Case Study

How high quality content marketing & local SEO drive search rankings & leads

Why Allterra Solar Chose Vab Media Digital Agency as the right fit for their search engine optimization and content development marketing needs.

Allterra Solar is a well known family-owned Solar Installer in Santa Cruz, California and Monterey bay with an annual revenue of close to $ 1.5 million in 2016. They wanted to improve their search results for phrases like “Santa Cruz Solar” and other semantically related keyword queries. Alterra Solar contacted Vab Media Digital Agency when they were conducting a search for local SEO companies in Santa Cruz. They discovered our site after their search revealed that Vab Media Digital Agency ranks number 1 on the first page of Google for SEO services in Santa Cruz.

They were looking for a marketing agency firm that had writing and marketing experience with their industry and could collaborate and could act as an outsourced CMO to their to develop authoritative thought leadership content and bring new qualified leads that the sales team could pick and choose from. They also wanted us to train their team as well.

Allterra Solar's Business Goals

Begin an aggressive content marketing and SEO initiative to rank for competitive, non-branded search queries in addition to brand searches.
To test multiple page design layouts for the best performing version and optimize accordingly.
To help improve their website’s lead conversions and unique value proposition.
Since Allterra Solar is a local business they wanted help with boosting their Google My Business map pack local search listings.

What We Did

The solar industry is a pretty large and competitive marketplace. They were competing against local Solar installers such as Solar Technologies, Day One Solar and the big players such as SolarCity and Sungevity. After first meeting with Allterra Solar, the company decided that their website platform needed some revamping. We designed a responsive website that was mobile friendly and worked beautiful across all devices. We updated their existing images by adding ALT tags so that Google was able to crawl their images.

We did this by adding meta descriptions and titles to each of their pages. We also performed competitor and keyword research in order to assess what type of content was needed to get their website to come up in searches related to the products and services they provide.

Vab Media analyzed what Allterra Solar’s local and national competitors were ranking for and writing about (optimizing) and developed an SEO campaign content strategy to target many different long tail keyword phrases that homeowners might search related to installing solar panels. Vab Media’s plan was to address the weaknesses in their website’s lack of relevant content and pages in order to more provide useful information to new customers who might be conducting “informational searches” in the research phase of their sales funnel. We also initiated a local SEO campaign, which worked with their existing customers to get them more reviews. On each page we created we tested different colors, ad copy and calls to action to figure out what would improve their conversions via contact form lead sign-up requests.

We also taught the Alterra Solar staff what points to take into account when creating future content. We gave an extensive SEO “best practices” internal team training, which helped them to carry out a content strategy after our 7-month contract ended. Allterra Solar was able to establish authority with a whole new audience of residential and commercial clients while engaging their existing customers with new and valuable information that created contagious brand loyalty. Their local search rankings skyrocketed. Thanks largely to Vab Media’s efforts, Alterra Solar is now at the forefront of the Santa Cruz solar industry space.

" Before we started with them, we had a minimal digital presence. If you are looking for help with your SEO and PPC marketing, I highly recommend that you contact Vab Media Digital Agency. Their technical expertise and commitment to service makes them an ideal agency partner.”

James Allen
Cofounder of Allterra Solar

Create content that shows expertise and knowledge of the subject matter to drive rankings and leads

Throughout 8 month engagement that Allterra Solar had partnered with Vab Media Digital Agency to come up with strategic plan to develop content that was accurate, informative and would lead to a targeted audience who would end up wanting to contact them to learn more about going solar or solar financing options. They also explained to us what were types services that would be high value to rank on Google for as far as potential leads go.

In collaboration with the CEO James Allen and his brother Nate,(they are the subject matter experts, we gave them competitor insights and optimized contnet) we helped them developed strategic content that would show and reflect Allterra Solar’s expertise and thought leadership which would be published on their website to increase search rankings, build brand awareness and attract top-of-funnel visitors looking for solar companies in Santa Cruz area and various questions related to it.

Here are a few examples of the improved search rankings that our content and SEO work delivers still to Allterra Solar on a monthly basis.

Santa Cruz Solar Energy

Solar panels for home Santa Cruz

Solar Installer in Santa Cruz

Local SEO Services Matter for small business.

Local search engine optimization (SEO) is a strategy that is hand-crafted for local businesses looking to increase their visibility in search engines, reach more customers, and of course — earn revenue.

Similar to traditional SEO, local SEO services focus on boosting your business listings in online map-pack search results.

Thanks largely to Vab Media’s efforts, Allterra Solaris now at the forefront of search visibility when people search for several long tail solar related phrases.