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90% More Visitors From Google (And Growing!)

Almost Heaven SEO Case Study Banner v4

A sauna manufacturer with a factory in West Virginia and an office in Michigan asked us to help them get to the top of Google search results for sauna-related searches across the United States and get more people viewing their site. We were up for the challenge and got to work!

Our Approach

We used a 2-step approach for our sauna manufacturer’s request:

Step 1. Find Out Where to Target (or as we like to say, which pond to fish in)
We looked at Google keyword data and found the best keywords to push our client up for. Being #1 for a keyword that no one searches for or doesn’t match what the client offers is pointless, while being anywhere lower than #5 for a highly searched and matching keyword (i.e. “barrel sauna”) will result in significantly less searches than being in the top 5. As such, we took great care to choose keywords to push for that matched our client perfectly and had lots of searches every day across the US, with the goal of getting to at least the #5 top result but ideally shooting for #1. We picked 3 keywords to focus on that matched our client perfectly: barrel sauna (2400 average searches per month), outdoor sauna (3600 searches a month) and indoor sauna (1000 searches a month.)

Step 2. Plan Out SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Strategy

We knew getting our sauna manufacturer to rank #1 for these keywords would take time and a lot work in multiple areas. There are no cheap tricks to getting Google's algorithm to show your site anymore: instead, ranking in Google requires having a high quality site setup, that is linked to by other trustworthy sites and has lots of content relevant to matching keywords for your site's industry. As such, we divided our SEO efforts into 3 main areas.

A. Site Optimization
We carefully went over every detail of the site and helped coordinate a redesign of the visual layout with search engine optimization in mind. Essentially, we made sure Google would have everything it needed to know about the sauna manufacturer's site and lots of relevant content for Google to look at related to our main keywords.

B. Linkbuilding
We found credible sites to list the sauna business on, and partnered with other small and large businesses and organizations to get legitimate links back to our site. While we were aggressive with getting these links, we also took care to make sure we weren't associating with any sketchy or potentially "flagged" sites. If Google has marked another site as being spammy, insecure or otherwise unfit for search results, being linked to on that site can actually hurt you more than it can help.

C. Content Creation
We helped write new blog posts, social media posts, articles, press releases and informational pages for the sauna manufacturer's site and social media accounts. Google's algorithm can tell when a site has legitimate and helpful content, and continuing to add that content on a regular basis shows Google that your business is real and that your site is likely worth showing higher in search results. We also made sure every piece of content had a keyword or topic in mind that we had chosen to push for, to help reinforce our client's relevance to those topics.

Results

Since 2013, we've helped Almost Heaven Saunas climb to #1 for two highly valuable sauna keywords for all of the US, and #2 for another important keyword! Almost Heaven is now #1 for both "barrel sauna" and "indoor sauna", and currently sits at #2 for "outdoor sauna." Compared to where Almost Heaven originally showed for these keywords prior to 2013, this is a massive improvement and has drawn in so many more high quality customers than Almost Heaven ever had before. In fact, Almost Heaven's traffic from Google searches has increased by 90% and is continuing to grow today as we work on other keywords for them!

SEO improvements over time

“The increase of new people seeing our site thanks to Fantastic Digital is incredible!” -- Rick Mouw, CEO of Almost Heaven Saunas