instead, create a clean, simple presentation or a 2-page summary. Make sure you clearly lay out the findings, the implications of those findings, the business impact or ROI, and the solution.
When you connect technical flaws directly to lost dollars, you change the conversation entirely. Now, you’re not just a marketer. You’re a business consultant, a partner showing them a clear path to increased profitability. This approach builds trust and demonstrates your value before they’ve even signed a contract.
Ready to start landing more pest control clients? A thorough, ROI-focused technical audit is your most powerful tool. If you want a partner of your own, one who understands how to turn technical insights into tangible business growth, let’s talk.
Contact IronChess SEO today, and let’s build a strategy that gets results.
