[SEO Case Study] 317% ROI for Asphalt Paving Company

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important area to focus on in your marketing, and it's important to make sure your efforts are paying off. In today's article we’re sharing a case study about how we helped one of our clients generate a strong return on investment (ROI). SEO Case Study About Return On Investment (ROI) Are you wondering if SEO can really generate ROI for your business? Today I’m going to walk through an SEO case study for one of my clients that will answer this important question.

Background In early 2014 our client, an asphalt paving company, contacted us and expressed frustration that his competitors were ranking high in Google and he was nowhere to be found. He knew he was missing out on new business every year simply because prospective customers were choosing his competitors that ranked on the first page of Google. Prospective customers are searching “paving contractors”, “asphalt paving”, and “asphalt crack repair” every single day and my client was losing that business. The problem was clear. The solution was not so obvious… What We Did The first step we took was to complete what we call the SEO Tune-Up. The SEO Tune-Up includes the following: Keyword and competitor research to identify the best search opportunities Edits to core pages of the website Creation of new core pages to target additional “buying-intent” keywords Creation of new informational pages to target “research-intent” keywords Fix all technical issues like site speed, mobile optimized pages, broken links, missing schema, duplicate pages Set up and verify Google My Business profile Set up Google Analytics and Search Console to track performance In other words, we cleaned up the on-page SEO. On-page SEO is everything on your website that affects your rankings. Since you’re in full control over your on-page SEO, this is usually your biggest leverage point. Next, we switched our focus from on-page SEO over to off-page SEO. Off-page SEO is everything off of your website that affects your rankings. For example, you’ve probably already heard that citations and links on other websites can boost your search engine rankings. Those are both examples of off-page SEO factors. Since our client was focused on local customers, we focused a lot of our efforts initially on building relevant citations, or mentions of our client’s name, address and phone number online. We did this by creating accounts on all the relevant industry and geographic business directories we could find. Plus, we also launched a 2-pronged content marketing strategy: We created content on our client’s website targeting research-intent keywords with the goal of ranking in Google. We created content and posted on other people’s websites that could rank in Google and also provide a link back to our client (aka guest posts). Was all this worth it? Let’s look at the results… The Results Below is a Google Analytics report showing the website traffic, as well as the leads generated directly from SEO. A goal completion for this client is a quote request form submission on the website.

As you can see, the traffic has increased from a steady 90-100 visitors per month in 2014 to a new high of 279 in May 2016 (179% increase). More importantly, the leads from SEO increased from a high of 6 in October 2014 to a new high of 20 in April 2016 (233% increase). (Two Important Notes: 1. This is a very seasonal industry because you do not pave driveways in the winter where our client is located. That’s why there is a decline in traffic and leads between November to February each year. 2. The graph above does not include phone calls generated from SEO) OK, this sounds nice, but what’s the ROI? To get to that number let’s look at the monthly change in leads from 2014 to 2016: 30 leads from SEO in 2014 122 leads from SEO in 2015 92 more leads from SEO year over year (307% increase) Next, we need to know the average fee per sale and the lead to sale conversion rate. With a little research, you’ll find that the average fee for paving a driveway is around $5,000. It obviously depends on the size of the driveway and the complexity of the job, but on average it’s about $5,000. SEO lead to sale conversion rates is a bit harder to research. If we assume a modest 5% conversion rate, then the 92 additional leads would generate about 5 more customers, or $25,000. Lastly, we need to compare sales to the cost of the SEO work. This particular client was investing in a custom SEO package for $500/month so the ROI calculation looks like this: ($25,000 – $6,000) / $6,000 = 317% ROI. Again, it’s important to note that this calculation does not take into account the phone call leads and sales so the ROI number is a low estimate. But the ROI between 2014 to 2015 is not what’s most impressive here. If you look at the graph above you can see that 2016 outperformed 2015. That brings us to the big takeaway from this case study… SEO Is a Growing Asset When done right, SEO is a growing asset that will generate a better and better ROI each year. That’s the beauty of this marketing investment. Rather than renting ad space that disappears as soon as you stop paying the ad network, you’re building an asset that will grow over time!

6 Adwords Tips to Maximize Your Campaigns for 2017

This month I've heard a lot about New Year's resolutions and goals for 2017. For businesses using Google AdWords, those resolutions include something about maximizing their ad budgets to ensure a strong ROI.

Here are 6 tips from our AdWords analysts to maximize your campaigns this year. 

Tip #1: Say No to Broad Matching

According to Google, Broad Match "lets a keyword trigger your ad to show whenever someone searches for that phrase, similar phrases, singular or plural forms, misspellings, synonyms, stemmings (such as floor and flooring), related searches, and other relevant variations." While using broad match may enable your ad campaign to show up for more keywords, they may not be the keywords that really convert for your business.

Jane recommends only using Broad Match Modified if you are experienced and have tested your target keywords well.

AdWords provides multiple keyword match types: Exact, Phrase and Broad Match. You should always use Exact and Phrase match in your AdWords account. To get more reach, use Broad Match Modified (not Broad Match). Broad Match Modified can be identified by the + sign in your account.

Here are examples of the different keyword match types:

• Exact Match looks like this: [Adwords ROI]
• Phrase Match looks like this: "Adwords ROI"
• Broad Match looks like this: Adwords ROI
• Broad Match Modified looks like this: +Adwords +ROI

Staying away from Broad Match allows you to conserve budget until you are sure which terms convert well for your business.

Tip #2: Give Top Keywords Ample Budget

Once you have an idea of what keywords convert best for your business, it's important to make sure that your budget is being spent to support those keywords.

While you want to leave some budget to be spent on testing new keywords, it's a good idea to manage your top converting keywords by putting them in their own campaign. Then, you can dedicate the majority of your budget to flow to that campaign so you're investing in what works. This will ensure your ad spend is directed at the keywords that will perform best for your business.

Tip #3: Separate Search and Display Campaigns

Although AdWords offers the option to combine both (search network with display select), it's usually best to run these tactics separately.

There is a lot of variation between search and display performance for most accounts, so by keeping them separate you can better control budgets. When you set up a new campaign, based on what you're trying to target, make sure you choose "search network only" or "display network only."

Tip #4: Always Use Negative Keywords

Adding keywords that are irrelevant to your business as negatives can be just as beneficial as the keywords you're bidding on.

Negative keywords help reduce the amount of times your ad is served on irrelevant queries. For instance, if you run a dental practice that offers root canals, and you're bidding on keywords related to root canals, you don't want your ad to show for someone searching for "root canal malpractice".

Negatives are particularly important when running Phrase, Broad, and Broad Modified match types. You can always see the actual searches that trigger your ads by going to your keywords tab and clicking on the "search terms" button. If any searches show up in that report that you don't want to be advertising on, then add them to the negative keyword list.

Tip #5: Include Ad Extensions to Your Campaigns

Aside from the benefit of adding relevant information about your business, ad extensions work to improve overall metrics. Adding extensions can increase your click through rate, improve your quality score and even make your ads stand out from the crowd.

According to Google, accounts that include at least one ad extension see an average of 10-15% increase in click-through-rate.

You can manually add extensions like sitelinks and click-to-message to improve relevance and lead submissions. Sometimes, Google will include automatic extensions to your ad based on the information it pulls from your AdWords account.

Tip #6: Run Responsive Display Ads

Google recently introduced responsive display ads to replace regular display ads. The main difference between the two is that you no longer need several image ads (or banners ads) to set up a display or remarketing campaign. Instead, you just need to upload an image, a headline, and your destination URL.

The image will automatically adjust its size, appearance, and format to fit any available ad space. This means, your ad can show in a native, dynamic text or image format in any size, on any website with ad space. This new ad format most importantly increases your reach and saves you time with setup.

Our Top 6 Favorite Tools from 2016

Some tools I'd used in previous years, there were also some new tools added to my list. All of them help to keep us organized, efficient, and creative at work.

Here are my 6 favorites tools for 2016...

1. Yesware

Finding this gem of a tool has been an absolute lifesaver. I have a terrible habit of sending an email that says something to the effect of "I'll follow up with you (insert time/date)" and then never remembering to actually send that follow-up email. At the beginning of 2016 I started using a spreadsheet to keep track of all of this which was extremely time consuming and inefficient. Yesware changed all of that. This tool has a ton of great features but my personal favorite is the "remind" feature. Before hitting send on a your email, you can mark "remind" and choose a date/time for a reminder email to be sent to you telling you to follow-up. There's an option to only get the reminder if someone doesn't reply to your email as well. This has removed the need for confusing spreadsheets but also ensured that I get back to colleagues and partners in a timely manner. Some other great features of Yesware include email scheduling (write the night before and send out the next morning), mail merge capabilities, email-open tracking, template creation and inputting, and reports. If you use Salesforce, Yesware also has an integration tool.

2. Asana

If you read my Thanksgiving post about why I'm grateful to work for Main Street ROI, then you know that we have the flexibility to work from home, which is amazing. One of the ways we're able to do this and still successfully work together as a team is no doubt because of Asana. This is an online collaboration tool that allows you to manage the tasks and workings of your team through a digital platform. Each member of our team is part of Asana. On this platform, we're able to create projects and tasks and assign members of our team to join the project. It allows for internal conversations, task tracking, due dates, calendars, and following of tasks. This tools has been amazing for making sure that each project within the company gets done and that we know who is responsible for each part of the project. There is also a very easy-to-use mobile app for Asana as well so you can check tasks on the go.

3. Google Drive

There's a reason Google is one of the top grossing companies in the world. Google's search engine capabilities and apps make all of our lives easier and Google Drive is by far one of my favorite tools of this year, and maybe of all time. Being able to store any file- photos, videos, designs, documents, spreadsheets- in one place and access them from anywhere, with multiple devices, is invaluable. This guarantees that you can access a file at any time, not just when you're in front of a computer at your office. From a team perspective, the real-time updates on Google docs and spreadsheets allows our team to connect from anywhere. Using Google Drive contributes to our team's success in working remotely. While on a conference call, we can all access the same document and all be editing live so we can view the same information. Drive also allows for sharing outside of your organization so that clients and partners can access files you need them to as well. Plus, there's a benefit to knowing your work is auto-saved so that even on an accidental window closure you don't risk losing all of the work you put in.

4. Canva

Canva is an amazing tool that allows you to create beautiful image designs in a few quick steps. With hundreds of pre-designed templates and beautiful stock images, Canva makes it easy for non-graphic designers to create images that are great for sharing on social media or use during presentations. While some of the images and templates require an extra $1 fee for use, there are plenty of excellent free options available as well. The program also gives you the option of uploading your own photos that can be inserted into various templates and edited directly within Canva.

5. Freedom.to

This handy tool is a way to battle the multi-tasker within all of us. Freedom blocks distracting websites and apps (including email) while working on a project in order to increase productivity and focus. It can be used on all of your devices so that you're unable to be distracted by any of them. You're also able to schedule Freedom sessions in advance or start one on-the-fly whenever you need it. Fair warning, they really fulfill their promise so if you enter "lock mode" and start a session, it's almost impossible to get back to your email and apps until your Freedom time is up.

6. Infusionsoft

This may be one of the most important tools we use at Main Street ROI. Infusionsoft was created for small businesses and facilitates email, sales and marketing solutions, CRM, e-commerce capabilities, and even referral partner tracking.

The email functionality in Infusionsoft is one of the main reasons we love it. It allows sending and scheduling of mass emails, such as weekly email newsletters. You can also use it to send and schedule autoresponders, such as a targeted sequence of follow-up emails. Plus, you can use tags to create very specific segments from your overall list. One downside to Infusionsoft is the price. Packages start at $199, which can be expensive for small businesses. However, the cost can easily be offset by the increase in sales from your email campaigns and the time saved using the automation features.