At Hughbanks design, one of our superpowers is ranking local service-based companies. Many of the companies we work with have been around for a number of years but are not getting the rankings they think they should. Or in the case of our local SEO case study below, want to enter a relevant market and do not want to wait years for their new service to grow and rank. The case study below lays out how we systematically rank a local business or service in Google by:
- Analyze their website and find weak points.
- Optimize the website and website content.
- Create and deploy a content strategy.
- Analyze and optimize their Google My Business listing.
- Create local and niche citations.
- Analyze competitor backlinks.
- Create and deploy a backlink strategy.
In the end, we believe that the way to the top is through a holistic, evergreen approach that follows Google’s best practices.
Local SEO Case Study
The Scenario
A.J.’s Gutters has been a trusted gutter installation and repair company in the Houston area for over 25 years. One of the niche products they have in stock is rain-collection products such as rain barrels and rain tanks. The company decided to create a niche brand or funnel to sell these rain collection products separately from their existing brand and website.
Problem :
Create a very quick landing page website for a small local niche market Rain Barrels in the Houston area, and use Local SEO to rank the site and PPC to drive immediate traffic.
Results:
Local Domination over chosen Keywords
Over 200% Organic Increase between July 2018 and April 2019
Total traffic increased by over 1000%
Here is a Ranking Report from the project.
The Process :
The first part of the process was to create a small multi-page website focused on the collection products. The site URL needed to have “Houston” in order to rank quickly in Google. Also, the site needed to be on a different server and account than the main AJ’s site.
The second step was to verify mid to high volume keywords. What we found when doing these searches was that there were gutter companies that did list it on-site, but no specific brands or sites that were aiming specifically at Rain Barrels and other rain collection products locally.
The third step in the process was to create a Google My Business listing for the Rain Barrels brand and optimized for keywords such as Rain Barrels in Houston.
The fourth step was to create high authoritative citations. Due to the “hole”, we found in the market, we figured about 10-15 citations would do the trick.
The fifth step was to set up small Google search ads that target Houston and surrounding areas for the same keywords we were working on ranking for.
In February we combined another round of citations with guest posts and social backlinks
In conclusion, we have developed a process where combining Google My Business optimization, On-site and content optimization with niche and local citations, and guest posts using the right keyword research can lead to local SERP domination and more importantly, increased leads and sales.