Authority Solutions®

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Marketing Specialist of Strategic CFO

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Strategic CFO™ (SCFO Consulting LLC) is a boutique consulting & advisory firm assisting clients with challenges in accounting, finance and operations. Through Strategic CFO™ services such as coaching, consulting, business transformation and restructuring, Strategic CFO™ provides companies with a wide variety of cost-effective & customizable solutions proven to be successful.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Authority Solutions® to accomplish?

• Get more Leads
• Update Website/ Fix Issues
• Web Security

SOLUTION

How did you find Authority Solutions®?

Referral

Why did you select Authority Solutions® over others?

• Close to my geographic location
• Pricing fit our budget
• Great culture fit
• Company values aligned

How many teammates from Authority Solutions® were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Authority Solutions has been with us since I started with Strategic CFO and the website had been hacked. Following the attack (that they successfully defended us from) a multitude of security issues were discovered and we began a project to tune up and modernize our website. 

After delivering a very beautiful and secure website, we began a full-scale SEO campaign to promote our NearSourcing Accounting Solutions including email & social media campaigns as well as behind-the-scenes technical SEO. Authority Solutions also assisted in the management of Google Tag Manager, Search Console, and Analytics. 

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

Website is now functional and secure and we are ranking for our desired keywords. 

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

• Very responsive team
• love the project management platform they use

What was your primary form of communication with Authority Solutions®?

Virtual Meeting

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

Their website designers are very talented. We are frequently complimented on our website. 

Are there any areas for improvement or something Authority Solutions® could have done differently?

No, they were a pleasure to work with and a great resource. 

BACKGROUND

Please describe your company and position.

I am the Director of Marketing of Anderson Regional Health System

Describe what your company does in a single sentence.

Anderson Regional Health System is a non-profit health system that operates two hospitals, a cancer center, and a network of primary and specialty care clinics.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What specific goals or objectives did you hire Authority Solutions® to accomplish?

• Redesign website
• Increase capabilities of website
• Enhance SEO and SEM

SOLUTION

How did you find Authority Solutions®?

Referral

Why did you select Authority Solutions® over others?

• Referred to me
• Friendliness and helpfulness of company leadership

How many teammates from Authority Solutions® were assigned to this project?

2-5 Employees

Describe the scope of work in detail. Please include a summary of key deliverables.

Authority Solutions provided a complete redesign of my company's website. They rewrote the content to ensure it was optimized for search engines and added forms that allowed me to interact with my customers more directly. Authority Solutions also set up, managed and edited all of my google business listings with new pictures, videos and information to attract customers.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

What were the measurable outcomes from the project that demonstrate progress or success?

I do not have access to metrics at this time.

Describe their project management. Did they deliver items on time? How did they respond to your needs?

Authority Solutions excels in follow-through and responsiveness to my needs. They listened, researched, and responded with a solution each and every time I had a question. The website redesign stayed on schedule through completion. All additional requests were handled in a timely manner.

What was your primary form of communication with Authority Solutions®?

• Virtual Meeting
• Email or Messaging App

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

The attentiveness, friendliness, helpfulness, and responsiveness of the company's staff are unmatched. Their expertise and willingness to create customized solutions provided great value to me as a busy marketing director with a broad range of responsibilities.

Are there any areas for improvement or something Authority Solutions® could have done differently?

No

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there. 

I'm the vice president of sales and business development for American Prudential Capital Inc. We're a small family-run private funding company. We fund startups and B2B acquisitions. We provide funding for companies to grow in a short amount of time, and we help businesses buy other business.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Authority Solutions®?

We've been in business for 30 years, but a few years ago we stopped showing up in search results. It was hard for current and prospective clients to find us. We needed help to bring us up to the top of the search results.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement? 

Authority Solutions® redid our website to make it look better and operate more effectively on mobile devices. Our website used to get taken down about six times a year, so they fixed it so it can’t be hacked. They make changes and adjustments to the site as needed in order to meet SEO requirements. They manage dozens of keywords that speak to exactly what people are searching for when they look for us. They also manage and run PPC campaigns. They set up our social media accounts and make sure the profiles are correct.

What is the team composition?

I work with Jose (Co-Owner, Authority Solutions®) and Mitchell (SEO Expert, Authority Solutions®).

How did you come to work with Authority Solutions®?

We’d worked with other SEO companies and were disappointed. We never knew for sure if they were actually doing what they claimed. I knew both Mitchell and Jose before they started Authority Solutions®. I sat down with them and they were able to show me exactly what people were searching for and where we were showing up. They showed me what they could do to help us get to the top of the search results.

How much have you invested with them?

I'm not sure the exact amount, but we pay around $2,000 per month.

What is the status of this engagement? 

Work started 3–4 years ago and the engagement is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

Before they took over, our phone number on our website rang straight to someone in the office who isn't a salesperson. Authority Solutions® put tracking information in the phone number on the website and routes all calls straight to me. It serves the purpose of removing the burden from staff answering phone calls that don't relate to their job. It also allows us to track results from PPC, SEO, and social media. We can now see where inbound calls are coming from and what tactics are effective. 

In addition, my phone rings a lot more now because our keywords are working. We’re the only company that shows up on mobile devices for some keywords. We appear to be the authority on those topics, which increases our call volume. I of course have to deal with the occasional calls that’s not from a potential client, but that’s an acceptable trade off. They also record inbound calls so we can go back and listen to what was said. Since we've worked with them, they’ve protected the site from being hacked.

How did Authority Solutions® perform from a project management standpoint? 

Their team is great. I've never had a problem getting them to respond when something's gone wrong. A website update caused a form to stop working, and they’re very responsive. If there’s ever any issue, I can reach out to them and know I’ll get a response. Authority Solutions® has a reporting system where I can log in and see exactly what's going on. It's clear that they're making strides and improving our search results.

What did you find most impressive about them? 

They're work in the background to make us look good. They're a great group of people. They're always upgrading our website and bringing us new ideas to improve SEO. They're always so helpful. I can call Authority Solutions® and get great advice, even on things that are unrelated to the scope of work. 

Are there any areas they could improve? 

I don't think so. Any idea we mention to them, they’ve thought about it and are already working on it. 

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

I am the owner of TLC Outdoor Living. We are a one-stop shop for outdoor needs, including pools, patios, outdoor kitchens, and irrigation and landscaping services. 

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Authority Solutions?

We engaged Authority Solutions to help us generate more leads and be more visible in the marketplace.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

We initially relied on Authority Solutions to completely revamp our website with new content and new flow. They now lead our keyword research and targeting efforts and our SEO and PPC campaigns.

What is the team composition?

We work primarily with Jose (Director of SEO Operations, Authority Solutions) and Mitchell (Owner, Authority Solutions).

How did you come to work with Authority Solutions?

We learned of them through a referral, and we selected them based on their professionalism and knowledge base demonstrated in an introductory meeting.

How much have you invested with them?

We’ve spent between $100,000–$125,000 to this point.

What is the status of this engagement?

Our engagement began in January 2015 and remains ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

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

We’ve seen a substantial increase in our leads. Previously, we would increase leads by going out into the market, but now I’d say we receive about 20 calls per month from people finding us through search engines or our website.

How did Authority Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

They’ve been exceptional. They are organized and on top of everything they need to do. We communicate well through phone calls and emails, but we also meet in person if necessary.

What did you find most impressive about them?

The results they’ve delivered are precisely what we hoped for. Their service is amazing. Authority Solutions has delivered on all of their promises.

Are there any areas they could improve?

No, I’ve been very happy with them.

BACKGROUND

Introduce your business and what you do there.

Crossroads Treatment Center is an addiction treatment center based out of Rosario, Mexico. We have a novel approach to treating addiction. We used entheogenic compounds like Ibogaine to help people detox from addictive substances as well as to gain mental clarity and alleviation from some of the root causes that have kept them stuck in their addictive patterns. I’m the marketing director.

OPPORTUNITY / CHALLENGE

What challenge were you trying to address with Authority Solutions?

We weren’t getting enough inbound phone calls coming in from our website. In fact, our website was ranking pretty low on the major search engines, primarily Google, and our old website wasn’t effective at converting people and it didn’t summarize our core message very well. We needed help designing the website and we also needed help ranking it and making sure that all of these media interviews and other positive references were being utilized in our search engine optimization efforts. We wanted to redesign our website with SEO in mind.

SOLUTION

What was the scope of their involvement?

It started off with them understanding our business, understanding our competitors, looking at other competitors’ websites and then really determining all of the different outbound marketing efforts that we were already engaged in. We came up with a list of our appearances, such as our appearances on the Tim Ferris podcast, the Bulletproof podcast, and setting up backlinks to those different media sources and also determined how we wanted to layout the website. They worked with us through that process. They helped us figure out how our home page would be designed and what the core message was that we want to convey to our potential customers. On their end, they did a lot of the SEO work involved in trying to get these different sources to help our main webpage rank higher on the Google search engine. We completely redesigned the website from the ground up. The major change was to the home page and the navigation bar. We made that information structured so it was more logical and there was less clutter. All the information was essentially laid out to ensure that it’s answering the main questions of a potential client of ours whether it’s the addicted individual themselves looking for help or if it’s their supporters like their parents or their extended family. The other major updates or initiatives were trying to get different testimonies and summary videos of what we did on our website. They structured the site for simplicity and easiness on the eyes which was one of the priorities.

In terms of SEO, we had to come up with new keywords and test which ones worked. They were very helpful in that regard. We had some ideas of common keywords in our industry just from our own understanding but we were really able to like dive pretty deeply into what keywords we should focus on.

They also helped with the content on our site. It was highly collaborative. We had a good amount of content that we developed on our end, but it was very much a collaborative relationship in developing the content and making sure it was focused and tailored to our audience.

How did you come to work with Authority Solutions?

We found Authority Solutions through a really high recommendation from a friend of ours who’s a serial entrepreneur. He’s a good friend of the founder of Authority Solutions and has used many different SEO firms. He’s a successful guy with lots of successful businesses and he said they were the best so we took his recommendation and went from there. Before that, we were working with a different SEO firm, but we wanted to change because the results weren’t really showing. We’d actually tried to revamp the website a few different times and we made some progress each time, but this last time with Authority Solutions was the most comprehensive redo of the website we’ve ever done. We knew it would really help our SEO if we reframed everything.

How much have you invested with Authority Solutions?

We spent more than $40,000 on the project.

What is the status of this engagement?

We started working with them in April 2016, and the work is ongoing.

RESULTS & FEEDBACK

Could you share any evidence that would demonstrate the productivity, quality of work, or the impact of the engagement?

The main differences I’ve noticed are an increase in people actually calling. Our phone lines have got busier. I think that’s directly related to the fact that we are ranking number one for a lot of the main keywords in our industry. Before we were ranking number five to number 15 on a lot of those keywords. In our industry a lot of people find Ibogaine treatment through doing a Google search and so it’s critical to rank high on Google. We saw in increase in people visiting our website and an increase in people making the calls because of our website. A lot of people have commented that the information on our website has been valuable to them and I’ve noticed the time spent on our website has also increased. I think that’s a direct correlation with the amount of content and the structure with which that content is organized.

How did Authority Solutions perform from a project management standpoint?

I think they’ve done well. My main contact there on the day to day project detail side is Jose [Ponce Jr, SEO Expert] and he’s very responsive. There have been a few times where we’ve needed some quick help from him even after hours. A few weeks ago, I was switching around the numbers for our new telephony system and the numbers went down on Friday at 6 p.m. I was able to get in contact with Jose with that urgent issue and we were able to fix it. They’ve been very responsive and professional. Mitch [From, SEO Expert] is another contact I have and he’s awesome as well at strategizing and figuring out the big picture of the direction we want to go in and how to make strategic decisions. I’ve been pretty happy with how they manage their projects. We communicate mostly through email and phone meetings.

What did you find most impressive about Authority Solutions?

Their results are impressive. A lot of SEO firms talk a big talk, but the results don’t really pan out. With Authority Solutions, the results speak for themselves. SEO, from my understanding, can takes 9-12 months, to see the results pan out, so you are putting a lot of faith in your SEO firm. The thing that really stands out to me is the level of expertise they have and how on top of it they are when it comes to understanding how Google is changing their algorithms and all of the industry changes. Every time I have a call with them, they’re sharing some of the new updates and it’s kind of interesting to hear how the SEO scene is changing. Google and these other large companies like Bing are super intelligent and so what worked a year ago might not really work anymore. I think they’re experts at what they do.

Are there any areas Authority Solutions could improve?

I can’t think of anything.