Sentry Protective Systems has used search engine optimization to make their presence online known. The company, which offers residential and commercial home security systems in New Hampshire and Boston, had to compete with home security giants, but were able to reach their customers by using local SEO effectively. Their strategies are ongoing, having started in September of 2012, and a local SEO case study has shown significant results thus far.
Starting Out
In 2012, Sentry Protective Systems was entirely invisible on popular search engines. Anyone who lived in New Hampshire or Boston who searched for home alarm systems found the bigger, more established companies that dominated results for the most popular keywords. This was especially true in Boston, which is a hotspot for these home security companies. Sentry Protective Systems was a new website that experienced a low popularity from other websites, no website rankings, and very few service pages. These three factors, combined with how new the site was, all negatively affect search engine optimization, and as a result, Sentry received very little web traffic from potential clients.
Using Local SEO
Having few service pages meant that there were less URLs associated with Sentry to include keywords that might make the site visible. The first thing the company did was to take the core services the company provided and give each one its own individual page that gave the site more keywords overall. From here, traffic could be built up through local SEO; creating local business profiles, contacting review sites, utilizing online PR, and establishing the company through business directories to increase the number of websites that linked to Sentry – one of the most important factors of SEO. Using guidelines set by Google, Sentry Protective Systems began to build their brand and online presence.
The Results
Had a person decided to view the visibility statistics for Sentry Protective Services in 2012, they would have found nothing; the company was entirely invisible. In April 2013, less than one year after the start of this campaign, the results are significant. For 21 of their 77 keywords, Sentry was ranked 1st in Google and/or Bing US. For 41 of those keywords, they appeared in the top 3 results, and for 69 of them, they were in the top 100 results. Utilizing local SEO boosted Sentry from having zero rankings in popular search engines to being among the first things anyone saw when looking for exactly the kind of services that Sentry could provide – and this after less than one year of careful marketing.
Sentry is one example of how local SEO can be used to aid any company that has a physical location or specific clientele in mind. Moving from being entirely invisible to very visible within a year is an impressive feat that can be owed to properly marketing using online strategies and proper and effective use of keywords. As daunting as the task can seem, Sentry proves that it is always possible to break through the first page of any search engine with the right marketing.
