Things we know:
94% Of Internet Users Will Pick Businesses On The First Page Of Local Search Results
Problem:
Happy with Lehi local traffic, which was plentiful for most variations of the city-offering-modifier queries yielding top 3 SERP placement. But moving forward, our problem was pretty well defined. We need to increase UTC’s salient base-keyword phrases’ SERP placement with a foreign brick & mortar locale with maximum competition. Never had that happen before.
So we know we have to widen an organic base, rank for a major metro area not located in…in a super-saturated marketplace. Actually, two marketplaces…local used truck dealerships & national used cars, truck, car mega sites like CarGurus and AutoTrader.
Solution:
First, a review needed to be conducted determining what UTC currently had working for & against them.
Pros:
- Strong URL SEO-Domain Agreeance
- Strong backlink structure
- Consistent consumer traffic & bot traffic to move the needle quickly
- High involvement product, sight unseen still frowned upon
- Ample demand-to-inventory ratio..
Cons:
- Outside of vital metro market
- Strong Salt Lake City competition
- Strong National competition
- Several concrete, immobile characters in the SERPs.
So efforts were placed in two areas, a national push for “state-offering-modifier” SERP 1 – 5 placement was going to be our first priority. This was chosen mainly because of the keyword demand & the lack of local players on a used truck-specific playing field. Whereas you can see many of UTC’s local competitors from the front of their parking lot, the CarGurus & AutoTraders were the major competitors of concern. And given the intent-based consumer psyche between going to AutoTrader vs a local truck dealer website, our ultimate conversion rate will be higher for a high involvement product needing tangible interaction before purchase (for now).
Second, while located in Lehi, Utah UTC operates in the SLC market. Therefore, advances needed to be made for SERP placement for local SEO milestones. Taking advantage of prior relationships, a backlinking strategy for local level select anchor phrases was launched in tandem with new optimized pages. Also, new pages for local inventory-keyword demand were created to appeal to certain audiences searching for select offerings in select areas of the greater SLC area whether it be brand, fuel type, modification, etc.
Results:
After a 3 – 4 month soak on our properties, we’ve started seeing major traction, particularly with national-state SERP placement. Particularly with one of our biggest keyword phrases, “utah used trucks”. Our typical placement in August, 2021 would hover around 9 – 12, first to second page. After conducting our efforts, we have secured a 3 – 4 SERP first page placement for the past month with variations ranking the same in a competing market of 14 million sites. In this sense, if I’m gonna be stuck between a first page Google rock and a hard place, being lovingly placed in between CarGurus & Autotrader could be worse.
For the local SEO, we are beginning to see a rise in traffic. Nothing too extreme, but we are seeing these efforts push high-value terms teetering on the second page to a firm 8 – 10 SERP placement. It appears that the backlinks campaigns and rethinking the optimization with new data from platforms, such as SEMRush, served their purpose.
Concerning the local markets, several pages were created, optimized for the several search terms that categorize, modify the particular phrase that is most relevant to that geo demographic. These seem slower to compete in the SERPs, but given the backyard brawl aspect of the competition, which is not surprising.
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