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

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.