An Illinois SEO Company Focused on Home Service Businesses
Get in front of the customers who are already searching for what you do, whether they're in Crystal Lake, the northwest suburbs, or anywhere else in Illinois.
SEO SERVICES IN ILLINOIS
Turn Local Searches Into Booked Jobs
When someone needs a service like yours, they search for it and call one of the first few results. Fewer than 1% of Google searches ever make it to the second page, so if you're not near the top for the searches your customers actually use, you're effectively invisible to them, no matter how good your work is.
We build your plan around the searches you can realistically win: your services, your service area, and the exact phrases a customer types when they're ready to hire, rather than the one generic term every agency in the area is already fighting over. In a market as crowded as Chicago that matters even more, which is why we wrote a separate page on SEO for Chicago contractors.
It doesn't stop at launch. Every month we look at what's actually moving your rankings and your phone calls, and adjust the plan based on that instead of running the same playbook forever.
WHAT'S INCLUDED
What's Included In Every Illinois SEO Plan
SEO isn't one task. It's five, and skipping any one of them is usually why a plan stalls out. Here's exactly what we do, in the order we do it.
1. SEO Audit & Competitive Analysis
Before we touch your site, we audit it end to end: current rankings, page speed, technical errors, and a side-by-side look at the businesses already outranking you in your specific market. That audit becomes the roadmap for everything that follows, so every hour of work afterward is aimed at something we already know moves the needle.
2. Keyword Research
We map out exactly which searches your customers are actually using, not just broad industry terms, but the specific service, area, and trade-level phrases that convert into calls. A landscaper and a general contractor are chasing completely different keywords, even though both are technically "home services."
3. Technical SEO
Site speed, mobile usability, schema markup, and crawlability all quietly determine whether Google can even find and trust your pages. We fix the structural issues most agencies never look at, including broken internal links, duplicate content, and slow-loading images, because no amount of great content overcomes a technically broken site.
4. SEO Content
Every page we write is built around one specific keyword and one specific customer question, not stuffed with repeated phrases. That's the difference between a page that reads naturally and converts, and one that Google, and your customers, can tell was written for a search engine instead of a person.
5. Local SEO & Google Business Profile
For home-service businesses, local search is often the single highest-converting channel. We optimize and actively manage your Google Business Profile, build out a dedicated page for every town you serve, and work to earn the reviews that push you into the local map pack.
WHO WE WORK WITH
SEO For Contractors, Landscapers & Home-Service Trades
Your customers search differently than customers in a different trade. We build your keyword strategy around your specific services instead of a one-size-fits-all local SEO checklist. Explore our dedicated pages below, or get in touch and we'll build one for your trade.
HOW WE WORK
How We Get You There
Every engagement follows the same four-step process, whether you're just getting online or already have a site that isn't performing.
1. Audit & Strategy
We audit how you currently rank across your service area, whether that's Crystal Lake, the greater Chicago suburbs, or anywhere else in Illinois, then turn it into a written plan for what to fix and build first.
2. Build & Optimize
We implement the technical fixes, build out the pages you're missing, and publish content targeted at the exact searches your local customers are running.
3. Launch & Monitor
Once live, we track rankings and traffic weekly across every page and location, watching calls and form submissions as closely as rankings.
4. Report & Refine
You get a plain-English monthly report on what changed and why, and we keep adjusting the plan city by city based on what's actually working.
REAL NUMBERS
Real Results, Not Promises
We publish our actual client numbers instead of vague case studies. Across our client base, monthly visitors have grown from single digits at launch to results like 452 and 411 a month, with organic clicks up over 150% year-over-year on our best-performing accounts. See the full breakdown, including the exact traffic charts, on our Results page.
See Real Client Results
Common Questions
Do you work with businesses in Crystal Lake and McHenry County?
Yes, and it's actually our home base. We're headquartered in Crystal Lake, so we already know the local market and the searches your customers use before we ever start working on your site.
What other towns near Chicago do you work with?
Beyond Crystal Lake, we regularly work with businesses in Elgin, Schaumburg, Algonquin, Huntley, Woodstock, Carpentersville, Grayslake, Libertyville, Lake Zurich, Mount Prospect, Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Wheaton, Downers Grove, Orland Park, and Tinley Park. If your town isn't listed, tell us where you are and we'll build the plan around it.
Do you work with businesses in Chicago itself, not just the suburbs?
Yes. Most of our track record is in the suburbs, where rankings tend to be more winnable, but the same approach works inside the city too. Tell us your market and we'll give you an honest read on what's realistic.
Do you handle web design too, or just SEO?
Both. A site with no SEO behind it won't get found, and SEO with no site to support it won't convert once people arrive. We build and manage both together so they're working toward the same goal.
Do you work with landscaping companies?
Yes, landscaping is one of the trades we specialize in, along with roofing, plumbing, HVAC, and general contracting. See our Local SEO for Every Trade page, or get in touch and we'll build a plan around your specific services.
Do you work with general contractors?
Yes. See our SEO for General Contractors page for what that looks like, or get in touch to talk through your specific business.
Do you only work with the trades listed on this page?
No. While we specialize in home-service and trade businesses, the same audit-first, locally-focused approach works for any Illinois business competing on local search. Get in touch and we'll tell you honestly whether it's a good fit.
How much does SEO cost?
SEO is built into our Website + SEO plan, which is $397/mo at our founding-client rate and covers your site, hosting and the monthly SEO work, including a new page every month. Businesses covering several towns or in very competitive markets usually fit our Growth plan, starting at $797/mo.
How long until I see results from local SEO?
Most clients see meaningful movement within 3 to 6 months, with results building steadily from there. See our Results page for real, verified before-and-after numbers from clients across different industries.
What makes Solid Ground different from other SEO agencies?
We're a small, hands-on team. No account handoffs, no recycled templates. Every plan is built from scratch around your business, and we publish our actual client results instead of vague promises.
How do you report on results?
You get a weekly report in plain English covering edits and additions we've made on the site. Rankings, traffic, and leads, are added to the report on a monthly basis.
Ready To Start Ranking First In Your Market?
Book a free consultation and we'll show you exactly what an SEO plan would look like for your business.