How Pink Bins achieved 81% organic growth, over 100,000% ROI, and generates millions in lifetime value every month
Pink Bins is an environmental impact business based in South Auckland, New Zealand.
They work in waste management and recycling, which means they're helping look after the planet. On average Pink Bins diverts 30% of the waste they collect away from landfills, roughly 500 tonnes every month.
Pink Bins came to us because they were struggling with their Google presence. They weren't happy with their previous corporate providers and wanted a partner who was more engaging and could actually create better results.
Have a watch of the video above to hear it straight from Craig.
"Ben is really great to deal with, we highly recommend! After shuffling through a number of corporate SEO providers over the years, we've found dealing with Team Empathy a much better experience, and the value they create for us is much better than before!" - Craig Stuart, Pink Bins
The background
When we started working with Pink Bins in June 2020, they'd just come off a corporate provider who didn't understand them or their objectives and wasn't getting great results on their SEO. They wanted a team that genuinely cared about them and could deliver.
Enter Team Empathy. Over a year we created some epic results for them. The most impressive came in the first 6 months, where we drove a 411% increase in search traffic, a total of 17,926 users.
Overall since coming on board, we've increased organic traffic by 81%, which means Pink Bins now averages 4,700 sessions per month. They're absolutely humming and Craig is loving it. Have a look at the video above for more on our strategies, plus some behind the scenes of how we made it happen.
It also means a real environmental win. We're helping divert and recycle a lot more than before, so we're pretty stoked about that too.
The results
October 2021 alone saw LTV generation of $2,500,000
Lifetime value is the dollar amount someone pays for a product or service multiplied by how many times they buy over their life as a customer.
Pink Bins has a trade customer with a lifetime value of $500,000, built on a 20-year relationship with builders, renovators and the like. That's mindblowing for us, because it means every new client we help deliver through SEO is worth around $500,000.
In October 2021 alone, Pink Bins brought on 4 to 5 new trade clients, which means we helped create an additional $2,000,000 to $2,500,000 worth of lifetime value.
Set against the cost of our care package, the ROI here is honestly too high to put a straight face on, somewhere around 133,000%. Yep, you read that right.
Organic traffic improvement of 81%
Pink Bins' organic website traffic (clicks from Google that aren't ads) grew from an average of 2,600 per month in June 2020 to 4,700 per month in October 2021. That jump is huge when you're already counting in the thousands, and it actually pushed Pink Bins to put a hold on their services for a while. They simply couldn't keep up with the spike in demand.
Traffic value - how Pink Bins makes money on their ads
Traffic value is how much Pink Bins would have to spend on Google Ads if they weren't already ranking organically for the keywords we rank them for.
So we're delivering them $4,267 worth of savings every month, which essentially voids our cost.
In October 2021 alone, Pink Bins brought on 4 to 5 new trade clients worth up to $2,500,000 in LTV. As you can see in the screenshot below, this value sat at around $2,600 in June 2020 when we first started, and we've lifted it to $4,267 by October 2021.
Keyword rankings
Keyword rankings are the number of search terms a business shows up for on Google. The aim of the game is to rank for as many keywords as possible in the top 10 (the first page). The stretch goal is landing in positions 1 to 3 for your main keywords, because 75% of all clicks happen on the first 3 organic results.
Since we started working with Pink Bins, their keyword rankings have grown significantly:
Keywords ranking in positions 4 to 10 improved from 103 to 107.
Keywords ranking in positions 1 to 3 improved from 76 to 111.
That's 39 new keywords now ranking on page 1 of Google, with 35 of those now sitting in the top position. Woop!
Have a peek below at the live SEO Google Sheet we use with Pink Bins. You can see all the green since we kicked off this process in August. It's important to understand every keyword you're ranking for (in total we're tracking 86 for Pink Bins). We focus our work on the priority keywords that drive the most traffic while keeping an eye on everything else.
The impact - what we've been able to create
Working with Pink Bins lets us play a part in the recycling effort and divert waste from landfills. On average, Pink Bins recycles 500 tonnes every month. That's waste that would otherwise head straight to landfill. They manage to divert 30% of all rubbish collected, a huge effort we're grateful to be part of.
By lifting Pink Bins' search presence by 81% and keeping them fully booked out, we're maximising our combined environmental impact.
The strategy - our secret to unlocking SEO growth
You might be looking at these results and thinking, "Heck, this is impressive and honestly hard to believe. How do you create results like this?"
When it comes to ranking on Google, there are really just 3 key growth levers. Activate them and you unlock explosive organic growth, driving hundreds or thousands more people to your website, lifting your conversions and scaling all the impact you're creating.
Below, I'll reveal exactly what those 3 key growth levers are.
These aren't crazy secrets or big complicated technical things we've invented to guarantee results.
They're simple tactics that, when you actually do them well, always create amazing results.
Here they are, your 3 key growth levers to unlocking explosive organic growth:
Key growth lever #1 - Google Business Profile optimisation.
Key growth lever #2 - website optimisation.
Key growth lever #3 - content and backlink plan and implementation.
Looks simple, right? It should. Let me explain why they're so impactful.
Google Business Profile optimisation
Google Business Profile (GBP) is your ticket to dominating local search. In the SEO world we call this local SEO, which basically means ranking really well for your city or area.
GBP matters because it's Google's own business listing platform. You can list yourself on hundreds of directories, but if you haven't listed with Google, you don't exist. You won't show up on the map and you can't generate reviews.
There are two ways this gets you explosive, high-intent organic traffic to your website: rank in the top 3 of the map pack, and have the most high-quality reviews.
You can see how Pink Bins ranks #1 on the map pack while also holding the most reviews. Who would you choose for your skip bin hire? Simple, right?
Website optimisation
Optimising a website means Google understands who you help, why you help them, how you help them and what you do. So how does Google know all this?
Google uses a bot and an algorithm (a clever automated program) to crawl your website and literally read everything on it.
Without going too deep, you need every piece of text, every header and every technical piece of SEO sorted, alongside great website speed and engagement metrics (Google calls these Core Web Vitals) on both mobile and desktop.
Watch the video above and I'll explain how we do all of this for Pink Bins. I know it can get confusing, this is the most technical part of it all.
This process can take months, and sometimes it's never done properly. You need an expert to assess every page of your website, work through the technical SEO, and hunt down any errors, speed issues and the like. There are decent tools out there to help, and we use a mix of online tools and SEO expertise to prepare an audit, then build a live Google Sheet we do all the optimising work from (video above for a look inside).
Content and backlink plan and implementation
To create consistent results, you need to show up consistently. Truth.
The first two levers are about optimisation. This last one is about strategy and continuous execution.
Ranking at the top of Google is about building trust over time, and building more of it (and adding more value) than your competitors. You do that by adding consistent backlinks (how many you need each month depends on the competition, but consistency is the key) and by regularly releasing content that's genuinely helpful, answers people's questions and solves their problems.
For Pink Bins, we add around 45 diverse, high-quality backlinks per month from a range of sources. We also publish blogs regularly, guided by our content topic cluster planning document.
The Team Empathy difference - why we're loved
We go above and beyond the industry standard. Every month you get a video report, strategic marketing advice from the team, and full transparency on our process, including access to your live doc where you can see all the work (backlinks included).
We genuinely care, and we operate from a place of core values, which is why we engage so much. Your mission is our mission. You can rest easy knowing we love you and your brand, and that we'll take care of you.
We run on a monthly subscription model rather than the standard 6 or 12-month locked-in contract. We'd rather earn the relationship by creating amazing results.
Want results like these for your business?
Want to see if results like these are possible for you too? Jump on a free Connect Call with one of our team and we'll show you where your online presence has room to grow, and exactly how we'd unlock it for your business.
Visit Pink Bins to see them in action.
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