Driving organic traffic for specific service offerings can be challenging for any organization, particularly when you’re starting from scratch. Gaining visibility on the first page of Google can be paramount to validate your company, but most business operators don’t know where to start when it comes to target keyword rankings.
Property maintenance is a very competitive market in desert regions, so it can be especially difficult for landscape architects and installers to target general “landscape” search terms and rank highly on the search engine results page (SERP). Our team overcame this challenge with a long-tail keyword strategy, targeting an audience that was looking for a particular landscaping need such as repair, maintenance, stone hardscape, etc. This led to growth of overall landscaping keywords based on the content built in blogs and off-site content, while also driving leads that were more likely to convert.
About NV Landscapes
NV Landscapes (NVL) designs, installs, and maintains premium outdoor living spaces of every variety. From lush landscapes and detailed hardscapes to lighting, irrigation, and fully functional outdoor kitchens, the team of skilled professionals at NVL are equipped to transform any residential or commercial property into an outdoor paradise. NVL’s commitment to executing their clients’ vision and ongoing maintenance make them the trusted source to execute any outdoor renovation project.
Designing a Winning Strategy
To launch NV Landscapes’ SEO campaigns, we started by taking inventory of their business goals, brand tone/voice, and which local markets they were targeting. This information enabled our strategists to perform industry-specific market analysis to discover and recommend target keywords for the first 6+ months of our SEO overhaul, along with blog topics to cover and the first month of onsite content.
Technical Audit
This onboarding process also allows for more creative SEO developments, as we assess which pages currently rank with Google compared to their specific business goals. By doing this, we were able to identify which pages need to be indexed in order to drive traffic to their respective service sites.
Divide and Conquer
At the start of NV Landscape’s campaign, there was only one URL for all services offered, which were vastly different. Our team advised and executed several service pages in order to allow Google to index and rank the site for a multitude of sectors within the business, growing the conversion opportunities tremendously.
Content Is King
Once the content was in place for Google to index and rank site pages, we moved into phase 2 by focusing on blogs and off-site content. This process was crucial in building and supporting awareness of the target keywords. The off-site content backlinks to their blog, which then links to the home or category page where the content resides. The culmination informs search engine web crawlers of content authority and helps drive links up the SERPs.
Hitting the Target
NVL’s ideal clients are high-end homeowners, developers and commercial property operators. Given their budget, market competition, and service area, we focused on the URLs and commercial keyword opportunities that best captured the client’s two target audiences while simultaneously appealing to their initial objectives.
Eager to grow their online visibility and drive website traffic to their specific service pages, NVL wanted to invest significant resources to organically reach high-end property owners. To achieve this, our team deployed an off-site SEO content strategy. This included leveraging our publishing network of accredited institutions to provide backlinks to relevant NVL site pages that are pertinent to the anchor article.
Driving Site Traffic
To drive new users to the NVL website, our team launched a blog strategy based on target URLs in order to capture their respective audiences’ informational searches related to our client’s service offerings. The blogs authored on behalf of NVL also serve as a hub for aforementioned backlinks and establish the website’s semantic SEO profile.
Key Performance Indicators
The primary goal, however, was increasing the following metrics: total keyword rankings, first-page rankings, impressions, clicks, and session time.
481
Keywords and Growing
192.81%
Increase in Organic Traffic
443
Booking Requests
578
Estimated Requests
Organic Results
When NV Landscapes onboarded with LP in March 2021, they had 35 organic keywords ranking, with only 5 on page 1 of Google, and no leads coming in through the site.
Traffic growth since start of campaign:
Overall organic Keyword Rankings:
Page 1 of Google organic keyword rankings:
Building on Momentum
We chose our target URLs based on our client’s top services and areas of focus. From there we utilized the following keyword research tools to flush out target opportunities that were attainable: Google’s SERP, Search Console, Google Analytics, Google Keyword Planner, and Semrush. From there, we included internal links to our target URLs in our blogs to increase semantic relevance.
Some standout keywords that resulted in more business for our client in the last year:
- landscaping las vegas (208 clicks, 11,104 impressions)
- las vegas landscaping (254 clicks, 6,307 impressions)
- landscaping near me (30 clicks, 5,437 impressions)
- landscapers las vegas (49 clicks, 3,691 impressions)
The Blog Strategy
Our content strategy consisted of short- and long-form blogs to establish NVL as a local authority for all things landscaping, hardscaping, and turf in Las Vegas; as well as a national resource for more general landscaping concerns (i.e., similar issues not specific to Las Vegas). Each blog post contains a relevant target URL and keyword in order to stress the importance of these terms to Google. This ensured our content was authentically valuable to end users and not an attempt to game the algorithm on behalf of our client, which can have detrimental effects.
Each unique blog post is based on research aimed at building a semantic profile related to our target URLs and their associated keywords. Within each post, we included relevant backlinks to provide additional opportunities to to rank for target keywords. Finally, by leveraging our existing relationships with publishers (nationally and locally), we established a reliable network of website referrals, which drove the desired URLs up the SERPs.
Semrush + Keyword Planner Data
The following rankings didn’t exist before Logical Position:
Tips for Achieving Similar Results
After more than two years of active local SEO services, NVL saw a significant boost in keyword rankings and domain authority. Targeting high-end homeowners and developers with authentic content has fortified their digital marketing strategy, which has not only enabled NVL to scale its business, but also to do so profitably.
This summary of our experience is useful for other sustainability brands who wish to emulate it to achieve similar results:
Be Patient: Building out an organic content strategy doesn’t happen overnight. It’s an investment in your business and your brand that takes time to develop.
Trust Your Partners: NVL gave its marketing partner the space they needed to understand their business to drive the best campaign outcomes on their behalf.
Diversify Your Output: There’s no one-size-fits-all fix to organic rankings in the eyes of search engines. Start with on-site optimizations, build out your content portfolio and deliverables, then leverage an external publishing network to earn valuable backlinks to your site.
Bend, but Don’t Break: Your content strategy needs to be nimble in order to be relevant. Allow seasonality and current events to permeate in your brand tone to establish authenticity.
Contractors Can Connect With Clients
Understanding which sectors of your business make the biggest impact is invaluable; moreover, incorporating growth potential is central to driving sustained success. This is ultimately what enabled our team at LP to dramatically move NVL up the SERPs and book-out the entirety of their scheduling calendar. Nevertheless, business partners must take time to build rapport and trust in the process along the way. When a comprehensive local SEO strategy is implemented both on-site and off-site, contractors can attract the exact clientele they’re looking for to fortify the bottom line of their business.
Is your business ready to starting laying the SEO groundwork? If so, reach out today for a complimentary, no obligation, free review and account consultation.
