ALS Construction homepage

ALS Construction (Service Industries)

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About the project:

THE NEED

ALS Construction, a custom home builder and family business in the Hilton Head Island, SC area, had secured Hazel Digital Media to redesign their outdated website. Jason Hazel of HDM connected me with Brent Swofford, ALS’s marketing manager. The new site needed cleaner copy that utilized SEO best practices. And both Jason and I strongly recommended a blog to help drive organic traffic.

THE APPROACH

Website

After an audit of the copy transferred over from the old site, I identified and implemented four objectives to improve discoverability and readability on the About and Services (renamed Why ALS?) pages.

  1. Reorganize large blocks of text under headers.
  2. Incorporate target keywords in headers and body text.
  3. Move location keywords (e.g. Hilton Head Island) closer to the top of the page.
  4. Make the text more concise and convert the body text into bulleted lists where appropriate.

Blog

After interviewing Brent, I developed four articles that established the four categories we would focus on over the next six months: cost, process, lifestyle, and the environment. In partnership with HDM, we launched with four articles published weekly, with new content published twice monthly thereafter.

Each article was keyword-researched, content-researched, contained at least one image (stock photography) and was organized under headers according to SEO best practices. We incorporated a CTA (call-to-action) button at the end of each post that links to the site’s contact form.

THE RESULTS

From the April 1, 2019 baseline to September 30, 2019, the ALS Construction website saw net user growth of 80%. As HDM ran a paid Google CPC (cost-per-click) ad campaign concurrently with our blogging strategy, organic search accounted for 21% of users.

This is a classic case of marrying both quantity and quality; though PPC brought in far more users, both the average session duration time and contact form visit rate for organic users was far higher.

Contact Form Visits: Paid vs. Organic

  • Google (CPC): 2.53%
  • Google (organic): 27.48%
  • Bing: 30.16%
  • Yahoo: 11.11%

Overall, 67% of contact form visits came from organic search and about 21% came from the CPC campaign. Rather than revealing that one strategy is superior to the other, I interpret these data to mean utilizing both – if your budget supports it – is best for creating as many sales opportunities as possible. Promoting content (blog posts) via a strong social media presence is also recommended.

Link to site:

Blood, Mouse Poop, Sewage – 3 Things You Should NOT Find in a Grocery Store (Service Industries)

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About the project:

This article is one of a limited series of blog posts I produced for Dalton & Co. Professional Cleaning Supply. This headline has some obvious shock value (blood! mouse poop!) that I didn’t choose lightly. Because Dalton & Co. serves both the general public in its retail store and commercial cleaning companies, we had two audiences.

The goal was to reach the general audience with a little shock value while communicating Dalton’s experience providing supplies to clean a specific type of facility. The primary audience, then, was commercial cleaning professionals with grocery stores and other facilities that must maintain health code standards on their client lists.

LINK TO ARTICLE HERE

8 Beautiful, Easy Fall Plants that Will Come Back Next Year (Service Industries)

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About the project:

This article is one in an ongoing content marketing program for Clean Cut Lawn & Landscape. I produce two blog posts per month based on a focus keyword I select after researching options with Google AdWords. The focus keyword here, used in the headline, the body, the description for social media promotion and metadata for Google search was “fall plants.” This was used primarily to attract search engines.

The appeal for humans once they came across the article was the brevity (only “8” plants listed), the modifier (“easy”), and the promise (“that will come back next year”). All articles contain a call to action to subscribe to Clean Cut’s email list, through which the company can conduct relational, no-pressure sales.

This was one of Clean Cut’s highest performing posts to date within a 90-day period encompassing August, September and most of October.

LINK TO ARTICLE HERE

Indiana Planting Guide (Service Industries)

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http://www.winklemowingservice.com/2015/03/indiana-planting-guide

Spring is here! If you have hearty perennials that survived the winter, start nurturing them right away with water, weeding and fertilizer. If some of them didn’t make it, or you planted annuals last year, it’s time to think about what you’re going to plant this season.

Many people plant shrubs and flowers based only on appearance. That’s fine if you don’t mind rolling the dice on your plants’ chances of surviving a frost. If you want to better ensure your plants will thrive you have to know your growing zone.

Planting by Zone
The USDA designates nine growing zones and here in East Central Indiana we’re in Zone 5. This means plants must be able to survive an extreme low temperature of -20 F. (A close look at the map shows that some parts of Central Indiana are in Zone 6, but it’s best to take the lower number when in doubt.)

Lots of beautiful flowers, fruits and vegetables do well in Zone 5, from asters to zinnias, and from asparagus to watermelon. A great resource for suggestions is the Old Farmer’s Almanac. There’s a lot of information on the website and even more in the book.

Planting by Locality
Some Hoosiers prefer plants that are native to Indiana. They point out that native plants are best for the environment as native plants promote healthy wildlife populations and help prevent the spread of invasive, exotic species. The Indiana Wildlife Federation lists (and sells) native trees and shrubs such as American Highbush Cranberry, Silky Dogwood and Spicebush.

Why not plant species that are attractive, hearty and promote a healthy environment all at once? Feel free to contact us with questions about plant selection. We’re here to help!