Most pest control websites are a homepage, a “pests we treat” page with a grid of bug icons, and a contact form. They look fine. They do not rank, because Google has nothing to rank. A grid of icons cannot be the best answer to “ant exterminator,” “termite treatment cost,” “rats in attic” and “pest control in Brandon” all at once.
Pest control has one thing going for it that most trades do not: customers search by the pest. That tells you exactly how to build the site.
One short page per pest
Every pest you treat gets its own page, with the pest in the page title, the first heading and the first sentence. Not a paragraph on a shared page. A page. Start with the ones you get the most calls about:
- Ants (the most common call, and the one that becomes a quarterly plan)
- Roaches (German roaches in kitchens are their own search)
- Termites (treatment, inspection and the swarm page from the swarm season guide)
- Rodents (rats, mice, attic noises, sealing entry points)
- Mosquitoes (yard service, a summer search)
- Bed bugs (a private, urgent search; say “discreet” and mean it)
- Spiders, wasps, fleas, silverfish (shorter pages, but still pages)
Each pest page answers the same five questions in plain words: how to know you have them, why they are there, what you do about it, what it costs, and how fast you can come. Then a review from a customer who had that pest. Four hundred words is plenty. What makes each page different is the pest, not the template.
The five pages every pest control site needs
1. Homepage. Your name, your area, your license number, your phone number and one sentence about what makes you the safe choice. Buttons to the pest pages and the plans page. Reviews. That is it.
2. Same-day exterminator. For the panic call. Phone number first, the pests you treat today, a price range for a one-time visit. See the two searches guide.
3. Quarterly plans and pricing. For the shopper. What each plan covers, what it costs, your guarantee, what is not included. The page almost no company has and everyone wants.
4. Safety for kids and pets. The question every parent asks on the phone. Answer it on a page: what you use, where you apply it, how long to stay off the lawn. It is the most-read page you will have.
5. One page per town you serve. Not a town list. A real page for each town, covered in the town pages guide.
What to leave off
- A blog of “10 facts about ants” posts. The pest pages already do that job better.
- Cartoon bugs and stock photos of men in hazmat suits. Homeowners want to see a normal person at a normal door.
- A “pests we treat” grid with no pages behind it. That is the page you are replacing.
- Pop-ups that cover the phone number on a phone screen.
How the pages link together
Google finds pages by following links, so the pages need to point at each other in the text, not just in the menu. The homepage links to the exterminator page, the plans page and every pest page. Each pest page links to the plans page at the bottom, because that is where the customer goes next, and to the one or two pests that show up together (ants and roaches, rodents and wildlife). The plans page links back to the main pest pages. The town pages link to the pest pages and to each other.
Write the links in plain words. “Most of our ant customers move to a quarterly plan” with the words linked tells Google what the other page is about. A menu link does not say that.
Build them in this order
If you can only do one page a week, do them in this order: the exterminator page (the most calls), the plans page (the best customer), ants, roaches, termites, then safety for kids and pets, then your first town page. The rest of the pests can come one a week after that. Build in the winter, so the termite pages are ranking by swarm season.
The one rule for every page
Every page loads fast on a phone and has a tap-to-call button on the first screen. Pest searches happen in the kitchen, staring at the counter, on a phone. If the homeowner has to pinch and zoom to find your number, they call the next company.
Want this done for you?
This structure is the skeleton of my own pest control site in Tampa Bay and of every pest control client I take. If you want to know which pages you are missing, the audit is free.