Landscaping SEO Case Study: A Rapid 2.5k Increase in Traffic
Most landscape supply companies are both B2C (business-to-consumer) and B2B (business-to-business).
On any given day, they may sell decorative stones to a homeowner while making a bulk delivery of materials to a contracting business.
As a result, their marketing must appeal to both core audiences, which presents a challenge.
Complicating matters even further is the local element involved, as it’s crucial for landscaping supply companies to have visibility in the states, cities, and towns they serve.
Since 97% of customers use search engines like Google to find local businesses, search engine optimization (SEO) is a must-use marketing channel for landscapers and supply companies.
Also, 89% of B2B researchers (like the head contractor at a landscaping company) use the internet to research purchases, so SEO checks both boxes for landscape supply companies.
However, there’s a ton that goes into SEO, and it’s often more than landscaping companies can handle in-house.
That’s why they choose to outsource their SEO to experienced agencies like us, which is what the subject of this case study did.
Stay tuned to learn the story of how we achieved a 2.5k increase in a landscape supply company’s traffic (which is still growing to this day) in only 6 months, and how we can do the same for your business.
The Client: A Relatively New Landscape Supply Company
This time, the client in question had only been around for 3 years, going on 4. Since they were a newer company, establishing a place for themselves in their local market was no easy task – especially in a massive city like Chicago.
As you can imagine, there’s no shortage of landscape supply companies in the area, but the client was able to drum up business thanks to their outstanding service, competitive pricing, and same-day deliveries.
The problem?
While they had a well-designed website, they weren’t generating much traffic, and they were getting thumped by competitors on the search rankings.
The importance of backlinks and local keywords for landscape supply companies
As a landscape supply company, it was crucial that they rank for localized keywords related to landscape supply in the Chicago suburbs.
These were competitive keywords dominated by other supply companies that had high domain authority and lots of backlinks.
On search engines like Google, backlinks count as endorsements of the quality and accuracy of your content.
A backlink is simply a link on another website that ‘links back’ to yours, and it’s extremely important to have a high-quality, diverse backlink portfolio in order to compete on the SERPs (search engine results pages).
In the case of our client, they were getting outranked due to:
- Their lack of backlinks
- Not enough quality content targeting local keywords
We quickly identified these issues once the client got in touch with us for a free SEO consultation. They had seen one of our ads on social media and decided to check out what we had to offer.
After identifying their main issues, we decided a HOTH X campaign would work best, which is our fully managed SEO service. It’s where we combine all our SEO products to form a cohesive strategy for the client, complete with a dedicated campaign manager.
Conducting an SEO Audit: Looking for Easy Wins
We always begin a HOTH X campaign by auditing clients’ websites. In particular, we’re looking to identify and resolve any major issues that might impact our strategy moving forward.
These include:
- Indexing errors
- Duplicate content
- Thin content (containing less than 1,000 words)
- Orphan pages (web pages that have no internal links pointing at them)
- Slow site speed
Once we’re able to issue the site a clean bill of health, we move on to analyzing the client’s current SEO performance. We ask for permission to view their Google Search Console and Google Analytics accounts so that we can peek at their SEO metrics.
The main things we look for are easy-win opportunities, which are keywords that the site already ranks for on Google, but not in the top 3. Positions 4 – 30 qualify as easy wins for us because we know that with some optimization, we can get these keywords ranking higher in a short period of time.
This client had some easy wins that we quickly capitalized on to give them a speedy boost in traffic. From there, we moved on to the core elements of our strategy.
The Strategy: Regular Blogs, Link Insertion, and Link Outreach
We knew that the client was in desperate need of two things: high-quality backlinks and fresh content optimized for local keywords.
Here’s a closer look at what each aspect entailed:
- Blogging once per month. We wrote one high-quality blog per month for the client, all containing A) relevant topics backed up by keyword research and B) high-resolution images to break up the text. These blogs quickly helped them achieve the local keyword rankings they needed to generate more business.
- Link insertions. There were plenty of instances where our client’s products and services were relevant and added value to existing landscaping blogs online. By requesting site owners add links to our client’s mulch delivery and location pages, we were able to accrue a significant number of backlinks without having to create original content.
- Link outreach. That’s not to say that we didn’t create any content to generate backlinks, because we definitely did through outreach. We found relevant landscaping websites that accept guest posts, and through targeted outreach, we were able to secure numerous guest articles.
For the backlinks we built, we specifically targeted the client’s location and mulch delivery pages.
Why?
It’s because we knew these pages would generate the most business!
They were also the pages most in need of high-quality backlinks in order to rank higher.
The Results: A 2.5k Traffic Boost in 6 Months, 302 Keywords in the Top 3, $5.4k Worth of Traffic Generated Consistently
Thanks to clever planning and careful execution, our strategy was a resounding success and yielded amazing benefits for our client.
First, their traffic skyrocketed by 2.5k in just 6 months, and it continues to keep rising:
Also, note the ever-increasing number of referring domains (the blue line).
The site now consistently generates $5.4k worth of traffic, and they rank for a whopping 302 keywords in the top 3:
Moreover, the links we built and the content we created will continue to yield results for our client well into the future.
Do you want to achieve impressive results like these for your landscape supply company?
HOTH X is your ticket to simplified SEO success, as we’ll take the entire process off your hands. All you have to do is sit back and watch the traffic (and dollars) roll in, just like our client did, so don’t wait to reach out for a consultation!
