Client: Home Warranty Association (HWA) is the national leader in the home warranty industry, providing high-value protection against increasing home and appliance repair costs. With an expansive national network of service technicians and home warranty experts, HWA offers a variety of plans and coverage options that help homeowners cover repairs and replacements for appliances and systems that fail due to normal wear and tear.

Problems- HWA engaged Curix InfoTech to build and manage a comprehensive SEO program aimed at growing organic search traffic and increasing lead generation in key geographies across the U.S. The goal was to target homeowners in major markets who were interested in protection against the increasing cost of home and appliance repairs.

After examining the backlink profiles of HWA and its competitors, Curix InfoTech discovered strong evidence that competitors were purchasing links to improve their rankings for important terms, including a home warranty key term for HWA and the industry as a whole. Google frowns upon this practice and websites can face serious consequences, such as being completely removed from Google search results, yet HWA wanted a way to increase their ranking for this key term.

The Solution: As a white hat SEO firm, Curix InfoTech focused on organic link building and optimization that didn’t involve buying backlinks. As a localized term, “home warranty” is highly competitive on a national, state and local level with a variety of players vying for the top spot in each market. Although this diverse competitive landscape was a challenge, it enabled Curix InfoTech to be creative in developing a multi-pronged strategy to drive more organic search traffic.

To meet HWA’s goals and reach its target audiences, Curix InfoTech created and executed a comprehensive content development strategy centered on targeted search terms in HWA’s major markets, including Houston, Phoenix, and San Diego.

By incorporating a mix of geo- and service-based content, the strategy allowed Curix InfoTech to theme the site based on geographic location while reaching a wider audience with appliance-specific and service-specific terms like heater warranty, air conditioner warranty and new homeowner warranty. Curix InfoTech conducted extensive keyword research to identify the most effective search terms in each market to use throughout HWA’s site and in any new content. Content and SEO experts at Curix InfoTech created an average of 10 new pages of content every month for HWA, which achieved several key goals in the program:

• Demonstrated HWA’s strong understanding of specific markets, conditions, and unique audience needs
• Provided valuable information to target audiences and help them make informed buying decisions
• Offered search engines, including Google, tailored content for specific geographies
• Increased HWA’s search engine rankings in target markets

Additionally, Curix InfoTech worked closely with HWA to identify and engage trusted local partners, including real estate agents and other potential partners. To strengthen HWA’s existing relationships and incorporate a digital component, Curix InfoTech helped local real estate agents optimize their websites to build awareness for home warranty services and drive interested visitors to the HWA site.

Results: HWA’s comprehensive SEO program was an unqualified success. In less than one year, Curix InfoTech elevated HWA’s average search ranking for home warranty from number 7.8 to number 1 in all of its target markets.

The dramatic improvement in search rankings drives considerable website traffic to HWA’s site. Highly engaged organic search traffic grew 95 in the first year of the program, with leads from organic search increasing 53 percent during the same timeframe. Conversions also rose significantly as a result of the integrated SEO and content strategy. The SEO pages developed during the project convert at a much higher rate than other site pages (5 percent vs. 3 percent).

Overall, the program surpassed HWA’s expectations and had a material impact on revenues and profits, allowing HWA to consider further expansion based on the knowledge that it can replicate the program successfully in new markets. Additionally, the white hat approach to SEO paid off and insulated HWA from penalties and Google algorithm updates. With a clean backlink profile, HWA has consistently improved its search performance since the engagement started.