It’s baffling to think about how many millions of words have been written about search engine optimization. Millions of articles filled with millions more words go on and on about strategy, tactics, and the technical aspects necessary to rank among the top results in a Google search.
Why go through all that effort?
Well, Google processes roughly 8.5 Billion searches per day and almost half of all product searches begin on Google (Oberlo). When someone punches that fateful query into the Google search bar, SEO drives 1,000% more website traffic than organic social media (BrightEdge), 60% of marketers say SEO provides their highest quality leads, and SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate (Hubspot).
With all that potential to be seen some keywords on Google are worth millions of dollars and businesses spend copious amounts of time and money to achieve the #1 ranking.
Why SEO Is Important To You
Search Engine Optimization will have varying degrees of importance based on the type of business you’re in, but I would argue that every business can find value in SEO. Everyone from dentists and lawyers to eCommerce companies can and should have some kind of digital presence.
Roughly 76% of consumers look at a company’s online presence before they physically visit a store (PR Newswire), and 81% of retail shoppers will do research online before buying (invoca). So if you’re ignoring Search Engine Optimization, you’re missing out on customers.
With that being said, SEO should always, always, be part of a larger marketing strategy.
The Case Study
Some of these facts led a client of ours to recognize that they needed to increase organic website traffic to continue hitting their revenue goals. This company provides specific construction services and works in multiple locations across the Western United States. They wanted to start getting more traffic from a few of the key cities they serviced, but they weren’t quite sure how to go about it.
They ran Google ads, and while those were successful, we helped them discover that when people encountered the business organically they were much more engaged with the company’s content, and ultimately turned into much higher-quality leads.
Before deciding to get serious about SEO, our client had done some on-page optimization work, but they hadn’t spent much time or effort on their online presence.
They also rebuilt their site several months prior, but the employee who designed their site deleted the old one and replaced it with the new one, which effectively reset the company’s domain authority back to 0.
The Plan
Our plan was simple. The company built most of their messaging around a single search term, so we conducted keyword research for that term and terms with similar intent in the geographies it wanted to target through Google’s Adwords tool.
Through the research, we were able to determine that their target term had fairly low competition, but it also didn’t have a lot of search volume.
This type of keyword is typically known as a “long-tail” keyword, and it’s a great place to start if you’re just getting into SEO.
We also noticed that a term with similar intent was not as competitive but had much more traffic. We decided both terms were similar enough that we could try to target both of them.
After we conducted our research, our strategy was to create location-specific web pages that addressed both the search terms we wanted to target, but also included the city we wanted to target.
The client had several very useful pages on their website, so we were able to pull some of the most helpful existing content and combine it with high-quality location-specific information. We tested this strategy on 4 specific locations for the company, so each page’s Title looked something like this: “Keyword 1 | Keyword 2 | Location”. We also included the keywords, location, and location-specific content through the body of each web page.
The Results
I want to preface the results by saying you should never, and I mean never, expect SEO results to happen quickly. Any reputable agency will tell you that you shouldn’t expect any results for a minimum of 3-6 months, and anyone who tries to sell you overnight results should be avoided.
There are cases where results can be achieved slightly faster, but they are the exceptions and not the rule.
In our case, the pages were indexed or added to Google’s search results within a few days. Once all 4 pages were indexed we started building backlinks to each of the pages and around a month and a half after we launched we noticed some big changes.
When we started in all the locations Keyword 1, the company’s focus term, ranked somewhere in the 40s, and keyword 2 either ranked in the 70s or not at all.
After the test period, keyword 1 jumped to an average ranking of #5 for 3 of the 4 locations. Keyword 2 moved from averaging in the 70s to averaging in the 40s.
The search volume for all 4 pages went from virtually non-existent, to 3 of the 4 pages ranking in the top 10 pages on our client's website for all pages, not just organic search traffic.
Parting Thoughts
It's going to take more time for us to measure the revenue results as this particular company’s buying cycle typically takes around 6 months, but we are excited about the initial results.
Just a couple of months ago our client wasn’t even thinking about Search Engine Optimization, but now, having seen some results they are excited to explore organic search as a channel to create leads and build revenue.
If your business is interested in learning more about ranking in Google searches, contact our team.
Comments