Growing Search

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and your position there.

Maptive is a SAAS software company that produces cloud based mapping GIS software. The software is used by companies across the world for data visualization and numerous other mapping use cases. My position at the company is CEO.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

For what projects/services did your company hire Growing Search, and what were your goals?

We hired Growing Search to manage and run our SEO and other various online marketing activities. Our goals were to build a long term sustainable SEO strategy that will stand the test of time and all of Google's continuous algorithm updates. Obviously, as well, we have goals for increased site traffic and SERP rankings.

SOLUTION

How did you select this vendor and what were the deciding factors?

This company came from a professional referral. The deciding factors where their overall approach to SEO and the deep knowledge they exhibited. They have a deep understanding of the space and of all the complex challenges that must be overcome to do an effective job at SEO.

Describe the scope of work in detail, including the project steps, key deliverables, and campaigns.

The project consists of all things required to influence SEO (content, copy, back-linking, web design, competitive analysis, etc, etc). SEO is a complex beast that requires many moving parts be addressed.

How many people from the vendor's team worked with you, and what were their positions?

2 people have worked with us. One was the CEO. I don't know the title of the other. Both have been fantastic.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Can you share any measurable outcomes of the project or general feedback about the deliverables?

I have been in technology since 1998 and have a deep understanding of SEO. I have also worked with 30+ different SEO professionals throughout that my career and in many different positions. Given that, I'm in a pretty good position in order to evaluate a firms SEO chops. Growing Search has performed beyond my expectations and we couldn't be more happier with them. They have significantly increased traffic, page position and numerous other metrics we gauge to determine our SEO success.

Describe their project management style, including communication tools and timeliness.

Their project management style is very hands on. They are highly responsive and can operate independently without any instruction.

What did you find most impressive or unique about this company?

Their deep grasp of SEO is impressive.

Are there any areas for improvement or something they could have done differently?

Not really.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I worked with Growing Search when I was the head of growth at Breather, a startup that provides office space on demand. I led the growth team within the marketing department. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Growing Search?

We were trying to grow our presence organically. When we hired Growing Search, we had specific requests for areas we needed to improve in different geographies where we'd been weaker. Our startup wanted to build visibility across specific keywords that match the service we provide. 

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

Our respective teams put in a combined effort for the keyword research. They conducted the initial audit, but we provided insight into the pertinent keywords for our business strategy. They made quite a few changes to our website based on the findings of a technical audit to improve aspects like page load time. Working with our developers at a rapid pace, they also substantially changed the site structure as a longer-term project. We built out numerous new pages and directories. 

What is the team composition? 

Initially, the scope of the engagement was to work directly with one person who audited our SEO and built out the technical infrastructure. After we completed those efforts, we switched to a backlink-type exercise. At that point, our point of contact and his team worked together to build out backlinks for the target keywords. 

How did you come to work with Growing Search?

We found Growing Search through a recommendation from our CEO.

How much have you invested with them?

As we were building backlinks, we paid about $5,000 per month for a set number we negotiated.  When the teammate we worked with came into our office two days a week, we were paying a monthly rate of about $8,000–$9,000. In total, we invested close to $65,000–$75,000 for nine months of work. 

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working together in July 2017 and wrapped up the project in March 2018. I've moved on from my company since then, so I'm not sure if they did any work past that timeframe. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What evidence can you share that demonstrates the impact of the engagement?

The most important measurable results that Growing Search attained for us were increased rankings. We saw a substantial increase in rankings for one of the early goals of improving our local search results for primary keywords in the UK. About two or three months after the project started, there was a significant jump in our rankings that we slowly increased and maintained from there. 

How did Growing Search perform from a project management standpoint?

Project management went well. In general, it can be challenging to work with developers and designers, but we got over 160 pages built together that were all optimized for search. The project wasn't totally without its difficulties, but everything worked out well in the end. 

We used the same tools collaboratively that we used internally. They would submit tickets in Jira, and we used Trello or Asana as the project management software. 

What did you find most impressive about them?

Growing Search has obvious expertise and an extremely detailed technical understanding of SEO. They're clearly one of the leaders in their industry. Generally speaking, they had good ideas we could use that were applicable to other areas growth and acquisitions. 

I found them to be a very useful counterpart. Having held a head of growth role previously, they were helpful in our interactions, such as when we discussed general business outside of SEO. 

Are there any areas they could improve?

The one thing they could have done slightly better would have been a monthly reporting cadence on the keywords they tracked. We were happy with the results, but would have liked a little bit more visibility around reporting. 

Do you have any advice for potential customers?

Clients who are considering working with Growing Search, or with any SEO agency, should be clear on what their goals are. Work with the Growing Search team to make sure they understand the objectives and how to measure them, as well.