Case profile
Garden of the Gods Self Storage is a family-owned storage facility in Colorado Springs that has been in business for more than a decade. Its units are top of the line at very affordable pricing, with climate-enhanced units, indoor and outdoor RV storage, boat storage and car storage. Their passion is building the best storage facility in Colorado Springs. They came to Infront to develop an organic search strategy to gain visibility and rankings in the city, improve search placement and fill the facility to capacity.
The challenge
The task was to take a slow, outdated WordPress website and rebuild it to current standards. The site was not mobile-friendly, did not use SSL, was thin on content and suffered from many compliance and technical SEO issues. Very little SEO had ever been done and visibility was minimal. Images needed optimizing, the meta information needed serious help and nothing had been done for site or mobile speed. The site also lacked quality backlinks and any local map placement.
What we did
- Keyword research and competitive analysis with Google Keyword Planner, SEMrush and WebCEO. The site was missing every "storage units" and "self-storage units" keyword and had no information about the kinds of storage offered.
- On-site optimization: new WordPress theme, Yoast SEO, meta titles and descriptions, sitemaps, 301 redirects, Google Search Console, structured data, move to HTTPS, H1 tags, caching and image compression, AMP pages, interlinking to page-two and page-three content and a Google map in the footer.
- Content-driven strategy: more valuable content with headings and subheadings, separate pages for boat, RV, auto and business storage, and regular Google Business Profile posts.
- Marketing content on why the facility is better: safety and security, on-site management, packing supplies, climate-enhanced units, military discounts for the area's four bases, cleanliness and wide drives for trucks and trailers, plus a virtual video tour.
- User experience: simpler menu, voice-search optimization, faster loading, a streamlined contact form, clear calls to action, and easy-to-find "pay now" and "reserve a unit" buttons.
- Backlinks: disavowed over 5,500 spammy and toxic links in Search Console, listed the site on Synup for NAP consistency and used Ahrefs, SEMrush and Whitespark to find link opportunities.
The results
From June 1, 2017 to February 1, 2018:
- Organic growth improved 1,170%.
- Conversion rate up 27.92%.
- Bounce rate improved 21%.
- Pages per session up 47% and session duration up 206%.
- Of 177 tracked search results across Google desktop, Google mobile and Bing, 13% of keywords are in the #1 position and 62% are on the first page.
- Occupancy rates increased 3.2%.
The SEO work for Garden of the Gods Self Storage was recognized nationally as a finalist at the 2018 Search Engine Land Landy Awards for Best Local Search Marketing Initiative. See the summary storage SEO case study and the later website redesign.
“We were amazed at how much our web presence helped and increased business, and now you have an award to verify it! As always thank you for the amazing work!”