In June 2021, Alliance Transport Technologies (ATT) approached us to help boost their e-commerce sales and remanufacturing lead generation. At that time, ATT was generating around £7 million in revenue, working with truck and bus operators both nationally and internationally. Having already captured 5% of the marketplace, ATT set an ambitious goal of reaching £10 million in revenue over the next 12 months.
Our focus was on ATT’s remanufacturing division, aiming to increase annual revenue from £1.2 million to £1.8 million within a year. However, we knew that achieving such a substantial increase with SEO alone within that timeframe was unrealistic since SEO typically takes 9 to 12 months to show a significant impact.
You might wonder why ATT didn’t choose the paid advertising route. They did, but that’s a story for another day.
ATT committed to keyword research and an SEO sitemap (£2500+VAT) along with a 12-month digital marketing campaign (£1500+VAT per month), totalling an investment of £20,500+VAT. Naturally, ATT demanded a solid return on investment.
MissionIncrease annual revenue from £1.2 million to £1.8 million within 12 months.
After clinching the deal, we began with a comprehensive digital marketing questionnaire covering unique selling propositions (USPs), target audiences, competitors, and goal setting. We then conducted extensive keyword research, compiling a detailed spreadsheet of keywords, search volumes, competitiveness, relevance, and commercial intent.
From this research, we recommended target terms and created an SEO sitemap. Each landing page was assigned one or two keywords and optimised with SEO-friendly page titles, URLs, header titles, and supporting meta descriptions.
We presented our findings to the client, made necessary iterations, and applied the updated sitemap to the website. Finally, we informed search engines about the changes.
Four months later, we reviewed the SEO performance, reporting incremental gains and improvements. Concurrently, we launched digital marketing efforts, including technical SEO, on-page SEO, e-newsletters, and social media campaigns.
By the 10-month mark, significant improvements were evident. E-commerce sales and part repair bookings were on the rise, signalling a promising year ahead. By August 2022, the top ten rankings had improved to the top five, with trends indicating a move towards the top three rankings.
E-commerce sales and part repair bookings were on the rise, indicating a promising year ahead. In terms of SEO performance, significant improvements were evident. From June 2021 to August 2022, ATT achieved 55 new first-position keyword rankings, which is truly a remarkable achievement. For tracked keywords, overall visibility increased by 16.64%, and the average keyword position improved by 37.24 positions.
In total, 240 keywords improved in ranking, with 84 new top 3 features and 131 new features on Google’s first page. Furthermore, ATT achieved the best visibility for the keywords we are monitoring compared to their two closest competitors, which is a significant achievement.
Despite these gains, ATT initially struggled to track the source of their new business. Although we observed increased rankings, traffic, and calls to action (form submissions, email clicks, phone clicks, and web chats), ATT was hesitant to attribute new business to non-branded Google searches.
By the end of 2022, our co-owner Jon Ellard, acting as an interim Sales and Marketing Director, worked with two data analysts to contact all 300 new clients and determine how they found ATT. Nearly 200 responded, with 80% confirming they came from non-branded Google searches. This validation led ATT’s board to take SEO seriously, prompting an investment in a Google Ads campaign for their new parts division.
In the first quarter of 2023, 120 new customers from non-branded Google searches spent an average of £30000 per month on remanufacturing. Existing businesses also increased their spending due to a cross-selling campaign. If this trend continued, new clients would have generated £360000 in turnover from first repair orders alone. With good customer service, their lifetime value could have reached millions.
However, in May 2023, the business went into administration, owing us £10k. While the remanufacturing division was profitable, other areas like Hybrid and Workshop were struggling.
In July 2023, Urban Element teamed up with fleet livery experts Adept Graphics to purchase the https://alliancett.co.uk/ domain and website from the administrators. We formed a new company, Remanufactured Parts Ltd, employing some of the redundant team, including James Cox as Operations Director and Jon Lowe as Senior Engineer.
We quickly took control of the website to prevent SEO fallout. On October 1st, 2023, after getting incorporated, insured, and VAT registered, we reactivated emails and new inquiries started pouring in. Eight months in, the new company averages 15 repairs per week and turned over £23k in May 2024. With increasing run rates and repeat orders, we expect to average £40k per month from online inquiries by the end of 2023.