Not only do I rely on Del at Web Marketing Services for my web design and internet marketing needs, but I have recommended him to more of my friends and clients than any other service that I use. He has taken the time to understand the unique needs of our industry and through our collaboration we have come up with solutions that help our business succeed every day. I give Web Marketing Services my highest recommendation.

Located in the heart of Ozark Mountain country, Highway 160 Auto Recycling has been providing top quality recycled auto parts since 1984. They offer daily business delivery to the Springfield, MO area. Business customers in Kansas City, MO and St. Louis are serviced through a bi-weekly roadrunner delivery service.

To meet customer demand they constantly need to replenish their inventory. The main source of these vehicles is from the insurance industry. This allows them to offer better quality parts that still have lots of life left in them. To stay in business as long as they have you have to earn the trust of your customers. In their case, this includes repeat business customers like auto body & mechanic shops that rely on good parts to keep their own customers happy.

Located in Nixa, MO, one challenge160 faced is how to compete and rank high in the search engines for searches related to the much larger neighboring city of Springfield. To rank high in a city where you don't have a physical presence can be difficult. An SEO strategy was needed to let Google know of their relevance to Springfield related search queries so that they could start pulling in more free organic traffic and not be confined to reaching only Nixa residents.

160 offers daily business delivery to Springfield, MO which happened to be one of the keys to helping them rank high for Springfield related searches. You see Google just wants to offer a good experience and relevant results. As a web developer and SEO expert it's my job to build sites that make Google happy. When Google is happy they send my clients more traffic which makes them happy. When my clients are happy, I'm happy. Some think you need to trick or manipulate Google but that's not the case. Good rankings come from a solid understanding of how to build a good and relevant experience for end users. In this case, part of our strategy was to build a page focused on the delivery service 160 offers. This signaled to Google the strong connection between their business and Springfield customers. In time Google began to reward this effort. Today, organic search is consistently their top source of site traffic even in months where they spend big bucks on paid search ads. According to analytics provided by Google, much of this traffic comes from searches related to Springfield, MO. Although we haven't been able to break in to the map pack, for the regular search listings Google often ranks them in the 1st, 2nd or 3rd spot for queries related to Springfield. This is a considerable achievement considering they are not located in Springfield.

The graphic shows the estimated traffic for the query "salvage yards in springfield mo" as reported by ubersuggest.com. The #2 slot is a considerable achievement considering the fact that 160 is located in the neighboring city of Nixa and not in Springfield.

They say that good is the enemy of great. Over time I realized that the initial search engine ranking success we'd achieved was only a start. There was more traffic to be had if we targeted more than just generic searches like “used auto parts Springfield”. After discussing the matter with Jason we came up with 3 top selling parts we could target. Although 160 often ranked high for generic searches, they were missing out on the additional traffic they could receive by creating optimized pages that focused on specific parts. Our research showed that people were searching for parts like engines, transmissions and wheels but we were missing out on this potential traffic. We knew how to make Google happy, we just needed to do the work and Google would send us the traffic. Over time that is what happened. Google began ranking them #1 and #2 in the regular search listings for queries we had previously overlooked which resulted in additional free organic traffic.

Some might think that if you rank well in organic search there is no need to conduct PPC (pay per click) advertising campaigns but that's not necessarily the case. Google often places paid ads above organic search listings. Over time, paid ads have become harder to distinguish from the organic results. Businesses like 160 that do well in organic search can end up losing traffic to competitors who pay for top slots on the search results page. Also, even if you rank high in one area it can be hard to rank high across the board. For these reasons, PPC advertising still offers great value even if your site already ranks high in the search engines. The great thing about PPC advertising is the ability to closely track results. Using conversion tracking we are able to see when a paid ad leads to a desired action such as a call, a click to a parts search or the submission of a lead form. A value is assigned to each action which gives us a good idea just how much revenue each ad campaign is producing. When you go through the checkout aisle at the grocery store you often see many flavors of M&Ms. These many options increase the odds that you'll select one of their products from the available options. In the same way 160's combination of paid and organic listings take up more “shelf space” increasing the clicks they receive.

The testimonial from Jason above gives you a feel for the long standing partnership Web Marketing Services has had with 160 Auto Recycling since 2009. It's a joy to collaborate with a client and see them succeed online. Each client is different and you have to listen closely so you can get to know their industry. The more I know the better I'm able to help my clients. I look forward to serving 160 for many more years to come.