The Client: A2Z Home Inspections
Founder Ed Grist had already served the Monticello, Indiana, area for nineteen years when he decided it was time to take a more serious stake in nearby markets like Lafayette. His company promises full inspections, from plumbing to electrical wiring and from foundation to roof. He has an incredibly satisfied customer base, but he has had trouble proving this beyond word-of-mouth. His business’s online presence was an obvious channel for this. He had previous experience with other digital and SEO marketing companies, some as far away as California. They only left him with disappointing results when it came to search result ranks. He was still lacking the positive feedback from his customers and the constant attention to his account that’s needed for a successful and penetrating online presence.
Ed was paying too much for too little. He would call 1-800 numbers to contact California marketing companies, and when they answered it would always be with a different employee. How could such a company understand Ed’s geographic markets? How could he build a personal relationship with his consultants when he was handed to a different one each call? That’s when Ed decided to contact yours truly: Lafayette-based Find8 Performance Marketing.
The Situation: The Game Constantly Changes
Google is constantly editing its search engine algorithm – sometimes at a dizzyingly fast pace. With our monthly subscription service, Ed can rest assured his site won’t get lost on the Google search results page. His current positioning completely dominates the competition. Take a look at the following screenshot:
Don’t believe your eyes? Go ahead and type in “home inspections lafayette indiana” yourself and see. Look at that! Not only does A2Z have the first “Google Maps” result, but it also has one of the first spots in Google’s regular (organic) search results, too. And notice only two of the other inspectors have Google reviews, let alone something like A2Z’s average review rating of 4.9 stars!
We give you a unique service here at Find8. That’s because there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy to your business. And by working with us on a subscription basis, you can make sure each month that the positioning in search results you paid us to earn you will not go away overnight. Because without constant site monitoring, you will lose the ground you gained!
Find8 offers three packages for local SEO services, available upon a monthly contract that start as low as $50 per month.
Mobile Responsive is Mandatory
More and more people are getting smartphones and tablets; it’s just a fact of life. This means that more and more people are shopping and doing research on-the-go from their smartphones. In fact, according to a January 2011 statistic from Comscore, 40% of US smartphone owners compare prices on their mobile device while in-store shopping. That is a number that has certainly increased in the past three years. With that in mind, it’s necessary for a business owner to make sure their site is mobile friendly. We don’t just mean building a second domain name for mobile users, but editing the coding on your current site to ensure it adapts to a mobile phone or tablet’s screen.
For Ed’s industry, a decision is often made on the fly at the site of a building purchase prospect. A Google study released at the end of 2013 showed 55% of consumers using mobile devices to research services or products want to purchase within the hour. When they’re searching on Google Maps, that review rating is all the more important.
Here’s Ed’s current homepage, designed and uploaded by our professionals for him, to show a few important things you’ll get from us – things which we haven’t discussed yet:
Note the “clean” look to his homepage. His business accreditation is shown prominently upon first-page loading, with a blog feed at the bottom and contact form up top. Blogs are important to improving search result ranks, as they provide valuable chances to insert keywords and other SEO tricks of the trade – things noticed by Google, Yahoo and the like.
The Result:
We’ve only worked with A2Z since December, and already the results are astounding. By the middle of February, we’re talking #1 rank in search results when A2Z hadn’t even appeared on the top two pages of results before we implemented a unique SEO strategy. If you don’t crack the first page of search results, you can basically forget getting any website traffic associated with the search. Our research has shown only about 5% of people even click on page 2 when searching on Google.
Ed admitted the winter months are usually very slow for his business. People just don’t shop for homes during blizzards. Yet since he first started his monthly subscription service with us, he has said his schedule has been full! He can only attribute this to his improved search ranking and string of new 5-star reviews. When the weather is cold, more people spend time browsing the internet inside their heated homes – so don’t wait for a new spring season to start on your digital marketing strategy with Find8 Performance Marketing!