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Moving Company Keywords ? | (2023) ULTIMATE Guide to Keywords for Movers ?

What Are Moving Company Keywords?

What does it mean when someone says they want to rank for keywords?  It makes you wonder at first, what is a “keyword” after all? You aren’t the only one that gets confused. It gets even more confusing because when you think of a keyword you think of just one word, like “movers”.

Yet, in the context of search engine optimization (SEO), a keyword is more commonly used to describe a word or phrase that people enter into the search engine.  For us movers, that could be “Boston moving companies” or “cost of living in Boston” or even just “movers”.  All of these are referred to as keywords. In fact, you may have heard about “long-tail keywords” and wondered what these are. They are just longer phrases, typically over 6 words long.

By the way, when we think of search engines, it is fine if you focus only on Google. As of 2019 Google accounts for almost 90% of all online search volume.  Bing, in 2nd place, is only 6% of search volume.

When a user types a keyword into the search engine, they are taken to the search results that Google deems best.  Thus, you must optimize your content and your entire website for keywords, and as a moving company, that means keywords for movers specifically.

Search Intent for Moving Company Keywords

Whenever someone enters a keyword into Google, they are looking for something, they want something – they have a particular “intent” with their search. Each keyword has a search intent tied to it so let’s discuss each of them.  There are 4 types of keyword search intent. It’s important to comprehend them so you can understand them in relation to the particular keyword but also when you go to write content, if you don’t match the content to provide the intent of the keyword search, it will never rank high in Google and will have no value.

Transactional Intent/Commercial Investigation – Buy Something

We love this intent, of course, the searcher is looking to buy something, or in our case, hire a moving company, get packers, reserve storage, etc.  This would include keywords like “movers near me” and “Boston moving company”, “best Boston movers”.  They may still be comparing companies, but they are ready to buy.  These are the more obvious keywords that we all want and most people focus on solely.  They are also by far the most competitive for the same reasons.

Informational Intent – Research & Questions

Here the searcher is looking for information.  This information could be an answer to a question, or something that requires a more in-depth answer that can only be properly handled in an article. Many skip over keywords in this intent category, but they would be making a huge mistake and here is why.  As movers, we know that people have to do many things in advance of moving, in some cases months in advance.  Think about it, don’t people start to research the new place they might move to, how to prepare for a move, look at homes, sign leases, look for a new church, etc.  Yes, they do! 

Thus if you can rank high in search for keywords with informational intent, where the “intent” is a move in the future, you have a potential moving customer on your website!

Navigational Intent – Take Me Somewhere

This is a search where the user has a thing, or destination in mind and wants to go there, typically a particular website or brand.  This means the search could be branded, or have the name of the company/website in the search.

Search Intent for Moving Company Keywords Sample

In terms of what we just discussed, please take a look at the image from a presentation I regularly give to moving companies and let’s discuss them one at a time.  For our sample, we are optimizing for a moving company in San Francisco, CA.  We will discuss these in weakest to strongest for a moving company.

San Francisco 49ers – Navigational Intent or Informational Intent?

If someone types in this keyword, are they looking for the official website of the 49er, Or are they looking for information on the football team?  You can’t really tell from the keyword so this keyword could either have navigational intent or informational intent.

However, this keyword even if we could rank for it isn’t going to help us very much. Indeed it is about the city that we are trying to serve but the search intent of the keyword has nothing to do with moving now or into the future.   It does have a very high search volume, so if we did ring for it we would have a lot of users but they would not turn into potential moving customers.

Things to do in San Francisco/Cost of Living – Informational Intent

Someone typing this keyword has informational intent, they are looking for answers. Inside of this keyword search, you really can’t say that they’re looking for a moving company, in fact, you might say that they aren’t at this time. But think about this, isn’t it feasible to say that a decent percent of people researching what there is to do in a city or how much it costs to live there are considering moving to that City at some time in the future? We know for a fact content that ranks for these types of keywords does produce real moving customers.

How to find an apartment in San Francisco – Informational Intent

This keyword also has informational intent as they are looking for answers. It is also feasible to assume that this person is going to move since they are searching for a new home. In addition, they’re probably going to move relatively soon. This would be an excellent keyword to optimize for and is slightly stronger than the previous keyword because it has a higher chance of producing a moving customer in the future and frankly, in the near future.

Moving to San Francisco/Living in San Francisco – Informational Intent

This is another keyword phrase that has informational intent.  These are high-volume keywords and people using them are clearly going to be moving.  You want to rank high in search for these types of keywords.

San Francisco movers/San Francisco long distance movers – Commercial Intent

Everyone recognizes these keywords as extremely desirable for their website. They are the most difficult keywords to rank for by far,  And also the most expensive if you are doing paid search.

Search Volume in Moving Company Keywords

Search volume is the number of searches performed for any keyword, per month.  We always prefer a higher search volume but….

Remember we just discussed search intent above. So now you will understand that initially what is more important is search intent.  Who cares what the volume is if the search intent doesn’t lead now or in the future to needing a moving company?

So let’s assume you are looking at keywords and you have identified ones that lead to the need for a mover at some point.  Then, yes, the volume becomes important. To determine the volume you are going to need an SEO tool like Ahrefs or SEMrush.  We use both regularly.

Take a look at New York City, using some of what you have learned so far.

There is a monthly search volume for “new york moving companies” of almost 3,000.  That is huge!  But also notice that the KD or keyword difficulty to rank for that phrase is 62, which means it is extremely difficult.  If you look at some of the other high intent keywords, “cost of living in New York”, “moving to New York” and “living in New York”, all of which implies the need for a mover now or soon, the volume is 7,000 per month and all of them have much lower keyword difficulty.

What we want you to take from this is that you can have a strategy where you grow your business by figuring out a list of high search intent keywords mixed with lower keyword difficulty.  There are literally hundreds of high intent moving company keywords that most people simply ignore or aren’t aware of.  (Don’t worry, we ARE aware of them!)

Sample Common Moving Company Keywords List

Just to give you an idea of volumes and keyword difficulties for some common keywords for movers, here you go.  Keep in mind these are just samples and you need to put together a list that is specific for the city/areas you serve.  In this table, the CPC is the “cost per click” or how much you would pay if you want to appear for that keyword in paid search, as opposed to the free, organic SEO search. 

 

KeywordSearch VolumeKeyword Difficulty IndexCPCCompetition
moving companies110,00066.9021.620.90
moving company18,10063.8921.480.89
long distance moving companies9,90061.4424.380.88
moving and storage companies9,90061.8116.560.71
moving services990066.4215.100.79
moving companies atlanta8,10061.1618.460.81
moving companies near me6,60068.7120.970.92
local moving companies4,40062.7520.090.88
cross country moving companies4,40069.2126.050.79
moving and storage service440058.5514.880.12
cheap moving companies3,60063.0915.810.93
moving services near me36000.0013.760.84
moving companies nj2,90062.1618.030.58
moving companies chicago2,90058.4517.260.79
moving companies nyc2,90063.8924.600.87
best moving companies2,90079.4219.010.85
interstate moving companies2,40063.5322.700.80
national moving companies2,40069.5019.470.84
best long distance moving companies2,40073.9224.400.88
moving companies denver1,90059.1919.490.79
commercial moving company1,90046.2327.910.22
international moving companies1,90059.9417.640.75
moving companies prices1,60067.2317.630.91
moving truck companies1,60072.448.910.84
moving company reviews1,60077.239.540.82
moving companies dallas1,60060.2820.730.78
moving companies charlotte nc1,60061.1618.860.80
moving company quotes1,60066.8619.210.84
moving companies austin1,30056.3521.930.79
moving companies san diego1,30059.1017.360.76
nyc moving companies1,30063.8926.450.67
moving companies houston1,30073.9417.180.84
moving companies los angeles1,30060.3624.860.83
moving companies austin tx1,00060.2424.840.83
chicago moving companies1,00058.3425.680.83
moving companies miami1,00059.1823.100.89
moving companies phoenix1,00057.8819.690.73
moving company nyc1,00062.4124.460.86
long distance moving company1,00061.8725.430.84
moving companies reviews1,00070.5415.440.83
united moving company1,00063.428.590.87
moving companies boston1,00060.8830.650.89
mayflower moving company1,00075.089.380.87
professional moving service88054.3022.480.55
corporate moving service88050.6418.220.06
petes moving services88075.4112.620.71
moving service cost88073.3210.950.82
moving services bay area88055.5710.710.70
rv moving service88050.628.920.94
move at&t service88085.888.170.26
pool table moving service88053.767.650.88
little rock moving companies88058.8617.280.37
richmond moving companies88062.0924.670.45
long distance moving companies prices88070.3624.740.97
packing companies for moving88061.829.960.95
moving company logo88067.5815.720.46
car moving companies88067.5610.390.88
moving companies in houston tx88071.4923.400.67
how much do moving companies cost88074.7710.080.93
moving company new york88063.4117.680.43
long distance moving companies reviews88081.2217.790.81
local moving company88059.6118.730.61
moving companies tulsa88057.1321.420.79
moving storage company88058.4619.260.32
moving companies virginia beach va88054.3715.750.58
consumer reports moving companies88080.2917.170.90
moving companies cheap88070.6315.860.90
ny moving companies88064.9421.520.43
moving company los angeles88059.8023.490.80
american moving company88046.3611.240.83
van lines moving company88055.7214.870.58
global moving company88060.7921.190.93
arizona moving companies88063.4817.660.80
moving companies winston salem nc88059.4017.400.52
cross country moving companies reviews88080.4813.020.99
small moving companies88058.1618.220.80
local moving and storage companies88054.8619.390.85
moving companies in the bronx88062.9120.720.82
safe moving company88044.7114.530.87
charleston moving companies88062.1718.320.46
moving company prices88070.3517.370.91
moving companies milwaukee88061.259.960.75
indianapolis moving companies88059.8610.530.45
ct moving companies88057.5119.470.91
moving companies in ct88058.7321.080.86
king moving company88067.8516.030.73
moving companies lafayette la88058.3510.750.68
lucas brothers moving company88086.250.000.06
moving companies columbia sc88060.5317.390.55
kansas city moving companies88060.1717.220.58
moving companies tampa fl88061.8015.280.59
moving companies in orange county88051.8220.730.86
moving truck rental companies88075.866.480.87
moving companies va88057.0216.210.76
moving companies ct88059.2818.630.84
new orleans moving companies88054.168.720.41
san francisco moving company88058.6817.780.69
moving companies redding ca88055.1714.490.80
chapel hill moving company88064.0110.860.67
moving companies tampa88065.5220.940.88

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