The Challenge
Silverback was challenged to develop and execute an SEO marketing strategy for Verengo Solar, a residential solar installation company with a very specific geographic footprint. Verengo Solar primary markets are in California, Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York. Verengo Solar desired to dominate these markets via organic search, and if possible, acquire multiple organic listings in the search results for individual geo-based keyword queries.
The Solution
Silverback Marketing developed a three-part strategy to address this challenge.
SEO Tactic #1: Sitewide SEO Best Practices
The initial phase of the project was designed to ensure that the site was following best practices in SEO on a site-wide basis. During this process Silverback optimized every SEO-viable page on the site to rank for keywords that were both targeted and relevant to the content contained within each of the pages. A thorough audit was performed on the website to ensure that the site was optimized from a technical SEO perspective.
SEO Tactic #2: Geo-based Content Expansion
The geo-based content expansion strategy required the development of three web pages for each of the cities within Verengo’s geographic footprint. Three pages were created, published, and optimized for each applicable city. Each of the three pages targeted various keyword derivatives relating to both the city and common industry terms such as “solar panels”, “solar energy”, and “solar power”. For example, the resulting pages for Burbank, CA would target keyword terms such as “Burbank Solar Panels”, “Burbank Solar Energy”, “Burbank Solar Power”, etc. The goal of the exercise was to generate high rankings for the primary “solar” derivatives in every city Verengo Solar competes in. Through May 2014, more than 170 pages have been published on VerengoSolar.com representing 55 cities in California, Connecticut, New Jersey and New York.
SEO Tactic #3: Microsite Development
In parallel to the sitewide SEO best practices and geo-based content expansion strategies outlined above, Silverback also worked with Verengo Solar to develop geo-based solar microsites corresponding to the geo-based pages published on VerengoSolar.com. The basic concept of this strategy was two-fold. First, to occupy multiple organic search engine rankings for the geo-based, solar search terms we targeted within the site-wide SEO best practices strategy; and second, to acquire and redirect valuable traffic and link equity to VerengoSolar.com via cross-promotion. Exact match domains were identified, acquired, developed, and optimized to rank for applicable search terms. (Example: www.burbanksolarpanels.com)
The Results
Since the project’s inception in 2010, the SEO strategy that Silverback developed and executed on Verengo Solar’s behalf has produced more than 150 #1 rankings in Google and hundreds of first page rankings for geo-based, solar keyword terms. Amortizing the cost to produce the geo-targeted content, the average cost per visit was less than $0.25 per visit through May 2014. Considering the relatively high CPC rates for geo-specific terms in this vertical (i.e. “Fresno Solar Power” costs roughly $21.00 per click via Google Adwords for a top 2 position), this strategy has been a major win for Verengo Solar. In aggregate, VerengoSolar.com’s quarterly organic search volume has increased year-over-year for 15 consecutive quarters.
The microsite effort has resulted in multiple instances where VerengoSolar.com ranks #1 for a geo-based, solar keyword term with the corresponding microsite ranking #2 and vice-versa (i.e. “Burbank Solar Panels”). By occupying multiple organic search engine listings within the search results, Verengo Solar enjoys additional market share while creating a barrier to their competitors for these very valuable geo-based keyword queries.