This is the story of how our agency website climbed to Page 1 of Google for over 200 keywords, and what it’s meant to our business.

SEO is a complex, misunderstood and nerve-racking topic. It requires diligence, patience and a long-term investment that has no guarantee of paying off. It has been crowned the ‘holy grail’ of digital marketing, and that’s for good reason. As advertising on Google, Facebook and other digital channels continues to get more expensive, free organic traffic is more coveted than in any time in the internet age.

Websites that hit page 1 of Google have an unfair advantage over their competition. They drive free, qualified traffic from potential customers who statistically don’t do much searching beyond page 1. With the first three positions driving over 50% of clicks, and page 1 as a whole driving over 75% of clicks, the value of page 1 results can’t be overstated.

When we launched our company website back in early 2013, I was extremely envious of our competitors who were, at the time, bathing in the glory of those sought after Page 1 Google rankings. We were forced to suck it up and do things like pay for traffic (yuck!) and rely on tactics like cold calling, cold emailing, attending networking events and dabbling in other hit-or-miss methods of acquiring new customers.

I knew that SEO could make or break us, especially in the early stages. So, we got busy crafting a detailed strategy that we pledged to not deviate from until it paid off. 

Our SEO Journey

The early strategy was pretty simple: lots of on-site blogging and an aggressive link building campaign. We paired our blogging with social media to drive some referral traffic, and within a year started seeing results. 

Our next step was doing a site redesign, which focused on expanding our services landing pages and testing title tags and meta data to see how they impacted our SERP positioning.

The following year, we did another redesign, this time to improve overall user experience and make our site look more agency-like. We knew another re-design was risky, as we planned to add a number of new pages, update the navigational flow,  reconfigure the URL structure and revisit the usage of keywords in body copy, heading tags and elsewhere on the site.

As expected, our SEO dipped a bit after the redesign, even with proper 301 redirects put into place and being super cautious about edits we made to pre-existing page content.

Nervous about making any further adjustments to our website, we focused primarily on off-site SEO. We continued building links and were lucky enough to land guest posts on KISSmetrics, Entrepreneur, HubSpot and other high-authority outlets.

Additionally, FUZE made lists of the top digital agencies and web design companies in Florida and landed mentions and interviews on some highly trafficked websites.

8 months later, we finally saw our SEO begin to climb. This time the pace was rapid, and we very quickly shot to page one for dozens of valuable keywords.

The Payoff

As I write this post, fuzeinc.com ranks on page one of Google for over 200 highly competitive keywords. Bidding on these keywords via AdWords would cost us $10-30 per click and many thousands of dollars per month. I’m proud to say that we spend next to nothing on paid advertising and drive 90% of our leads purely from organic search engine traffic.

We are now one of Miami’s leading website design companies, and it all started with a solid and executable SEO strategy.

Here are some of the search terms we currently rank on Page 1 for:

Web Design Miami
Web Design Company Miami
Web Design Agency Miami
Miami Web Design
Miami Web Design Company
Miami Web Design Agency
Website Development Miami
Ad Agencies Miami
Digital Agency Miami
Digital Marketing Miami
Online Marketing Miami
Miami Search Engine Optimization
Miami Marketing Agencies

Many of the above terms also return Page 1 maps pack listings for FUZE, which gives us not one, but two first page, traffic-driving results. In fact, we’ve noticed a 25-35% uptick in lead volume since we started consistently showing in the maps pack. 

It’s an incredible feeling to be at the top of the food chain for such valuable keywords. Our SEO rankings have generated substantial revenue for our company; however, as previously noted it took over 4 years to achieve this. The early investment included lots of manual labor, plenty of mistakes and no promises that a payoff was in sight.

Despite the daunting task at hand, we never lost hope, and never gave up. We were determined to be on page 1.

Just about every client I speak to wants to know how they can boost SEO rankings and hit page 1 of Google. The answer I typically give them is not the one they want to hear. SEO is a long-term investment and there simply are no reliable shortcuts, tricks or hacks. Sure, you can do some black hat SEO and attempt to work the system, but Google has caught onto the trickery and any results you achieve are not guaranteed to stick.

The biggest challenge with SEO is you have to do it well, and for a sustained period of time. Unlike paid advertising, you can’t just turn SEO on and off. It’s a  game that requires dedication and consistency. The upfront investment won’t be cheap, but once you start hitting page 1 and converting traffic into sales, you can be less aggressive and focus on maintaining search rankings you’ve gained.

Marketers who truly understand SEO strategy and have the skills and knowledge to implement an effective campaign are not as easy to find as you may think. Sorry, but those emails from offshore “experts” offering $99 per month packages just won’t cut it.

Companies who buy into SEO for the long haul, especially in competitive markets, need to commit to running an SEO campaign for 1-3 years to see any substantial results. The upfront investment in time and resources can be scary; however, it’s typically nothing compared to what it costs to buy enough paid traffic to equal a similar volume of organic traffic. 

When it comes to searching for an SEO company to take you to the promise land, hire someone who knows what it takes to get there. Our SEO pitch is simple. We’ve done it for ourselves, and we can do it for you.

For a free SEO audit and consultation on how we can grow your search rankings, contact us today.