Office cleaners use SEO tools to stop being swept under the carpet

A weak online marketing strategy was holding back Jan-Pro-Canada Inc., a Scarborough, Ont.-based office cleaning firm from realizing its full potential. But the timely deployment of a suite of search engine optimization (SEO) tools by gShift Labs Inc., helped automate their Web tracking process and swept their brand to the top of the first page of organic search results.

Jean Roberge, master franchise owner for Jan-Pro, said that he had consulted various SEO experts but never got a clear answer on how the company could use the technology effectively to lift its search rankings.

“We had spoken to SEO experts and they were never able to conclusively describe what an organic SEO would look like for our business and what we would do monthly,” said Roberge.

“We knew that with industry statistics suggesting 75 per cent of searchers on Google click on organic results versus Adwords, we needed an aggressive SEO strategy,” he said.

With gShift’s Wordstream keyword research, Marketing CoPilot was able to work with Jan-Pro to create an initial keyword list and validate it.

When Jan-Pro approached Marketing CoPilot Inc., the Toronto-based online marketing programs company, and identified three key issues that the cleaning company was struggling with:

1. Jan-Pro had heavily invested in a pay-per-click program that did not produce any leads
2. The company was in the 100+ position of search engine results so potential clients could find their business online
3. When traffic did land on the Jan-Pro site, surfers found the page unappealing and confusing

Marie Wiese, president of MarketingCoPilot, said Jan-Pro’s challenges are shared by many of her company’s customers. “All my clients agree that first page organic search rankings improve business results.”

In order to thrive in today’s market, Wiese said, companies need a marketing strategy that encompasses the online and social media environments that their prospective clients occupy. The problem is, tying the management, tracking and analytic tools needed for this is often cumbersome for many businesses, she said.

“Clients don’t want to spend a fortune on professional services in order to manually tie together Web analytics, social media tools and content management, “said Wiese.

Jan-Pro received 39 quotes online with a 75% close rate in the first 30 days of the new campaign.

To help Jan-Pro solve its problems, Marketing CoPilot helped redesign its Web site and deployed gShift’s Web Presence Optimizer, a system of software tool that helped automate most of the previously manual process associated with SEO management and Web analytics.

Here’s a breakdown of how Marketing CoPilot helped Jan-Pro:

Marketing CoPilot worked with Jan-Pro to craft the brand’s value proposition and message :

• Using gShift’s Keyword Work Book and software, the marketing firm built a keyword strategy into the navigation of Jan-Pro’s site

• After loading Google Analytics into gShift from the original site and setting up a list of competitor sites in gShift, Marketing CoPilot was able to determine what words were driving organic search traffic, where visitors were dropping out and what would need to be changed to convert traffic

Within 14 days of the launch of the new Web site, Jan-Pro ranked in the top five results on Google for the search term “office cleaning services.”

Within 14 days of launch, Jan-Pro’s new Web site was being consistently ranked in the top 5 results on Google for the search term “office cleaning services.”

The company also received 38 quotes online in the first 30 days with a 75 per cent close rate.

“There are a lot of SEO tools out there, many are even free,” said Krista LaRiviere, CEO and co-founder of gShift, “the problem is the tools are disjointed.”

Many businesses, she said, often end cobbling together software tools from various developers and paying big bucks for a consultant to help them track and monitor the data collected by the tools.

For example, she said traditional SEO management entailed analysis of the client’s web site and those of its competitors; putting forward recommendations based on the analysis; and implementation of those recommendations.

LaRiviere said gShif’s Web Presence Optimizer comes with a system of tools that incorporate this analysis work, monitoring of organic rankings and projection of return in investments (ROI).

“This is all presented with controls and a dashboard that is easy to read and manage for non-technical personnel so that users themselves can carryout the tasks,” she said.

LaRiviere also pointed out that while traditional SEO methods typically come up with reports on a monthly cycle, gShift is able to provide feedback on a daily basis.

The gShift software is available for $299/month/domain. The package enables the tracking of up to 50 keywords and 10 competitors. It can be deployed across social media presences of the user.

The gShift software has been in beta stage since May 2010, but since that time the company has had over 100 paying-beta users. A recent infusion of $1.1 million in funding from GrowthWorks, a Canadian venture capital firm will help gShift get its product out of beta and into the market, said LaRiviere

Nestor Arellano is a Senior Writer at ITBusiness.ca. Follow him on Twitter, read his blog, and join the IT Business Facebook Page.