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B2B Search Engine Optimization Case Studies
Headquartered in Galesburg, Michigan, CSM Group is a commercial construction firm serving Michigan and Indiana. Previously a “quiet” company, CSM Group wished to dramatically reposition itself in the marketplace. Its fundamentals were very strong, honed by years of experience. Now, however, they wished to expand their presence in the marketplace, increase the number of projects for which they were considered, and leverage the strength of the company. CSM Group retained Francis Marketing to reposition the company in the marketplace. Initiatives related to the repositioning including changes in the corporate identity, development of proprietary branded processes, development of a brand contract, creation of new marketing strategy and related messages for key publics, and internal education and alignment to ensure day-to-day delivery of the CSM Group brand. In addition, Francis SEO, a division of Francis Marketing, was responsible for the overhaul of CSM Group’s online presence via their corporate website. CSM Group competes with many construction firms that are both larger and (historically) better known. The primary objective of the overhaul of its website was not only to successfully reposition the company through its messaging and actions, but to claim and strengthen a leadership position in the larger geographic area. To help do this, the company needed to be seen and positioned as a leader among its competitors on the web; it needed to rank in the top search results when prospective building owners research potential building partners for their next project. Because the plan was to overhaul the existing site, there was no need to conduct an SEO Site Audit. We did, however, start with the development of the most appropriate SEO Keyword Strategy for the company, searching for and identifying those search terms most likely to be used by prospective clients wishing to find and evaluate potential building partners. "As we continue to grow our firm and expand into new markets, search engine optimization plays an important role. With search engines, prospects have the ability to easily search for experts—and perceived expertise often trumps established loyalties when evaluating prospective construction companies. If a hospital or healthcare architect is seeking to find the best construction partner for a new building project, it’s very easy to do a search for “Michigan healthcare construction” on Google...and it’s important that we show up strongly in those search results. That kind of exposure and positioning creates opportunities when we otherwise may not have been initially considered." Steve East, President, CSM Group CSM Group operates in an industry where several, varied search terms are used. There are lots of options that searchers on the web might use, including “commercial construction,” “general contractor,” “design/build,” “construction management,” “commercial contractor,” “construction firm,” and so on. Then, there are all of the potential types of construction—green, healthcare, schools, education, higher education, governmental, office, etc. Finally, there are all of the possible geographic modifiers that someone might use in their search terms. The number of potential combinations of words for search terms was very large. Therefore the company’s site needed to be optimized for a wide range of likely search terms. As part of the SEO Keyword Strategy, Francis SEO consulted many research sources regarding the most likely search terms and the variations actually used most. Once the SEO Keyword Strategy was established, we developed the site architecture around this strategy and completed an optimized Website Development engagement for the company to help ensure high-ranking search engine results. The goal was to greatly increase the visibility of the company and significantly strengthen its position as a leader in commercial construction nearly wherever searchers looked. The initiative included new site architecture and landing pages for key search terms, new copy, new file structures, and new content throughout. It was determined that the search engine most used by prospective clients of CSM Group was Google; Yahoo placed a distant second. Accordingly, the new site was optimized for Google. Results of the site optimization now place the company’s site and its related pages in some of the top search results for Google for numerous key search terms related to the company’s industry and marketplace. A summary of the ranking results from Google is listed above. Results from Yahoo were similar. Rankings were as of three months after posting the optimized site.
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