White Lake Dock & Dredge

White Lake Dock & Dredge began working with us in the Spring of 2019. Before we started working on their search engine optimization their site was not an effective lead generation tool.

With the record high Great Lakes water levels, White Lake decided to start offering shoreline protection services to Lake Michigan homeowners. Typically, their business is in government contracting and shoreline protection was not a focus service area, although they’ve done it in the past.

The owners of White Lake approached us wondering if there were any opportunities to attract this very niche buyer group to their website. There was.

After careful keyword research, we determined that people in West Michigan were looking for services related to shoreline protection on Lake Michigan. We learned a lot, actually.

Like many complex, specialized services, the buyer doesn’t always know what the solution to their problem is called. They don’t yet have the words to describe their problem, so they start with what they do know and educate themselves.

This is where people go into research mode. Because a lot of these Lake Michigan homeowners didn’t know that they need “rip rap rock revetment” to prevent their home from falling in Lake Michigan due to shoreline erosion, they were searching by terms like “shoreline protection” or “what to do about high Lake Michigan water levels.”

When we realized this, our goal became simple: help the researcher by writing content with the same language they use.

We determined what language to use by completing careful keyword research.

SEO Results

Within a matter of weeks of publishing content that focused on helping the searcher through their buying journey, specifically early on at the point where they were educating themselves, we saw amazing results.

The image below is a screenshot that includes a search engine visibility trend and a tracked keyword rankings table against some competitors. The search engine visibility trend is based on click-through rate (CTR) that shows a website’s progress in Google’s top 100 for keywords from the current tracking campaign. A zero-percent visibility means that the domain isn’t ranking in Google’s top 100 results for any of these keywords; and a 100-percent visibility means that the domain keeps the first position in the SERP (search engine results page) for all of these keywords.

White Lake is represented by the green line below and you’ll also notice all the green arrows and numbers in the table below that represent position changes in Google.

Not only were we able to position their content to rank on the first page of Google, but we are also awarded a highly coveted Google feature called a “featured snippet.” This is the image below. You’ve probably seen something like this before where Google offers a quick answer or definition to your search query.

The Bottom Line

The most important results from this SEO campaign so far have been the well-qualified leads we’ve obtained. By getting in front of the ideal buyer early on in their journey to discovering what solution they need for their Lake Michigan home, we’ve crowned White Lake Dock & Dredge as the authority online and it’s turning into new business. If you’re interested in doing the same, we’d love to chat.